News Updates for the Week of August 1:

1. LG Innotek Walks-The-Walk with Huge LED Production Plant - Korean-based LG Innotek, a vertically-integrated manufacturer of LEDs for displays and lighting, claims it has built the single-largest LED production complex in the world in Paju, Korea. The manufacturing facility performs all aspects of LED production, from epitaxial wafer growth to LED module production. In related news, LED lighting has also been installed throughout LG Twin Towers, LG Electronics’ headquarters in Seoul. The lighting in the two towers is designed to save 1717 MWh of electricity annually. The LED production facility has a targeted production level of 1.8 billion LED units per month. The three-story production building features a combined floor space of 58,000 square meters. It features production lines for 6-inch epitaxial wafers, LED chips, and LED modules for LED backlighting units for LCD TVs as well as LEDs for lighting. http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/8/7/23

2. Most-Commonly Used T12 Fluorescent Lamps to Start Disappearing in Less Than One Year. "Don't Wait," National Lighting Bureau Advises - The most-commonly used four-foot, eight-foot, and two-foot (U-shaped) T12 fluorescent lamps will begin disappearing from distributors' and retailers' shelves in less than one year. The targeted lamps - long-time commercial-lighting staples - fail to meet efficiency standards that will go into effect on July 1, 2012, the National Lighting Bureau (NLB) reports. http://www.nlb.org/index.cfm?cdid=10823&pid=10213

3. City of Boston Gets Brighter and Greener with New Philips LED Street Lights - Residents of Boston will be seeing the city in a whole new, brighter light thanks to new LED street lighting from Philips. Improving the city's energy use and environmental footprint, more than 14,000 mercury-vapor street and roadway luminaires are being replaced in Boston neighborhoods by Philips Hadco's New RX1 and RX2. The LED's - which maximize energy savings and provide uniform, comfortable and aesthetically-pleasing white light - are expected to save the city approximately 8.9 million kilowatt hours of energy each year, yielding a savings of about $1.1 million annually in the cost of electricity. Philips Hadco worked with Hurry Associates on this project. http://www.hadco.com/

4. Tempe Vetoes LEDs, Chooses Induction Street Lights - US Lighting Tech announced that it will supply the city of Tempe, Arizona with 1000 induction street lights to replace high-pressure-sodium (HPS) and metal-halide (MH) sources after the city decided LEDs weren’t a good match for the temperature extremes of the desert southwest climate. http://www.ledsmagazine.com/news/8/7/19

5. Finding the End of the Tunnel for OLED Lighting - Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting has received much attention due to the potential of the technology for unique designs and cheap devices. However, the current state of OLED lighting – with high cost, modest efficacy, and poor lifetimes – is far from realizing that potential. OLED will continue to lag other lighting technologies on price, and therefore will only command a $58 million 2020 market share. New applications that take advantage of OLED’s unique properties – such as flexibility and transparency – while absorbing a high price are required for initial OLED growth, and OLED will remain a minor player in lighting until such applications are uncovered. https://portal.luxresearchinc.com/research/report_excerpt/8250

6. Economy Grew Only 1.3% in Spring After Nearly Stalling in Winter - The U.S. economy grew less than forecast in the second quarter, after almost coming to a halt at the start of the year, as consumers retrenched. Gross domestic product rose at a 1.3 percent annual rate following a 0.4 percent gain in the prior quarter that was less than previously estimated, Commerce Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a 1.8 percent increase. Household purchases, about 70 percent of the economy, climbed 0.1 percent. Slower job and income gains raise the risk that a pickup in purchases during the remainder of 2011 will fail to materialize. 7/27 MoneyNews.com