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Incandescent Bulbs Return To the Cutting Edge
lee1 writes "A law in the US that is due to take effect in 2012 mandates such tough efficiency
standards for lightbulbs that it has been assumed, until recently, that
it would kill off the incandescent bulb. Instead, the law has become a
case study of the way government regulation can inspire technical
innovation. For example, new incandescent technology from Philips that
seals the traditional filament inside a small capsule (which itself is
contained within the familiar bulb). The capsule has a coating that
reflects heat back to the filament, where it is partially converted to
light. The sophisticated ($5.00) bulbs are about 30% more efficient than the
old-fashioned ($0.25) kind, and should last about three times as long.
So they are less economical than compact fluorescents, but should emit a
more pleasing spectrum, not contain mercury, and, one supposes, present
the utility company with a more desirable power factor."
There was an article a month or so ago about how this guy used lasers to (I'm guessing) increase the surface area on the filament, thus increasing efficiency by something like 40%.
http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3385
Maybe both can be used for a super-lightbulb?
-xed
and compact fluorescents are still more economical? why should we change then?
just because of a more pleasing spectrum? The "mercury" issue should be easily solved by disposing the bulbs in the correct way (i.e. recycle).
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
The moment I find these in stores I am IMMEDIATELY buying a few and replacing every bulb attached to a dimmer switch in my house. Ask anyone with a light dimmer who switched to CFL's, and this'll immediately be their biggest caveat with the tech.
I live in Edmonton Alberta, Canada where 8 months of winter is fairly common. Here our old incandescent bulbs have 100% efficiency because the heat generated does not go to waste :-)
Stick a halogen light bulb inside an incandescent light bulb. That's what they sell around here to replace incandescent bulbs once they're no longer sold. Nice spectrum, no warm-up time, longer lifetime than the incandescent bulb it replaces, 30% less energy used compared to the incandescent.
You would find less overall electricity usage by switching to CFL and using the difference in power to run a heat pump. Worst case scenario, the ground doesn't have any heat to give you and your pump defaults to standard resistance heating, which is where you are now. All other scenarios are improvements on that.
Unless, of course, you're not currently using electric resistance heating as your main heat supply. In which case, by answering the question, "why not," you will also know why you're not saving anything by relying on your lamps as auxiliary heat.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
I'm sorry but this so called new technology is a farce. 30% improvement in efficiency over 5% efficiency is still just 8% overall. At $5 apiece, which is way more then a CFL, which goes around $2.5 to $3.3 apiece, and it's 75% efficiency, I'm going for CFL.
You're doing it wrong!
I think your concern should be more that pro-government regulation fanatics will read this and think it's an example of proper government regulation. From the "anti-government deregulation fanatic" point of view, the main problem with regulating light bulbs is why should government have anything to do with it. Replacing a $0.25 bulb with a $5 bulb is not a good use of government power. People can do that on their own, if it suits them.
Nor is there a need to reduce electricity consumption. If demand drives up the price of electricity (which it does in relatively deregulated markets), the solution is merely a matter of building more power plants. If it turns out that some forms of power production have unpleasant externalities (ie, impose costs or harm on nonconsenting parties), then a pollution emission market would account for those side effects, effectively billing the problem at the source of the problem rather than trying to change consumer behavior in order to indirectly meet dubious moral goals.
Gotta tell ya, I replaced all the lights in my house with the newer fluorescent bulbs, both white and warm, over a year ago and I can now no longer stand the light output of the incandescent bulbs; it seems too harsh. Go figure. I guess humans just adapt.
The white light works very well in rooms like the bathroom, toilet, shed and kitchen. The warmer lights almost everywhere else. People really need to stop throwing tantrums.
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LED are already here, costs still high but they beat flourescents bulbs in life span and energy consume, and lightup instantaneously.
I got tired of incandescent bulbs failing, and the low light output of CFLs. I just installed a couple of high output fluorescent tubes in the dungeon, and now it's much easier to see what you're doing. People need to just get over this "warm" light nonsense.
Replacing a $0.25 bulb with a $5 bulb is not a good use of government power. People can do that on their own, if it suits them.
no they can't - no-one in their right mind would buy a roughly equivalent 25c bulb for $5, and as a result, the manufacturers would not even bother trying to make and sell them. Net result: 25c bulbs are the only option.
