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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
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 :-)
The "mercury" issue should be easily solved by disposing the bulbs in the correct way
Breakage - accidents happen in the home, office and ...... car(?) OK forget the car for now. the is the list of steps to safely dispose of broken CFL coils (bulbs) -
Before Clean-up: Ventilate the Room
1. Have people and pets leave the room, and don't let anyone walk through the breakage area on their way out.
2. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
3. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.
Clean-Up Steps for Hard Surfaces
4. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
5. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
6. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
7. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.
Clean-up Steps for Carpeting or Rug
8. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
9. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
10. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
11. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.
Disposal of Clean-up Materials
12. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
13. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing clean-up materials.
14. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken mercury-containing bulbs be taken to a local recycling center.
Future Cleaning of Carpeting or Rug: Ventilate the Room During and After Vacuuming
15. The next several times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
16. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.
a great way to spend the afternoon, huh?
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?!
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.
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.
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.
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