DOE Shines $21M on Advanced Lighting Research

coondoggie writes to mention that the US Department of Energy is planning to fork over close to $21 million for 13 projects promising to advance solid-state lighting research and development. "SSL lighting is an advanced technology that creates light with considerably less heat than incandescent and fluorescent lamps, allowing for increased energy efficiency. Unlike incandescent and fluorescent bulbs, SSL uses a semi-conducting material to convert electricity directly into light, which maximizes the light's energy efficiency, the DOE said in a release. Solid-state lighting encompasses a variety of light-producing semi-conductor devices, including light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). "

Comments

Re:Save energy: don't send so much light into spac

[Charcharodon]

Why can you see it? Well because light goes really really fast and even a small amount pointed in your general direction is easily spottable from a great distance.

As a GA pilot, city light is a love hate relationship. I love it because it helps keep the vertigo (no barfing or flipping the plane over because of a lack of visual references) at bay, I hate it because it's freak'n pain in the ass to pick out the airport out of all the background clutter.

On my first night cross country flight on the way back to base my instructor complimented me on my navigation skills, that I never peeked a look at the GPS, and kept a solid heading. Not the easiest thing to do since since you are half flying IFR once you get away from the city lights with no moon out. What I didn't mention to him is that I could see the new baseball stadium style lighting on one of the parking ramps of our destination airport even though it was over 80 miles away and mostly hidden behind some low mountains. I could see the lights directly, I'm sure the sky glow would have been visible at a much further distance.