Sometimes you need some external stimulus to provoke a change in a stable environment, like sticking your finger in still water.
Similarly, saying "the market will provide more power stations", well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more.
Sometimes you need more forward planning and organisation than market forces allow.
These 2 factors are why we need and have governments, if only life was as simple as you think, we'd be living in a utopia.
What ever happened to microwave lighting that I saw on TV over a decade ago that was going to kick ass???
and where is my flying car and VR sex slave.
o.. and why does my car from 1997 get the same MPG as all the new ones that don't have massive arrays of lead acid battery's?
The light bulb is lame. I want my damn sharks with flipp'en lasers and you need to get off my LAN son....
The article claims that it would be cheaper, and brighter than a compact-fluorescent, and the manufacturing process is simple. Additionally, the nature of the way they're increasing the light output allows for selective modification of certain areas of the spectrum; increasing certain parts of the spectrum and decrease other parts would make for a cleaner, notably whiter light.
Sometimes you need some external stimulus to provoke a change in a stable environment, like sticking your finger in still water.
So? If you don't have a reason to change this stable environment, then you don't need an external stimulus.
Similarly, saying "the market will provide more power stations", well yes it will - eventually, in the meantime while the market is getting to the point where more power is required, you're suffering brownouts. Besides, it is often in the market's interest to let you suffer like that as they you will pay more.
You're not suffering brownouts, if people are paying the proper price for electricity and its supporting infrastructure. The market doesn't have "interests". You mean electricity generators who are a subset of the market participants. And you don't pay more for electricity, if they're not delivering it to you.
Sometimes you need more forward planning and organisation than market forces allow.
Sure there is such a need. But there isn't a superior mechanism to the market for providing the necessary coordination and communication (as well as the usual economic transactions) between the parties involved. Banning certain types of bulbs even if there was a demonstrable need to change the usage of such light bulbs simply is not a good way to regulate or use the market because it doesn't take advantage of the market's strengths.
Government regulation causes more problems than it solves. California's "deregulated" energy market was regulqated so that there was no incentive to provide reliable excess capacity.
Deleted
The last major gas mileage increase in North American cars came as a result of legislation.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
On the other hand, mercury is toxic forever. It never, ever, becomes safe, no matter how long you wait. When the glass breaks it'll poison you just as well in a million years as it does today.
No, no, you're missing the beauty of it. Instead of using normal mercury, there should be a mandate for light bulbs to use mercury-194, which has a half-life of 444 years. A perfectly-manageable timeframe for waste storage.
Another cool thing is that the bulb lights up without even being plugged in. It actually generates energy rather than consuming it.
But here's the really cool thing: according to Wikipedia, Hg-194 decays by electron capture into Au-194. That's right, in 400 years half of the mercury in your light bulb will have turned to gold. Replace all of your household lamps with Hg-194 compact fluorescents, and you won't even want to throw your burned-out light bulbs away in the first place!
It's amazing how many seemingly-intractable environmental problems would go away if people would just think outside the box a little.
A TOTAL ban on incandescent lamps? I think not. You can't put CFL's in the 'fridge. They won't work in ovens. They don't work worth a damn
with dimmers (I've tried several "dimmable" CLF's, they have a range of maybe 20%). Until they make CFL's or way cheaper LED bulbs equal to 60-100W incandescent lamps that work with a dimmer, I'll keep the "Edison bulbs" in my dimmable fixtures, even If I have to buy black market lamps from Korea.
Cripes, the infamous light bulb efficiency gimmick again. What's next, we gonna tie light bulb usage to Global Warming?
Seriously, any of you ever actually take a measurement of your electric usage in your house? Instead of screwing with 60W of light you use really only part of the day, take a look at your A/C unit. Older A/C units under 10 SEER drawing 20A or more will suck $80 - $120/month out of your wallet while new ones will draw less than 1/2 of that (7 - 10A). A dryer that runs 2 hours a day (not hard for a family of four) will run over $30/month pulling 20A. Own a pool? Average 1HP pump will suck another $25 - $35/month from your wallet if you run it according to what you've heard is "the norm". Geek running a server farm out of your home powered 24/7? Had a measly el-cheapo Dell headless tower that ran me $10/month by itself.
