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?"

Comments

I don't believe it...

[nweaver]

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).

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 .14 kwh power cost), so that at the register you actually see what the bulb will cost.

Re:I don't believe it...

[ivan256]

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).

Plenty of reasons. Fluorescents aren't full spectrum; CFLs contain mercury; CFLs are expensive to manufacture; etc...

Re:I don't believe it...

[PPGMD]

I highly doubt that this is simply a marketing statement or that it was a technology that they were just sitting on waiting for proposed bans on their products. Likely they noticed that CFL were cutting into the sales of their regular bulbs and developed the technology so that they can compete.

Why does nearly everyone on /. assume that every company is out to deceive them? or that every press release (unless it's from Google or Apple) is a marketing lie? Sure every company is out to make money, but not every company is an Enron. CFLs are the perfect product, I use a ton of them, but there are certain applications where they are too costly to run because of less time on vs on/off cycles. I welcome this if they work as well as regular bulbs and last as long they will allow me to bring those rooms in line with the cost savings that my other rooms get with CFLs.

Re:I don't believe it...

[edwardpickman]

I agree on the overstating of efficency. Odds are the process has been known for years how to make the bulbs more efficent but chances are it would make them more expensive resulting in fewer sales so they never moved ahead with the technology. The hands down winner though are LED bulbs. They use little power and have insanely long lives and don't suffer from surge shock like filament bulbs and even flourecent. The problem is obviously cost. It'll drop but it's hard to say how much and how fast. They are already being used in hard to reach areas to avoid the labor expense of replacement.

I noticed several responders mentioning taxes and such. It's a mindset we have to be careful of. There's an attitude I noticed with a lot of SUV drivers that they'd prefer to pay a tax and keep driving the beasts. The problem is we need to get them off the road period not just tax them. There was an argument made in Who Killed the Electric Car? that we'll need more coal plants for all the electric cars. Well here's a little food for thought. If all the incandescents were changed to compact florescents not only could every home in amercia charge their electric cars without needing more plants and their electric bills would actually go down. Electric lights are still the biggest single use of electricity in this country.

Re:I don't believe it...

[ScentCone]

There's an attitude I noticed with a lot of SUV drivers that they'd prefer to pay a tax and keep driving the beasts. The problem is we need to get them off the road period not just tax them.

I own an SUV. I telecommute roughly 90% of the time, and can go days without even starting that vehicle. There are also times when I start the vehicle, and drive it to go do something that involves other people and payload. If I didn't have that vehicle, we'd need four small wind-up passenger cars to haul the passengers and payloads. There are no small, more-efficient vehicles that can go where I can go, and get the people there, too. What's more efficient? Four cars burning fuel, wearing down tires, occupying road space, and possibly getting dangerously stuck enroute to the destination... or, one vehicle that can carry at least half a dozen people and hundreds of pounds of payload on rough roads, through the mud or snow, and safely do so?

Why should my vehicle be "taken off the road," but some college kid that drives 100 miles in his hybrid in one weekend bouncing between parties while I drive nowhere, gets to use his? You're holding the tool accountable for what people do (when you don't like the people that use the tool), and not even touching on the wasteful habits of people that use a marginally more efficient tool that you like better.

Re:I don't believe it...

[cptgrudge]

Why does nearly everyone on /. assume that every company is out to deceive them? or that every press release (unless it's from Google or Apple) is a marketing lie?

I think it's because nearly everyone on Slashdot can be described by what I call the 3P Syndrome. Specifically:

Pissy. More often than not, Slashdot readers seem to be pissy. They are easily goaded into responding to trolls and participating in flamewars. They will stubbornly support an illogical and inane position simply for the shred of joy they coax from a heated argument. In short, they are easily irritated.

Pessimistic. Many Slashdot readers are pessimists. They look for the worst-case scenarios and will dismiss any possible silver lining of any act or concept.

Paranoid. Slashdot readers may also be naturally paranoid. This is perhaps the biggest reason for apparent distrust of others' motives. Serious paranoia makes it very difficult to trust others, and it is only exacerbated by the first two factors.

Even before mind altering drugs are considered, all Slashdot readers seem to contain these three qualities in varying amounts (some appear to be "normal"). But collectively, they sum up to a critical mass that gives Slashdot that unique community feel.

I haven't thought up a satisfactory answer for Google and Apple, though. Maybe Slashdot users identify with them on some level.

Re:I don't believe it...

[ScentCone]

Wah. It's not fair to bash 99% of SUV usage, because 1% of SUV drivers are people like me who actually save fuel by using one. Wah.

I don't care if you want to bash. Have fun. What I do care about, and what I responded to, was the idiot who thought the best idea was to "take the off the road."

I think you've probably not even come close to using all of the available CPU cycles on your computer while you were busy being snide, so it's probably better for the environment if you use a much slower, lower-powered machine. Perhaps one of those wind-up, one-laptop-per-childish-user ones they've been talking about? Or... DO you use your computer entirely to its capacity? Doesn't matter. Even if you do, you're only in the minority, and since the majority of people with fancy computers don't really need them, we should probably not allow anyone to have them, right? Give it a rest.

After 100 Years The Innovation Hasn't Happened

[gig]

> How about mandating a level of efficiency rather than assuming that innovation can't happen?"

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 ... 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.

Re:There are times

[valathax]

In understand that this is slashdot, and therefore RTFA isn't required, so here is the relevent section from the link:

"(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.

Re:There are times

[shmlco]

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?

Re:There are times

[timeOday]

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.