Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Toshiba Ends Incandescent Bulb Production After 120 Years

Posted by Soulskill on from the bright-ideas dept.

angry tapir writes "Toshiba has stopped production of mass-market incandescent light bulbs, putting an end to a 120-year manufacturing history of the products. The company, which is one of Japan's largest makers of lighting products, had planned to halt production next year but brought up the date by a year. It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs."

53 of 430 comments (clear)

  1. so long... by eexaa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ....and thanks for all the friendly warm light.

    1. Re:so long... by BeardedChimp · · Score: 5, Informative

      And now for the entirely predictable posts claiming low power lighting causes cancer, are crap, and cause global warming...

      The first argument goes the mercury in CFLs is going to kill us. This argument comes up and is destroyed every time. It will suffice to say there is little mercury, isn't that dangerous and burning coal puts out a lot more.

      Then we attack the lights. They are crap, taking too long to turn on, not being bright enough and so forth. Arguments that might have been true 10 years ago but have been entirely overcome unless you insist on buying the cheapest pos you can find.

      I titter when I hear that because incandescent bulbs warm your house it means you don't need as much heating so you are saving energy and helping the environment! This argument is so weak all I'll say is heating in summer?

      Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

      This time instead of continuing to spout discredited crap, do a bit of research.

    2. Re:so long... by Lord+Ender · · Score: 5, Insightful

      How about this: the color of the light emitted by CFLs and LEDs is ugly, and sometimes even hard on the eyes (especially with LEDs).

      For me, this is reason enough to stick with incandescent bulbs for the places I spend most of my time.

      If you consider my above statements to be "crap" then you shouldn't have skipped class on the day they talked about the light spectrum. The spectrum emitted unquestionably differs between lighting technologies.

      --
      A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
    3. Re:so long... by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Interesting

      >>>unless you insist on buying the cheapest POS you can find.

      I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.

      I was not aware Philips make crap products?

      And then there's the expense. Why should I spend $3.50 per bulb when I can get an incandescent for around 25 cents. And the incandescents have not been stagnate. New laser-carved filments inside old incandescents can produce the same brightness as a 60 watt, but only use 40 watts.

      So CFL v. old bulb == savings of about 25 watts * 1 hours a day (typical) * 30 days == 3 kWh saved off my 3000 kWh bill. Wow. Times 9 cents per kwH == 27 cents. Holy crap. Now I can buy one-third of a twinkie!

      POINT:

      Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.

      I tried the whole CFL deal.
      For fifteen years.
      And now I'm switching back

      Incandescents are the better technology due to simplicity (it's a resistor), cheapness (even poor people can afford them), ease-of-disposal (no need to empty the room like EPA recommends), cleanness (not reactive power), and does not interfere with radio waves (like radio, tv, wifi, et cetera). After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:so long... by Algan · · Score: 4, Informative

      Get CFLs that provide light with a color temperature of 2700K. That's approximately the color temperature of an incandescent bulb, and, to my untrained eyes, the color seems identical.

      Make sure you look for 2700K on the package. "Soft, warm white" might be 3000K, and you will notice the difference.

      --
      If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
    5. Re:so long... by ircmaxell · · Score: 4, Informative

      Then there is people claiming that CFLs give them headaches, if I had more time I'd point out the studies where people are shown to have similar sensitivity as those who sense EM fields.

      While I don't get headaches directly from CFLs, if I do have one, I typically find that some CFLs will make it worse (When I get a headache, I'm typically very sensitive to light. The fact that some bulbs make it worse than others leads me to believe there may be something about sensitivity to certain light frequencies) The difference, is that it's only SOME CFLs that cause it... The light output varies from model to model, and while I wouldn't avoid CFLs because of it, I may avoid certain models... EM sensitivity I think is largely psychological, but I do think that light sensitivity is a very real effect (But definitely does have some psychological effect)...

