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DoE Announces 'L Prize' For Solid-State Lighting
erikaaboe notes that the US Department of Energy has announced a competition to develop efficient solid-state lighting technology. The "L Prize" program will allocate as much as $20 million in cash prizes for innovations to replace the common light bulb. Further details are available at the L Prize website. From the press release:
"Lighting products meeting the competition requirements would consume just 17% of the energy used by most incandescent lamps in use today. The plan also includes a rigorous evaluation process, including testing of proposed products by independent laboratories (conducted through DOE's CALiPER test program), as well as field evaluations by DOE and utility partners to assess products in real world conditions. Four major California utilities ... have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with DOE, agreeing to work cooperatively to promote high-efficiency solid-state lighting technologies."
DoE had $20M to offer for this contest, but couldn't find $4M to save Fermilab ?
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of energy efficient lightning, but what the hell?
Vacuum cleaners suck. Kings rule.
Am I missing something or have they forgotten about white LEDs which are making pretty rapid inroads into general lighting? They're far more efficient that incandescent or strip lights.
Wouldn't it be assumed all modern light bulbs are 'solid-state' and will continue to be?
Perhaps someone wanted to sound smart by using more words than needed in that press release.
They work great for flashlights, and the headlight and taillight on my bike use LEDs.
But I researched LED lights a couple months ago, and found that a "60 watt replacement" LED light was expected to cost well over a hundred dollars, and at that time was still in development, and not yet available.
I finally settled for a couple twisty bulbs, but I'm not too happy about it because they contain mercury.
I'm also not too happy that the mercury warning on the package just advised me to dispose of them "according to local laws". As if it would be OK to let the mercury into the groundwater if there wasn't a law specifically against doing so!
Request your free CD of my piano music.
It takes about 1000 hours for the led to reach 50% light output. The time from 100% to about 85% is measured in single digit hours!
So, no, light fixtures that last for decades are right out. With current technology, that is.
It reminds me of the old UK cycle-lighting regulations, which basically stated you had to have a light bulb conforming to one of about 3 standards, all incandescent. Once efficient red LEDs came along, it was ages before the regulations changed to make them technically legal - long after everyone in their right mind stopped using the legal versions.
43 - For those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe and everything.
Who has been waiting for a 20 million dollar enticement and would otherwise not try to enter that billion dollar market? Also: "agreeing to work cooperatively to promote high-efficiency solid-state lighting technologies" does sound a lot like the formation of a cartel.
Anyone got any bright ideas?
With Failed State Lighting.
Rush Limbaugh is a perfect real world example of an oxycontinmoron
the L prize gives nothing out UNTIL something is found. So the truth is, that the L-prize really costs nothing except for real results.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Can I have some of those tax dollars back please..
Or maybe they can spend that 20 million on the Network Security because it sucks so damn bad..
I feel like I've entered a twilight zone or something. Neither the article nor any of the comments so far mention the fluorescent lights, as if they don't exist. Isn't that what we are supposed to be using now? Why set the target of beating the outdated incandescent bulbs that are being banned in many countries anyway (USA by 2014) instead of the better technologies that already exist. Weird
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
The main reason was that there was no need to develop any new technology. It was only necessary for previously developed tech to be implemented cheaply. Any great NEW technology like efficient light bulbs or a cancer cure or whatever will usually have such a huge payoff to its developer that a few extra million isn't likely to add much extra incentive. If funders think it can be done then they'll fund it even without the prize. If those who would fund it see it as a long shot then the prize won't change the equation much.
The other reason the X-Prize was successful was that it wasn't clear that a manned suborbital rocket could be profitable. Boeing or Lockheed could have easily built such a rocket. If they thought it would be profitable then why wouldn't they? Maybe they thought that anything less than a very careful and therefore prohibitively expensive development project would have left their deep pockets open to excessive liability. Again, concerns like this are not a problem for a lighting technology or a cancer cure or an efficient car technology.
Oh well, best of luck anyway. Even if these prizes are a waste at least they aren't wasting all that much in the grand scheme of things.
The recipient gets $40M and they get to specify which nuclear waste stockpiles they want to go unattended due to resulting cost cuts...
