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."

Comments

Re:Solid-state?

[David Gerard]

Fluorescents work on a gas being turned into a plasma, so wouldn't qualify. LEDs are solid-state, but are presently very expensive as lightbulbs. Incandescents are fragile, but might be "solid state", but fail on the power requirement.

Re:Sooo.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd scoff, but I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're trolling brilliantly. What follows is clearly for the benefit of others. IF they pay the $20 M out, the savings to the economy, in just the US, could be measured in major fractions of a TRILLION. Not that Fermilab isn't very worth while, even critical, but it's more of a high risk, high reward extremely long term investment. You know, like investigating the photoelectric effect.

Significantly bright LEDs are very expensive

[MichaelCrawford]

I expect they'll get there eventually, but they're not practical for regular home or office lighting yet.

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!

Decades? Not really

[JustShootThemAll]

The bright white leds that are currently used are not all that stable. Light output decreases with use because the phosphor coating degrades. Remember that white leds are actually UV-leds that need a phosphor coating not unlike fluorescent tubes.

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.

Re:Decades? Not really

[minimum]

Bullshit. This applies to very cheap LED's bought from China (or similar). Leading manufacturers like Cree, Lumileds and the rest claim 75% of lumen maintenance after 50'000 hours.

Re:Err , LEDs?

[Smidge204]

Spectrum is one legit problem with LEDs. In general it's difficult to get full spectrum lighting from LEDs - but it IS possible. The problem right now is although LEDs have the best Lumen/Watt efficiency, they have the worst Lumen/Dollar ratio.

Regarding CFLs... I was at the hardware store getting stuff to fix a lamp and decided to put down $5 for a pair of 23W CFLs (7000 lumen/100W equivalent). I have to say that, having owned one of the very early CFL types several years ago and being very disappointed with it, I was VERY surprised at these new ones. Instant-on brightness was equal to the 100W incandescent it replaced, and it actually got BRIGHTER after a minute or so. The light has a slight tint to it - not quite as "yellow" as sunlight but not white/blueish like the 4' tubes in most offices.

All I can say is give it a try. Made a believer out of me.
=Smidge=

BTW,

[WindBourne]

the HIV cure will not be forthcoming for quite sometime. The reason is that the vast majority of the RD money now goes into drug companies. These folks have NO desire to solve this. For example, look at the history of ulcers. At one time, malox was the #1 drug sold here. Every drug company said that it was genetic. Then 2 regular docs solved it. It was a simple bacterial infection. In fact, it was a common bacteria. But none of the companies who had been paid MILLIONS (back then a lot of money) could solve that (or could they).
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:

1. UV lights (i.e. time outside) will clear it up almost better than the drugs do.
2. the rate of rise is MUCH higher than a genetic disease would allow. The fact that it hits ppl who have never had it in either family is ignored.

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.