      As for the mercury argument, it only plays if you break a bulb. Sure, coal may put out more, but what's the average effect on each person with coal? I'd bet it's less than if you broke a bulb (and were directly exposed to the mercury). However with that said is the amount that's contained in a CFL dangerous? Is it beyond the LEL? The amount of mercury in a typical CFL is around 4mg (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_mercury)... Based on the MSDS http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M1599.htm, that amount is WELL above the airborne exposure limits (40 times the OSHA upper limit). So the dangers of mercury are real, but the flip side of that argument is how many bulbs are broken? If you have a habit of breaking them, then perhaps it's a real concern. If you've never broken a bulb in your life, perhaps it doesn't concern you (Since exposure one time isn't nearly as bad as a repeated exposure)... But to say that it isn't dangerous is extremely short sighted and blatently ignoring the facts. Sure it's not a mitigate-able danger (just don't break the bulb), but it still exists...

      This time instead of continuing to spout discredited crap, do a bit of research.

      Ummm... No comment...

      --
      If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
    6. Re:so long... by xaxa · · Score: 3, Funny

      You claim a:
      (X) medical ( ) economic ( ) environmental (X) aesthetic
      issue with CFL or LED-produced light. Your view is incorrect and/or irrelevant, here's why:

      ( ) Double-blind tests have proved people don't notice the difference anyway
      (X) There is no evidence that CFL or LED light causes headaches
      (X) The bulbs are available with different colour temperatures
      ( ) Modern CFLs attain full brightness very quickly
      ( ) LED bulbs attain full brightness instantly
      ( ) You are basing your argument on a 50-cent bulb bought at a discount store.
      ( ) Producing the extra electricity required to use an incandescent bulb releases more mercury into the atmosphere than is in a CFL
      ( ) Your oil/gas central heating is more efficient than using lights to heat your house
      ( ) You have to cool your house using inefficient air conditioning for most of the year
      ( ) The savings are negligible, compared to other efficiency gains that could be made
      ( ) As demand increases new bulbs will reduce in price

    7. Re:so long... by jockeys · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I'm not going to take sides, but you CAN buy CFLs in different color temperatures. Incadescent bulbs put out light at around 2500k or so, and you can get CFLs that range from about that all the way up to nearly 10000k, which borders on actinic (12000k).

      Myself, I use different "colors" and strengths of CFLs depending on the area of my house and what's going on. examples:

      garage - very bright, very harsh lighting: 150w CFL floods with no diffusers running at either 8500k or 9500k, can't remember. cold, blueish light. too bright to look straight at
      kitchen - warm, diffuse light: 50w CFL diffused globes running at 4500k. faintly yellow and pleasant
      bathroom where wife does makeup - golden light, intended to mimic sunlight: 75w CFL naked coils running at 3000k. yellow and fairly bright.

      --

      In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
    8. Re:so long... by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I agree that those are the best fluorescent lights, but they're still not good. A part of the problem is that there are huge bands of wavelengths where they don't emit light. A real filament emitting 2700K blackbody radiation will include every wavelength and make light that's far less tiring to work in. In my fixtures with multiple bulbs, I always include at least one incandescent bulb to fill in all those colors of light that fluorescents just don't make.

    9. Re:so long... by mikael_j · · Score: 4, Informative

      ...has effectively outlawed incadescents and replaced them with CFLs, has the EU power demand dropped?

      You can still buy regular light-bulbs here in Sweden, the first step was apparently only to outlaw the sale of certain lightbulbs (not the common 25, 40 and 60W bulbs that are the most common ones).

      It'll probably take a couple of years before the results (if any) can be seen.