So, L is offering a prize for Light?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
That's an unusual number. Why did they pick 17%? Why not 15 or 20? Is there any significance to that? Also, are they taking into account the amount of energy required to produce the bulb? What if these new "energy efficient" bulbs required as much power to create as a normal bulb used it its entire lifetime?
1. buy LED lights from thinkgeek.
2. Mail into DoE.
3. Profit?
stuff |
Many of these decisions are made by Congress, not DOE. As part of the President's Budget submission, DOE submits a budget proposal to Congress. Congress then goes through that budget. As part of their Constitutional duties, Congress frequently says "you're spending too much money here, not enough there." Congress passes the budget, and the President generally signs it. DOE is then stuck with the budget it is given. While DOE has some discretion in moving money around because of unforeseen circumstances, it does not have a free hand. Furthermore, frequently through the committee reports, Congress provides "guidance." In essence saying, "We, the Congress, put this money here for a reason, you better not move it, or there will be hell to pay." Federal agencies pay a lot of attention to "Congressional language." Furthermore, there is a problem in DC known as the "color of money." Congress puts money into different accounts. Frequently, the law says this color of money (e.g., money for salaries) cannot be used for other things (e.g., building new buildings). Added all together, there is a limit on what federal agencies can do.
Question: How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Answer: None are required, because Microsoft can declare Darkness(TM) to be the new standard.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Solid State Lighting makes so much more sense than florescent, especially since there is NO MERCURY. Also SS lasts so much longer and uses even LESS energy than MERCURY laden florescent lighting. Hopefully "they" will rollout SS QUICKLY and stop making MERCURY laden florescent lighting altogether. DEMAND Homedepot, Walmart, Lowes etc carry SS Lighting, tell your friends. http://roboeco.com/
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
Fluorescents are more efficient than incandescents but they have many disadvantages: slow startup, limited operating temperature, can't be used with dimmers or motion detector switches, contain mercury, and low power factor (a significant problem if reducing strain on the power grid is the goal). Fluorescents are a step in the right direction, but not the final solution.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Is that anything like L-user?
Right now, diode lasers are among the most efficient (if not the most efficient) light emitters available. I'm guessing the winner, if there is one, will involve a laser or three plus diffusers/despeckling to get general lighting.
Of course, getting cost down is another thing entirely.
Kythe
Lighting? Feh. I think the DoE should fund research into solid state *lightning*.
Imagine being able to set up & tear down a command post without needing to waste time installing and collecting all the fragile lightbulbs or tubes inside. This would be a boon to troops in the field.
Has anyone created a prototype "light bulb" with diode lasers yet?
I want to hear more about these laser diodes.
One problem is that it's hard to judge the distance of a point source of light like an LED. If it's dark enough that the driver can't see your body, then all they know is that there is *something* in the road. And since most somethings on a road that are not a car go much slower than a car, they try to pass.
I notice this problem with those annoying high intensity headlights. The lamps are very small, so they each seem distant. But they're very bright so they both seem close. It makes it hard to judge the distance of an approaching car when your used to big yellow conventional headlights.
If you lights are flashing or, even worse, strobing then the problem is magnified.
10 watts, a 23% energy savings versus modern compact flourescent bulbs. I recognize that CF is not ideal - startup time, flicker and color are all different from that of incandescent bulbs. Worse still, the equivalent modern LED uses 3 watts, making the newly designed bulbs 133% LESS EFFICIENT than EXISTING technology. And we'll give 20 million dollars for this? Not to mention the administrative overhead. There have got to be more efficient uses of tax dollars.
Solid state, so there are no vacuum tubes? OK, let's try whale oil lamps. Ecologically friendly sailing ships can harvest the renewable resource of whale oil, which requires minimal processing before being delivered in recyclable bottles to the consumer.
I ordered two LED bulbs from CCrane about a year or so ago. I was fairly underwhelmed. Between the directional nature of LEDs, the relative dimness to CFLs, and the poor color quality, they were essentially non usable. But $120 for a single ~ 800 lumen light bulb? (BTW, that's probably closer to a 50 watt incandescent equivalent than a 60 watt equivalent.) Wowsers. Talk about sticker shock.
I have tried for 8 years to get Colorado Govs. to offer up X-Prizes to create small businesses from it.