Point here is there's a HELL of a lot MORE we can fine tune and adjust lifestyles around to save a hell of a lot more than that 60W light bulb that you don't even turn off when you leave a room anyway.
Technology for Al Gores sake is not always necessary.
Yeah, these new incandescents are 30% more efficient, but my CFLs are 400% more efficient than the latest "normal" bulbs they compete with. They're therefore 3x as efficient as these new incandescents. And these new ones, at $5 apiece, cost 8.75x what my CFLs cost in a box of 12. The CFLs will last something like 10 years, instead of about 2 for incandescents (maybe 5 for these new, less hot ones). But at such high efficiency, the CFLs add very little heat to the room to be cooled with my air conditioning - even more overall system efficiency. As for the spectrum, my CFLs side by side a new GE incandescent at the same luminosity show the CFL with a slightly yellower light, which is the "warm" light we like to associate with homey incandescent.
If we didn't have good CFLs, these new incandescents would be welcome. They might have some applications, given their small size, and cheap dimmability (dimmable CFLs cost 2-3x as much, last half as long, at least during their own early days). But within a couple years LEDs with 1300-1900 lumens will cost less than CFLs now, and can run directly on DC power - thereby increasing solar PV efficiency driving them by eliminating the 30-50% now lost on DC/AC/DC conversion. The LEDs will have a more tunable spectrum, last longer, and fit smaller fixtures, with even less heat inefficiency to cool (or disperse in enclosures).
CFLs today, LEDs tomorrow. Incandescents in movies about the 20th Century.
--
make install -not war
The Congress is also worried about not getting the United States blown up.
Mein Gott, will we ever stop hearing such ridiculous nonsense? Please, tepples, do a little bit of research. Learn a little bit about the design of nuclear power plants (modern designs, that is), and about the real risks and dangers. Learn about the absolute worst that could happen and discover that it really isn't that bad especially when compared to the number of people who are killed per kilowatt hour by coal, natural gas, or oil plants. Then stop spouting this tripe!
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
You can never shift the burden away from the Taxpayers for a utility. By definition a Utility is needed by all (or so close to all as to be insignificantly different). Any increase in overhead (Fuel, Taxes, Regulations, Environmental Stewardship, Waste handling, etc) will be passed on to the consumer to pay as part of their utility bill.
Cap and Trade will make my electric bill go up, not decrease the profits or pay of executives at the power company. Now, I'd be willing to eat that cost if everyone else were going to have to as well, but that won't be the case. Manufacturers that can, will move their power intensive operations over seas to countries that don't participate in the cap and trade system. It'll save them money, lose the US jobs, and drive down the business of companies that cannot/willnot relocate somewhere else.
This is the fundamental aspect of business that many in washington do not understand. Any move you make to increase operating costs in the US will simply result in the gradual movement of those industries affect to other countries that are less expensive to operate in.
Unless you can get the UN to jam this system down the throats of every industrialized manufacturing country, it's just going to make the US economy worse while helping the economy somewhere else. Not a big problem while the US was booming, but definitely counter productive under the current situation.
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
The "rule of thumb" for the old, straight tube florescent bulbs bulbs was to only turn them off if you weren't going to be needing the light again for at least fifteen minutes. This is due to the start up energy costs to establish the initial arc in the gas. First question: Do CFLs have the same or similar start up costs? If so, it would seem that old style incandescent bulbs should still be used where the light is frequently turned on and off and, typically, the light only remains on for short periods of time (e.g., a bathroom light, closet light, refrigerator light, etc.). Second question: Is this "leave it on" period different for CFLs?
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Are you saying that the conversion from 120V ac to 3V-dc wastes is 0.05 % efficient ?
At the ultra-low output power drawn by an IR detector, yes. Especially when the manufacturer does not put too much effort (design, components) into power efficiency.
Just think about a computer power supply - they can reach 80+% efficiency, but only under certain load conditions. Above or below such load their efficiency can be much worse.
Tvs and similar equipment with a stand-by mode also typically draw anything from 1w to 5w while doing so, which seems hugely wasteful when literally one thousanth of this should be sufficient.
Yep. Low output power draw, simple design and cheap components will result in abysmal efficiency.
I would guess that the most power efficient solution would be to charge a big-ass capacitor once in a while and run the whole system off that capacitor. However, the cost of such a solution would make the whole system unmarketable.