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    10. Re:so long... by ircmaxell · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There's more to light than just color temperature... There's also emitted frequencies. So while an incandescent typically emits light evenly across the visible range, a typical CFL emits light in a more grained spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Spectrum_of_light). So to emit the same "color temperature" and luminosity (brightness of overall effect), a CFL will need to emit more light in certain frequency ranges to compensate for the missing frequencies. And since the human eye doesn't perceive all frequencies equally (We're typically MUCH more sensitive to green than red or blue) it can lead to the light not "feeling" right. The net combination of the colors looks the same, but they are processed differently in the eye which leads to a real, measurable difference. A CFL can never be identical to an incandescent. It's a matter of the physics behind it. Sure, they can "approximate" the light output, but the difference will always be there (and hence why some colors are less discernible under a CFL than under an incandescent)... In situations where color is very important (Artists, designers, etc) an incandescent bulb will be far better than a CFL. In situations (like every day life) where it isn't important to get colors exactly right, then it doesn't matter. But the point is that there is a difference...

      --
      If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
    11. Re:so long... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      "color temperature" is only the beginning. The color-resolving power of CFLs is horrible, and this is absolutely obvious to me and others. This might have something to do with the fact that I'm a photographer and might be a little more visually-tuned than others. Maybe you can't notice the difference, maybe most people can't, and that's fine. However, CFLs put out ugly light; I have yet to see one that doesn't. LEDs too. Not slightly ugly, like extremely ugly. While they are light bulbs in the first-order sense (they put out light) and thus are good where you simply need some light (I use them in my handheld shop light) I can't imagine anyone using them to light a well-decorated interior or do anything else, really. Switching to an incandescent is like a breath of fresh air, even my wife can notice after adapting to those horrible, horrible phosphor emissions. Human eyes are adapted to looking at black body radiators.

      captcha: "spectrum"

    12. Re:so long... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I have Philips bulbs. I timed my 60watt-equivalent (13 watt actual) and it took 4 minutes to reach full brightness. And no it wasn't just a bad set, because identical bulbs I bought a year later still exhibited the same behavior.

      Maybe you should have tried a different brand then? I have CFLs in almost every fixture in the house. The only ones that take more than 1s to reach max brightness are a recessed light and my 200W-equivalent porch light.

      Some of these lights were rather cheap, too. :)

      I was not aware Philips make crap products?

      Every company has at least the occasional piece of crap in their product line. Phillips has a good reputation, but that plus you holding a crappy Phillips CFL in your hand does not prove all CFLs are crap.

      cleanness (not reactive power)

      Huh? Is this your way of slipping in Power Factor as a reason CFLs are bad? Well at least you aren't still claiming it means CFLs don't save any energy. LOL.

      Shouldn't our priorities be focused on more energy-expensive things like heating/cooling? If all new home standards were increased to "PassivHaus" standards, which bring heat/cooling to almost nothing, we'd save HUGE amount of energy.

      Yes indeed! We need to push energy efficiency from all angles and insulation is a huge one. It is being pushed, too, but hey I agree it should be a bigger priority than it is.

      After fifteen years of testing CFLs, I've concluded they are inferior.

      Why do I get the impression you concluded that long before fifteen years had passed, and at best kept up the "experiment" in the form of buying a new CFL every year or two just to stave off people that you should try em, not all of em take forever to get bright, etc.

      I mean, fifteen years and you haven't found a single CFL that performs well? It took me all of two trips to Home Depot to accomplish this. They exist. Your inability to find any after fifteen years is, um, shall we say, in conflict with the idea of this being a neutral unbiased experiment that you were conducting.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    13. Re:so long... by rubycodez · · Score: 2, Insightful

      no, the argument about mercury hasn't been "destroyed every time", break one CFL bulb in your home and you will be exposed to more mercury than in ten years of breathing the air 25 miles from a coal fired plant. What a crock of marketing spew.

      It doesn't help doing research if you can't reason and believe a load of bull from those with an agenda.

    14. Re:so long... by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And now for the entirely predictable posts claiming low power lighting causes cancer, are crap, and cause global warming...