Just 6 years ago, I was suggesting to then Go. Owens(R) that we focus on computerized educational material (moving it to the computer in anticipation of XO and others). I also suggested that doing one for creating a tax handling system. Currently nearly all govs build their own. When I suggested financing it by moving off of MS Office to Open Office (and ultimately Windows to Linux), the howl came out and they said not a chance. The amazing thing was that is was Owen's finance guy who said that. Not sure, but I believe him to be re-elect Owen's Finance.
To our current Colo Gov Ritter(D), I suggested that we solve our pine beetle issue AND a seeking for green energy by offering up 1 M x prizes. The pine beetle will almost certainly have a cheap bio answer out there. All that is needed is for a person to notice that some of the pines are not attacked or have survived the attack. It could mean something is feeding on the beetle (a virus, a bacteria, another bug), or it could mean that a sub-species is resistant to it. As to the green energy, lots of ideas out there. The answer: We can not get it past our congress and we will contact you. So, what did Ritter do? Throw LOADS of money at getting companies like vestas to move a BRANCH here. If the company ever has economic issues, they will simply shut down that branch. IOW, Ritter did EXACTLY what Owens did earlier that caused us to suffer pretty big from 2003-2005. Politicians NEVER learn and never think.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Now, we have a NEW genetic disease up and rising: Psoriasis. Evey drug company is screaming that it is genetic. And they have all sorts of new drugs that treat the symptoms. But everybody seems to ignore several little things about:
This is the next ulcer. And while HIV does have a lot more basic research going on, it is obvious that the majority of the research is devoted to solving the symptom issues and not the issue of the bug itself.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
but $20 million is pretty good motivation.
Kythe
1. Hang fluorescent tubes all over the wall with no wires attached.
2.. Become ham radio operator
3. Communicate
4. Bulbs light up your room.
And its almost free, since that near field energy would be turned into heat anyway.
I just skimmed the entry requirements PDF doc, and there are a bunch of kickers. First, the semiconductor device must be manufactured in the US. Second, the light output requirements exceed that of currently available LEDs:
- The 60W replacement must have >90 lm/W output
- The PAR-38 replacement must have >123 lm/W output
So unless you have access to a semiconductor fab line in the US, you won't be participating in this contest.
Do you deny the Time Cube? http://www.timecube.com/
-Darkshadow (There was a thing called Heaven; but all the same they used to drink enormous quantities of alcohol.)
It's worth giving LEDs another look. Every time I go shopping I find another jump in light output.
You either did not read the the article or you did not understand it. Let me explain. The prices will be given if you have a lamp that
1) uses less than 10W
2) outputs 900lm (which is equal to a 60W bulb)
3) lasts for at least 25000 hours.
All these 3 points is a major challenge!
First you need a lamp that uses less than 10Watt. You will loose some power in the conversion from 120V AC (or 230V) to the lower DC levels the LEDs want. Say you have a 80% efficiency, which is feasible right now. That means 8W left to generate 900lm. This means that your LEDS needs to generate 112.5 lm/watt. Most commercial LEDS are now around 50 to 75 lm/watt.... still a long way to go.
The last point is a lifetime of 25000 hours of the whole lamp. Maybe the LEDS can run 50000 hours, but your electronics will not. How long does your cellphone last until it breaks down? Less than a sew years... Or a your TV? A TV is build for 10 years normal use. Normal use means a few hours per day. This means less than 10000 hours. more likely 5000 hours. To improve the electronics lifetime also some work has to be done.
So the what to do: improve the efficiency of your converter, improve the light output of the LEDS and improve the lifetime of the electronics. This is a challenge!
You either did not read the the article or you did not understand it. Let me explain. The prices will be given if you have a lamp that
1) uses less than 10W
2) outputs 900lm (which is equal to a 60W bulb)
3) have a CRI of 90 or higher
4) lasts for at least 25000 hours.
All these 4 points are a major challenge!
First you need a lamp that uses less than 10Watt. You will loose some power in the conversion from 120V AC (or 230V) to the lower DC levels the LEDs want. Say you have a 80% efficiency, which is feasible right now. That means 8W left to generate 900lm. This means that your LEDS needs to generate 112.5 lm/watt. Most commercial LEDS are now around 50 to 75 lm/watt.... still a long way to go.
The CRI tells something about the quality of the light. A CRI of 100 is a very natural white light source, like the sun. A CRI of 75 is clearly noticeable as unnatural white light. Current white leds do not have a CRI of 90 yet.
