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GE Announces Advancement in Incandescent Technology
finfife writes to tell us that GE has announced an advancement in incandescent technology that promises to increase the efficiency of lightbulbs to put them on par with compact fluorescent lamps (CFL). "The new high efficiency incandescent (HEI(TM)) lamp, which incorporates innovative new materials being developed in partnership by GE's Lighting division, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, and GE's Global Research Center, headquartered in Niskayuna, NY, would replace traditional 40- to 100-Watt household incandescent light bulbs, the most popular lamp type used by consumers today. The new technology could be expanded to all other incandescent types as well. The target for these bulbs at initial production is to be nearly twice as efficient, at 30 lumens-per-Watt, as current incandescent bulbs. Ultimately the high efficiency lamp (HEI) technology is expected to be about four times as efficient as current incandescent bulbs and comparable to CFL bulbs. Adoption of new technology could lead to greenhouse gas emission reductions of up to 40 million tons of CO2 in the U.S. and up to 50 million tons in the EU if the entire installed base of traditional incandescent bulbs was replaced with HEI lamps."The California legislature may want to revisit the wording of their proposed ban on incandescents (AB 722). How about mandating a level of efficiency rather than assuming that innovation can't happen?"
Here's why. These are INCANDESCENTs. Glowing filliments. You can try to reduce the radiation in the UV and IR, but you aren't going to get rid of it. Running hotter (the Halogen way) ups the UV content which gets filtered out or flouresced down (and if you have a flourescent coating, why not just have a compact flourescent).
.14 kwh power cost), so that at the register you actually see what the bulb will cost.
This is mostly a Political Marketing statement, trying to forestall bans or taxes on incandescent bulbs, as although incandescents costs more in the long run, they are cheaper when you pay at the register so people still buy a lot of them.
Personally, I'd not want a BAN on incandescents, just a "wattage tax" on lightbulbs, say $4/100W tax on bulbs regardless of the mechanism (LED, CFL, incandescent). Just something equivelent to 1 hour a day use for 1 year (assuming
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Write back when LEDs replacement bulbs don't cost $50+ for the equivalent of a 40W incandescent buld, and when they're dimmable like modern CFLs using standard household dimmer switches.
W. has given a series of tax breaks to Coal and Oil and has our troops guarding major pipelines where the oil companies are having issues (Iraq comes to mind). In addition, he has dropped a number of needed environmental protections and possible fines. IOW, he has artificially lowered the costs of Oil and Coal. He is pouring money into hydrogen research, while trying to cut all other avenues.
OTH, there has been damn little incentives for nukes or Alternatives. Now you have states offering incentives for highly unprofitable solar or even ethanol production (which is still unprofitable)and saying that they will ban products. What is needed is for gov. to drop all the incentives and the playing games with picking techs. If they want to encourage us to move away from imports and dirty items, then simply increase the tax on a good in such a way that it encourages alternatives. In particular, rather than banning incandescents, a simple tax based on energy usage would have a much higher impact on creating alternatives. In fact, if they go the route of taxing the energy, then they should tax the pollutants such as the mercury. But this approach of gov. encouraging a particular tech is fool hardy and will lead us down the same road. Basically, it will put the west on a single type of tech which will give us the same damn problem.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I live in a tiny flat, I've got compact florescent bulbs everywhere I can except the bathroom and the electricity cupboard. It would actually be inefficient for me to have a CFL in the cupboard, because it's on for about 5 minutes over the course of a week. I haven't replaced the one in the bathroom because the glass shade is full of icky dead bugs.
CFLs are efficient if you leave them on for an hour a time, in other situations (like my seldom used cupboard) it is more efficient to have an incandescent bulb because you don't have to 'kick start' the tube with a load of electricity.
I am pretty sure that what lawmakers intent (which I agree with) is banning incandescent light bulbs wherever possible. I bet they will not attempt to shutt down B&H because they supply professional photographers with incandescent flash lights... Gerald
It's amazing what can motivate you when the world's largest retailer doesn't want to carry your product anymore.
Would GE have even bothered had it not been for the flourecents breathing down their neck?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
> How about mandating a level of efficiency rather than assuming that innovation can't happen?"
... it's also to uncouple the gasoline from the drive train so that the car becomes agnostic about its energy source and the gasoline part can be replaced more easily with a fuel cell or battery or whatever other technology. The hybrid has room to grow and improve whereas a non-hybrid car getting great mileage is still stuck on gasoline. It's just a band-aid to cling to an old technology like gasoline or incandescent bulbs.
The reason people assume innovation can't happen is that it hasn't happened in incandescent light bulbs.
Anyway, twice as efficient is bullshit. Incandescent light bulbs are so outrageously inefficient that you are still wrecking the planet even with these new vaporware bulbs.