      As well as the equally predictable slew of posts filled with handwaving and smokescreens declaring that anyone who doesn't rush out and buy a cartload of CFL's is mentally and morally deficient, and that any problems they have with the bulbs are figments of their imagination. After all, if you most be intelligent and perceptive to see the Emperor's new clothes.
       

      The first argument goes the mercury in CFLs is going to kill us. This argument comes up and is destroyed every time. It will suffice to say there is little mercury, isn't that dangerous and burning coal puts out a lot more.

      It suffices to say "there is a little mercury" only to someone with an agenda or who is bad at math. "A little mercury" multiplied by " (eventually) millions of bulbs in service" equals "a lot of mercury potentially entering the environment". That coal produces more is irrelevant.

    15. Re:so long... by RzUpAnmsCwrds · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I can't imagine anyone using them to light a well-decorated interior or do anything else, really. Switching to an incandescent is like a breath of fresh air, even my wife can notice after adapting to those horrible, horrible phosphor emissions. Human eyes are adapted to looking at black body radiators.

      Yet architects and decorators have been utilizing fluorescent lights for decades in commercial and industrial settings.

      I personally find incandescents to be far, far too yellow. Give me a 'bright white' CFL any day.

    16. Re:so long... by thannine · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, well, where I live we have the heating on 9 months a year. And for the 3 months we don't use heating, the need for lighting is minimal. And no, it's not saving energy, but it's not wasting it either. And it still takes a lot less poisonous materials to produce.

    17. Re:so long... by kmac06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How about this? In a free country, don't tell me what kind of lightbulb I can buy.

    18. Re:so long... by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The amount of mercury in a typical CFL is around 4mg (http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls_mercury [energystar.gov])... Based on the MSDS http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/M1599.htm [jtbaker.com], that amount is WELL above the airborne exposure limits (40 times the OSHA upper limit).

      How were you planning to get all that mercury to go airborne? Do you normally fry light-bulbs on your stove?

    19. Re:so long... by T-Bone-T · · Score: 2, Informative

      Now with more identity!

      Your lights are on only an hour a day? That's astounding!

      Let's do correct numbers:
      60W incandescent: 60W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 5.6kWh
      13W CFL(60W equivalent: 13W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 1.2kWh

      That's a difference of 4.4kWh/month or $4.77/year/bulb. That means my CFL will pay for itself in a only few months.

    20. Re:so long... by Belial6 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      CFLs are strobe lights. That is just what they do. I cannot perceive it in most bulbs, but there is a good reason that they tell you not to plug in the florescent lights in you garage to the same circuit as your table saw. In theory they strobe fast enough that humans cannot see them, but given that florescent lights can trick your eyes if they are in sync with your table saw, it is clear that the strobing is not 100% outside of human perception.

      I tried to move to CFLs early on, and had to go back to incandescent until recently. The problem was that the IR the CFLs would produce would cause so much noise that remote controls frequently didn't work, and even worse, sometimes the bulbs would issue commands on their own. The first time that I was sitting at home alone with the curtains closed, and the TV started changing channels on it's own, I got a bit freaked out. After searching the house for whoever was screwing with me, I eventually figured out it was the CFLs changing the channels and volume.

      I am 95% CFL now, and this seems to be a problem that has been resolved.

    21. Re:so long... by dunkelfalke · · Score: 2, Informative

      There are CFLs with a CRI of 96 (CRI of 100 is real daylight). So much for that.

      --
      "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
    22. Re:so long... by commodore64_love · · Score: 2, Informative

      CORRECTED:
      (60 watt equivalent bulb vs. bulb)
      40W laser-produced incandescent: 40W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 3.7kWh
      13W Compact fluorescent light: 13W * 3.13hrs * 30 days = 1.2kWh
      .

      >>>That means my CFL will pay for itself in a only few months.

      Assuming your CFL does not die within a few months, as many of mine have done. And don't give me a load of crap about "buying poor quality" or "maybe you have bad electric". It was the enclosed fixture causing the internal CFL componenent to literally dryout and die. Furthermore the old incandescents I had in there worked perfectly for YEARS.