The last point is a lifetime of 25000 hours of the whole lamp. Maybe the LEDS can run 50000 hours, but your electronics will not. How long does your cellphone last until it breaks down? Less than a sew years... Or a your TV? A TV is build for 10 years normal use. Normal use means a few hours per day. This means less than 10000 hours. more likely 5000 hours. To improve the electronics lifetime also some work has to be done.
So the what to do: improve the efficiency of your converter, improve the light output and CRI of the LEDS and improve the lifetime of the electronics. This is a challenge!
Another issue with some of the earlier CFLs was the capacitor plague. This caused them to fail after a short time. That's over now.
(IMHO they should go to cold-electrode fluorescents and separate tube and electronic ballasts with an industry-standard connector. Why dump the mercury-containing tube when the electronics goes? And unlike a hot-electrode tube, with fine-wire electrodes that are subject to burnout, metal evaporation, and shock damage much like an incandescent, a cold-electrode tube can last for decades.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
80% efficiency for AC to DC conversion to run an LED would be absolutely awful; you can do much better than that. Electronics (basically, said AC to DC converter) to last 25000 hours shouldn't be a problem either. The CRI, on the other hand, is a major problem. Even fluorescents with > 90 CRI have poor efficiency, and they're expensive, too.
80% efficiency for AC to DC conversion to run an LED would be absolutely awful; you can do much better than that.
please do not forget that it has to be cheap as well. Most people do not want to pay 100 bucks for a light bulb. I am not aware of a cheap (less than a few bucks) very high efficient AC/DC converter
Electronics (basically, said AC to DC converter) to last 25000 hours shouldn't be a problem either.
It should not be a problem, however it is. Especially because the electronics is often close the the LED (compact retrofit lamp), which means higher temperatures. And a 10 degrees Celcius temperature increase means that the lifetime of your silicon IC is halved. Many things can be done to increase the lifetime, but unfortunately that will increase the price as well. And as said before, it still needs to be dirt cheap ...
So where are Drs. Douglas & Martin when you need 'em?
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
I'm guessing that people have heard of the Luxfer, and similar ways to pipe daylight indoors. I'm also guessing they are not talking about that kind of technology.
Andy
simple sunshine.
The filter capacitor is still one of the most common points of failure in a CFL. Often this is because of over-heating (manufactures cutting corners and using components not rated for high temperature or CFLs used in light fittings not designed for them). Sometimes it's just age. Either way I think it's actually pretty concerning as the CFLs generally only have a fusable resistor and the filter cap has a significant chance of shorting when it dies. How much do you trust your circuit breakers?
20M to whoever can create the biggest LED!
Came here to post this. Thanks for beating me to it. The roads must roll!
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I know parent is modded funny, but amazingly these days sometimes the 'little guy' can make advances in lighting technology where multimillion dollar companies have not.
Here is a husband-and-wife team in Australia who have developed a more efficient electroluminescent panel in their home workshop. They dispayed their technology on the 'New Inventors' TV show a few weeks ago. Their advancement is in the layering of the phosphor for brighter output:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/newinventors/txt/s2225333.htm
Someone invented a light powered by an object falling over 4hrs slowly, it powers a nice light
for 4hrs, sure you have to flip it like an hour glass, but it costs zero in power to light
up a room. Just build in a wheel turnable fassion, and any lazy fat slob can flip it.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
Use their stock of night vision goggles, then you dont need lights. Oh and some fibre optic
cables to bring outsidelight inside through the conduits.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
wasn't there an article on slashdot awhile back about a company claiming they have done exactly what this Lprize is offering money for? a super cheep way to produce light from a solid medium... i thought for sure i read something like that but can't find it now... anyone rememter that article?
The tungsten filament evaporates, plates out on the glass envelope, where it reacts with the Iodine or Bromine vapor in the lamp, forming a gas, which circulates around to the filament, where the heat breaks it back down into metal.
Unfortunately, this only works correctly if the bulb surface is really hot (250 degrees C, I think), which is why Halogen lamps have to be enclosed, or double-walled, to make them safe o use in the home.
For "regular", non-halogen lights, the tungsten does eventually end up evaporated out onto the glass of the bulb. Tungsten has the advantage of having the highest melting/boiling point of any metal.