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

Sooo.....

[Gruturo]

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?

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.

Re:Sooo.....

[moosesocks]

Fermilab didn't need "saving"

The $5mil was a tiny part of their total budget, and the lab was inevitably going to be downsized considerably next year, once the Tevatron is shut down.

Also, energy-efficient lighting is a higher priority than particle physics for the DOE at the moment. Given the energy/oil crunch at the moment, it only makes sense that they're funneling a larger portion of their money into short-term projects to find new methods of generation and energy conservation, rather than funding "hard science," which technically isn't even their job to do in the first place.

Re:Sooo.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Solid-State lighting is already fairly common, at least in Canada

Ah. that explains what makes Canadian chicks look cool.

Err , LEDs?

[Viol8]

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.

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=

Solid-state?

[Awptimus Prime]

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.

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:Solid-state?

[mrbluze]

Wouldn't it be assumed all modern light bulbs are 'solid-state' and will continue to be?

Nope, the one in my fridge is a little man who makes sure there's light when I open the door, for the small cost of mysteriously eating up all the chocolate custard only hours after I put it in there. He's not solid state.

The guy in the freezer is solid state, though

Re:Solid-state?

[Jurily]

The guy in the freezer is solid state, though I treat my annoying neighbors that way, too.

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!

Re:Significantly bright LEDs are very expensive

[brunes69]

There is 60 times more mercury in the battery in the watch on your wrist than there is in 1 CFL.

How many people do you think send their watch batteries to the toxic waste disposal centre?

The hazards of mercury in CFLs is vastly overblown by the media looking for a story.

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.

Why not fluorescents?

[DFJA]

I don't understand this - fluorescents easily beat all *mass produced* white LEDs with good colour rendering in efficiency, and as long as you don't believe the manufacturers' 'incandescent equivant ratings', are a perfect replacement for incandescents. I know there are laboratory LEDs which have higher efficiency, but these are a long way off being mass produced at reasonable prices. I'm all in favour of pushing technology, but prescribing that it must be 'solid state' is completely wrong.

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.

So...

[MassiveForces]

Anyone got any bright ideas?

Re:So...

[somersault]

I read the headline and summary as being about solid state 'lightning' for about half a minute before realising what was actually going on. Solid state lightning would be great for a Thor halloween outfit, and distracting your coworkers (as well as giving them internal burns)

Yes, but ...

[WindBourne]

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.

Re:Yes, but ...

[Arccot]

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. That's really the genus of it. Outside of some administrative overhead for the program, it costs nothing until someone gets results. There are alot of practical problems like this that could be solved by these sorts of prizes.

Say a $Billion bounty for a very effective and cheap to produce HIV vaccine or cure, and the same for various cancers. Sure, the patent would be owned by a company, but it would be in their interest to sell the product, so it would get out into the market.

I'm certain the world as a whole could easily scrape together multiple billions of dollars for a HIV or cancer cure. The savings alone would make it a no-brainer.

Prizes probably help little

[mrcaseyj]

The success of the X-Prize seems to have made everyone crazy about prizes to stir development. But it seems to me that the X-Prize only worked great because there were some very special characteristics about the commercial manned suborbital launch vehicle problem. I think there were two primary reasons the X-Prize was successful.

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.

LEDs?

[192939495969798999]

1. buy LED lights from thinkgeek.
2. Mail into DoE.
3. Profit?

Lasers

[Kythe]

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.

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.