      This is nothing more than a WASTE of money.
      - Why should I settle for a netbook when I really need a full-sized laptop or desktop?
      - Why should I settle for Linux that won't play games or run Word, when a Windows or Mac works near-perfectly?
      - Why settle for an inferior CFL when the incandescent does the same job, and much much better?

      I'm not the type of person to settle unless there's good reason to do so (my $15 DSL is not as fast as $30 DSL, but it still lets me watch online tv). Especially when the reward is so small (pennies), or the hassle too great (prematurely dead CFLs), to be worth it.... it's like worrying about a speck of dust in a mud-flooded basement. It makes zero sense.

      Basically I'm not Californian. (just joking)

      We should be focusing our efforts on the big energy users like heaters and air conditioners (measured in 1000s of kilowatthours), and not trivial crap like lightbulbs which clearly don't work as well as the old technology.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    23. Re:so long... by Algan · · Score: 2, Informative

      True, but unless you're a professional that cares about the spectral composition of your light sources, it doesn't really matter. 99% of complaints about CFL light are related to color temperature, since most people grew up accustomed to the warm yellowish light provided by incandescent bulbs.

      --
      If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
    24. Re:so long... by radish · · Score: 2, Informative

      Right, but these are designed for use in enclosures. I was simply disputing the assertion that you can't use CFLs in recessed lighting - you can if you use the right bulbs, and further, they're not expensive. The ones I have are similar to these, but I paid about half the price quoted there.

      --

      ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

    25. Re:so long... by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      What was it Ben Franklin said? "Penny wise and dollar foolish."

      I think the Ben Franklin quote closest to what you were thinking was "a penny saved is a penny earned" And "Penny wise, pound foolish" was around, as far as I can tell, before Ben Franklin was born. I didn't even know that people said the non-alliterative version of "penny wise, dollar foolish" until I looked it up for this response. Damned butchery.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    26. Re:so long... by kestasjk · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Personally I prefer candles or kerosene lighting, I don't go for all this electricity bullshit.
      You see light is a part of the electro-magnetic spectrum and therefore the candela SI unit of light-- [... incoming wall of text about my stupid choice of lighting]

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
  2. Maybe I never noticed... by Pojut · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...but are Toshiba bulbs available over here in America, possibly under a different name? I don't recall ever seeing Toshiba-branded light bulbs on shelves here...

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:Maybe I never noticed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The commercial units of the major bulb brands (Philips, GE, Sylvania) sometimes cross-purchase and rebrand bulbs for retail sale. I would not be surprised if rebranded Toshiba bulbs were available under another name in the US.

      We (Philips) have written down our incandescent production assets and we're preparing to write down most of the halogen assets as well. Incandescents are not permitted for retail sale in most of the western world now, and halogens are about to be phased out in Europe. Halogena will stick around for a while because it passes the US efficiency standards, but we've been moving toward all LED for a while. The business is moving from production to luminaires (installation and design, computerized light management and efficiency systems). It's kind of funny because that's basically our original international business (the first international contract for Philips was lighting a museum in Russia). You should see some of the cool shit that Philips Color Kinetics is doing these days, and we've been buying up smaller "boutique" luminaires businesses lately.

      Another possibility is "fashion" lighting with replaceable light components. There are models for a continued lighting business in the absence of bulb production. The reality is that bulb production has become even more commoditized over the last ten years or so than it was. Incandescents were moved to Mexico, then to China, and the same has happened with CFL. TL might be next (we still have TL production in the US, but we also have it in China). Halogen/HID could be the last man standing.

      You can argue about the quality of the jobs in the production vs the luminaires business, but the reality is that the production jobs have been centered in less-developed parts of the country, often rural, with a less-educated workforce (the original "offshoring"). The luminares jobs require more education and are primarily centered in urban areas (the jobs are located near the customers). It's a major change for us.