Banning incandescent bulbs will only spur innovation in LED and other modern solutions. Complaints about the quality of light are very valid, but when you have an LED bulb that is generating the same brightness as an incandescent and the LED is using 1% of the power and has 1000x the lifespan then it is time to get the incandescent bulbs out. You can replace an incandescent with an LED and still have power left over for a notebook computer with dual processors.
These new incandescent bulbs make me think of a non-hybrid gasoline car that ekes out 50 mpg so "you don't need a hybrid" but the point of the hybrid is not just to double the gas mileage today
"(3) A general service incandescent lamp does not include an appliance lamp, black light lamp, bug lamp, colored lamp, enhanced spectrum lamp, infrared lamp, left-hand tread lamp, marine lamp, marine signal service lamp, mine service lamp, plant light, reflector lamp, rough service lamp, shatter resistant lamp, sign service lamp, silver bowl lamp, showcase lamp, three-way lamp, traffic signal lamp, or vibration service or vibration resistant lamp."
It would be difficult putting a compact fluorescent in an oven and have it work normally after using the oven.
What gets on MY chimes is the fact that the politicians are considering laws banning incandescents and moving towards CFBs... and, suddenly, GE announces a "new" technology that will let incandescents be just as efficient.
I mean, I'm not putting on my tinfoil hat just yet, but the timing here seems to be more than coincidental. Just how long has GE been "researching" this technology?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Even if they *weren't* researching this for the past 100 years, it sure shows how stagnant a business can be until competition spurs it on.
"I mean, I'm not putting on my tinfoil hat just yet, but the timing here seems to be more than coincidental. Just how long has GE been "researching" this technology?"
Since no one cared about the efficiency of incandescent lights until about 10 years ago, I'd guess less than ten years. Given corporate inertia, probably about five.
They never found a solution to the problem before because it wasn't seen as a problem before. Note that they have had "long life" bulbs for a long time, they are rated at 130 to 140 V, and yes they are redder, but they last a long time in hard to get to fixtures.
This same idea came up in the recent Supreme Court patent arguments. One Justice pointed out that moving the garage door sensor from the ground to the top of the door would be "obvious" to the first person whose door was falsely tripped by raccoons, and not really be worthy of a patent. One seldom has a reason to solve a problem until after it occurs at least once.
CFLs don't take a big kick-start of power, but when they are first turned on cold, they don't put out much light. They have to get warm in order to reach rated output. So if it's only going to be used for a short time, the CFL would need to be rated much higher than the equivalent incandescent. It would still save a little juice, but not what it seems.
For instance, I have a bathroom fixture with four "globe" bulbs. The last time one failed, I replaced it with a same-shape CFL. When I turn it on cold, that bulb looks nearly dead. But after it has been on for a while, like the length of a shower, it's the brightest one.
Most CFLs don't work with dimmers at all; dimmable CFLs exist but are rare and tend to have serious limits. They're also bigger than incandescents and don't fit all fixtures. So a high efficiency incandescent would be quite useful.
If the lifetime is comparable... then I suspect that's the answer. A high-efficiency bulb that lasts 4-5 times longer means fewer bulbs need to be purchased. Why cannibalise your own product line unless you have to?
Also note that they failed to give a timeline for reaching equivalent efficiency. As mentioned above, it sounds like they're promising that they'll get there... sometime. But in the meantime, let use continue to rake in the profits on the existing, power-hungry technology we've spent decades amortizing...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
traffic signal lamp
Why would you want to use an incandescent light in this? I think a lot of cities are switching to LED lamps here because they use much less power and last longer (so they don't need to send out expensive crews as often).
This is entirely natural in a truly competitive economy. It has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or corporate sloth. The principle is simple - milk every product for all its worth. As long as people are buying incandescent bulbs, there is no reason to introduce a new product. I'm sure that the GE labs are busy inventing lots of neat new stuff, and they have been doing it for years and years. But why roll out a product that will compete with the real breadwinner? GE would have to tool up, start marketing a whole new concept, etc. This would not improve sales, unless people had a reason to stop using regular light bulbs.
A lot of companies practice the "ace-in-the-hole" method. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. When you sell millions and millions of units of something, coming up with a new, improved version will not necessarily improve sales. GE probably has the next five generations of lighting apparatus hiding away in some underground bunker laboratory; waiting patiently for the next dip in price to bring out the Next Great Improvement.
I think people learned from the New Coke disaster.
That's not conspiracy. That's legitimate tactics. Of course they have no interest in seeing incandescents banned, so they do what they should. Our righteous indignation may be stimulated by that, but they should still do it. Their duty isn't to preserve the world - that is ours - it is to give the shareholders what they paid for.