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Panasonic's New LED Bulbs Shine For 19 Years
Mike writes "As lighting manufacturers phase out the incandescent bulb, and CFLs look set to define the future of lighting, Panasonic recently unveiled a remarkable 60-watt household LED bulb that they claim can last up to 19 years (if used 5-1/2 hours a day). With a lifespan 40 times longer than their incandescent counterparts, Panasonic's new EverLed bulbs are the most efficient LEDs ever to be produced. They are set to debut in Japan on October 21st. Let's hope that as the technology is refined their significant cost barrier will drop — $40 still seems pretty pricey for a light bulb, even one that promises to save $23 a year in energy costs."
$40 still seems pretty pricey for a light bulb,
one that saves 23$ a year, which lasts a whopping 19 years ? yup, some people are stupid.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
So incandescent bulbs are a bad thing in most of the world for about a third of the year (summer) and in some of the world most of the year. If you happen to be running air-conditioning at the same time as an incandescent bulb, you're just pumping money out of the window.
Not to mention the fact that having a heat source 6 inches from your ceiling is generally not the most efficient way to heat a room. It makes far more sense to save the energy wasted from the bulb, and spend it in an efficient central heating system instead, where strategically placed radiators and vents can put the heat where it's actually needed.
I live in a high energy efficiency property in the UK as well, we moved to energy efficient bulbs around 18 months ago and have noticed a sufficient decrease in energy use to believe it was worthwhile.
Obviously I don't know nearly enough about your situation to advise you, but I am not persuaded that heat produced due to inefficiency of lightbulbs or other devices is an economical source of heating.
You forgot to finish your thought with "if you compeletely and unjustifiably overreact.
That's pretty much what businesses and schools do in our litigious age. A local school in my area was recently closed for two days over an old barometer that got dropped in one of the science classrooms. They brought in a professional cleanup crew and spent $80,000 to have the mercury spill cleaned up.
Now I can understand closing off the classroom where the spill happened but closing the whole school seems rather excessive to me. $80,000 for cleanup seems really excessive. But that's what they have to do in this day and age. Otherwise some parent would freak out ("OMG, you mean my kid was within a quarter mile of spilled mercury?! I read someone that stuff is as dangerous as Dihydrogen Monoxide!") and they'd be writing that $80,000 check to a law firm instead of a cleanup crew.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This assumes that you are using a resistance heater. If you use a heat pump (usually a COP of around 3-4) then you are still using extra power. (Every extra watt that you use with an incandescent could have done the same as between 1/3 to 1/4 of a watt with a heat pump).
- CFLs have a power factor of around 0.5, which means they use twice as much power as rated. For example a 15 watt CFL uses 15 watts in your home, but then it uses another 15 watts at the central power plant due to the need to "rebalance" the power and restore the PF to 1.0. TOTAL == 30 volt-amps burned
Except that the power company puts PF correction in far sooner than the power plant, and while it doubles the amps for wire resistance calculations(until it hits the power company's correction equipment), it actually doesn't double the wattage used. More like 5-10%. They build PFC in pretty much as standard on high quality high efficiency computer power supplies, why would you think the power company couldn't do the same? And there are better bulbs out there with active PFC.
- New technologies have allowed folks like GE to build 60 watt incandescants that only use 30 watts while still providing the same brightness. So the net usage is the same as the CFL. No need to abandon the old bulbs.
Neat tech, but like I said, a 15 watt bulb with a PF of .5 doesn't mean it's using 30 watts. So the CFL still has a leg up of aobut 50% more light per watt than the new higher efficiency bulbs.
- CFLs *hate* heat. CFLs hate cold. CFLs hate humidity. CFLs hate dimmers.
I have CFLS in my unheated north dakota garage. the 12 watters start a little slower in the winter, but are still going strong. I have a 23 watt(100watt equiv) in my bathroom. It's been there for over a year, hasn't quit yet. Not instant full brightness - but I like that for those midnight trips. I don't have a dimmer in my house, but it's a five minute job to swap the dimmer out with a CFL compatible one(remember to get a dimmable CFL).
It sounds like you're buying cheap bulbs, and your dimmer is probably the old resistance type, not the newer electronic pulse type.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die as quick as an incandescent bulb. So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
In 6 years the only CFL to die on me was from being dropped.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. Turn it on to read your paper, and you have to wait 5 minutes before you can see the writing. Turn it on to go down the basement stairs - and you can't see the steps because it's still too dim (a safety hazard).
For me it takes longer for my eyes to adjust to the new light level, open the book/paper, whatever. The 100 watt equivalent in the bathroom has the longest start-up time, and even it is pretty much instant on, just at ~40-60 watt equivalnet for the first 10 seconds.
If the stairs are too dim, put in a brighter bulb. Heck, I wonder where people like you are getting your slow starting CFLs from, because none of mine take that long. I have two incandescent bulbs left in closets, and the only reason they aren't CFLs yet is because they haven't died, and I use them too little to bother.
I use a mix of GE and Sylvania bulbs, what are yours?
I don't read AC A human right