      Break over, back to the real job.

  3. Flashlights by jimbobborg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I love my LED flashlights. I was a fan of Maglights, but the stupid bulbs would break. My five LED flashlights last a lot longer and I have yet to break and LED. Plus they put out more light than incandescent bulbs while using the same amount of battery charge.

    1. Re:Flashlights by jaymz666 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Mag makes LED torches too

    2. Re:Flashlights by polar+red · · Score: 2, Informative

      indeed, I have one that's already 3 years old. Still working fine. 10+ Hours of light with 1 set of batteries.

      --
      Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
    3. Re:Flashlights by OrangeCatholic · · Score: 2, Interesting

      >mostly my lights are to be seen

      Get two, and space them horizontally. The reason cyclists (and motorcyclists) get run over is because they are one-dimensional objects.

      I've seen avid cyclists with orange jackets and flashing lights all over the place, but as long as you're 1-D, the driver's eye will not be able to perform depth-perception on you.

      Imagine how many motorcycle accidents could be prevented with TWO headlights (and tail lights). Mass stupidity makes me cringe, especially when the fix is 0.2% of the cost of the bike. But hey, my LOUD pipes will save me...not.

    4. Re:Flashlights by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 2, Informative

      If you "like the feel" of a 6D cell Maglight you should probably consider switching to an LED emitter anyway. Conventional lightbulbs are slightly better for blinding people; but when you go all Rodney King on somebody, they tend to break(unless you are very careful about which end of the flashlight you are using). LEDs, by contrast, are substantially shock resistant.

  4. Better to burn our than to fade away by elrous0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    At least they'll be able to trash their remaining stock without getting mercury all over the goddamn place.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:Better to burn our than to fade away by Drethon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And that way their remaining stock wont be used to produce extra mercury from coal burning power plants!

  5. Go, go LED by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Excellent! Glad to see that they're moving into LED lighting; I love LED lights. I've been testing out several of the early model LED lights in my house, and they have been working great-- low power requirement, long life. And the technology has been getting better very rapidly.

    (And, unlike incandescent and CFLs, they're not particularly fragile).

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
    1. Re:Go, go LED by Mashdar · · Score: 2, Informative

      There has been dimmable LED lighting for years. Good luck finding quality LED fixtures for under $400, though.

    2. Re:Go, go LED by N+Monkey · · Score: 2, Informative

      Are they making dimmable LED lights yet?

      A quick search turned up this. I'd imagine there are other makes.

    3. Re:Go, go LED by SnarfQuest · · Score: 2, Funny

      The rectal, or the other kind?

      --
      Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
  6. Famous phrase.... by GPLDAN · · Score: 2, Funny

    Kids in 2082 studying history:


    Teacher: And in 1960, it was John Kennedy who said 'It is better to light a LED than to curse the darkness....'"

  7. Efficiency by wh1pp3t · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It will now focus on more energy efficient products, including LED (light-emitting diode) lights, which contain a handful of white LEDs and draw a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs.

    That use much more power and materials to manufacture than incandescent bulbs.

    I just love corporations using global stewardship to cover up apparent profit motives.
    /sarcasm

    1. Re:Efficiency by Scutter · · Score: 2, Funny

      Don't forget the price of convenience, changing a bulb can be incredibly annoying when they're in an awkward location or housing.

      That's why I never step it up to Red Alert.

      --

      "Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
    2. Re:Efficiency by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Come on, this is Slashdot! Using Google for a few minutes you get you the answer?

      A 13 W LED produces the same amount of light as a 40W incandescent bulb. According to studies, LEDs have an expected lifespan of roughly 50 times that of an incandescent bulb (1000 hours), albeit with reduced efficiency. Apparently the US Department of energy uses a factor of 25. (sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led#Sustainable_lighting and http://www.ehow.com/facts_5551995_incandescent-vs-led-power-consumption.html) so lets go with 25000 hours for a 13 W LED to be conservative.

