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Light Bulb Replacements
LoveOO writes Boston.com has a story about three companies which are trying to replace the Light bulb. I say it's about time and what about hydrogen powered vehicles? Two things that annoy me are filling the gas tank and changing light bulbs. It's time we did alot less of both."
Two things that annoy me are filling the gas tank and changing light bulbs
/. articles complaining about people worrying about optimizing the wrong sort of time wasting activities. Oh wait...
OK. So how much time are you spending changing light bulbs per year? And was the total time spent submitting this news story longer?
To be honest I don't think that changing light bulbs is a major household time sink. (Different story of course for people who deal with traffic lights, and hence the move to LEDs). I must spend minutes per year changing light bulbs, I waste far more time replying to
John.
I don't know about you, but im realizing the same benefits as they claim you get from LEDs, but my bulbs cost a whopping $2 for a lamp bulb and $3 for a fixture bulb. Flourescent! Cheap, no heat, hard(er) to break. Think about it.
Jeff
Additionally, you can't go wrong with nuclear power if you're looking at least polluting power sources. Many people look at solar as if its some sort of panacea, but the amount of energy that goes into making a tile is far more than you'll ever get out of it -- turns out that at the end of the day the thing everybody's been complaining about is the best option because all the pollution is contained.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
The thing is, no matter how cheap they make LED lightbulbs, I doubt they'll ever get as cheap as the incandescent bulb, as the incandescent bulb is just plain out cheaper to make as it is much more simple. Therefore, the Wal-mart crowds will still buy the standard bulbs for years to come.
What they should do if they want people to adopt these new bulbs is make it so all lightbulb packages have to display the average cost of the lightbulb over its lifetime. People may see that the LED or flourescent lights sitting on the shelf right now cost a lot more and don't buy them, but I bet they will when they see on the box that the bulb over it's lifetime costs a fraction as much in electricity used.
Unclear to me how this constitutes patent abuse. If someone is investing major resources in R&D and coming up with nonobvious inventions, it seems entirely proper for that person to seek patent protection.
Ahh, good point, but you ahve to admit that it DOES HELP to move the combustion phase farther up the chain - because a power company can use oil or coal much more efficiently than your car can. A gas-fired power plant that produces hydrogen will probably be 5 or so times more efficient than your car is at extracting energy from fuel.
but... he's saying that you have to burn stuff that produces carbon monoxide... to produce the hydrogen.
So. Yeah. Producing (and therefore consuming) hydrogen adds to the net level of CO.
I keep seeing people say this, but it just isn't true. The reason stuff from the 50's seems to be well-built and last forever is because the crap is already broken and gone. All that's left is the good stuff. In another 53 years, nobody will remember the $40 VCRs that died in two years. But there will be people hanging onto commercial video-editing decks that really were built to last. And everyone will run around saying things like "i wish they built things as well as they did back in 2003!"