      So your LED will last at least 25 times as long and use a third of the electricity.

      You will need to factor in your local electricity costs, but using an average of 12c/kWh (source http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html), you will save 0.027(kW)*25000(hours)*12(c/kWh) 8100 cents over the lifetime of the LED. Add to that the fact that you would have bought $25 dollars worth of bulbs in that period as well, you will have been $56 better off over the lifetime of the LED. This of course does not include any environmental costs saved by the two thirds reduction in energy requirements or incurred by the higher production costs of the LED.

      And to try to answer your question directly: taking 3.4 hours a day average light use (just picking a number here, fill in your own if you want) means you save 3.4(h/day)*0.027(kW)*12(c/kWh) = 1.1 cents a day. That means you earn back the extra $49 in a bit over 12 years. This does not factor in the fact that your normal bulbs will have needed to be replaced several times during that period, adding to the savings, nor the fact that we can pretty much count on electricity getting more expensive over time, not cheaper.

      So how many decades? 1.2, using these numbers.

  8. LED (light-emitting diode) by Culture20 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think by now you can stop expanding the LED acronym, especially on slashdot. Or are you someone who insists on putting devices for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation on sharks' heads?

  9. I love LED lights by Taibhsear · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And I've been waiting for the tech to get better and cheaper before switching. I will not use fluorescent lights in my home. My eyes are sensitive and they give me a headache, take too long to reach proper brightness, use mercury, and plus the color is off. I'd have switched to LED light, even with the higher prices, if they actually put out enough lumens. The highest I could find only put out the light equivalent of a 10-40W incandescent. It's fine for like going to the bathroom late at night or reading a book, but for working on anything important (art, fixing things, building things, etc) they are not acceptable. I hope this is a big enough push to get the tech moving along and the prices down.

    1. Re:I love LED lights by Mashdar · · Score: 3, Informative

      I work in the lighting field and have a few comments:
      1)The reason you can't find bright LEDs to go in your A19 fixtures is that they cannot be properly heat-sinked. Shedding heat is really important for LEDs, and requires some very nice heavy duty fixtures to keep the lamps at full output (heat wears the LEDs out faster, and they dim gradually rather than burning out).
      2) I refused to use CFLs in my house for years. You should buy several varieties and try them out, though. Some are actually very pleasing now. Sadly the choices for non-standard bulbs are still mostly terrible (I have yet to find a cheap R20 CFL I don't hate). Some of the Fiet lamps are for sale at walgreens for cheap and look pretty good. Seek lamps that say 3500K for the color temperature. (5000k will be very blue, 3000k or less will be reddish)
      3) Reading is an activity which ideally should have good lighting. Don't strain your eyes :)

  10. Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Normally I'd just point out that CFLs are now available even from non-specialized retailers in a wide variety of color temperatures, so you can easily replicate the dingy yellow tinge of an incandescent if you prefer it, and I wouldn't bother to wonder why you prefer it.

    But this is Slashdot, so I don't need to wonder, do I?

    GO OUTSIDE

    I know, there appears to be a giant hovering thermonuclear explosion hovering terrifyingly in the air. But, I promise, it won't hurt you. Just don't stand under it unprotected for more than a few hours straight, and don't stare directly at it. Look instead at the things around you which it has brightened. Notice the white (perhaps slightly bluish to your eyes) colors? That's the result of the object that non-geeks call the Sun, which puts out non-yellow light and which was actually responsible for most visible light for most of human history. Now look into places which the sun doesn't directly brighten, what we call the shade. You see the colors there, even more dramatically blue? Those are lit by what is called the sky - the thing above you that looks kind of like a far-away blue ceiling.

    I know, this non-yellow light may be associated with some sort of pain for you - perhaps outside is where you remember failing at sports, or being teased, or being assaulted or shunned as a small child? I feel for you, but remember: it's not the light's fault. This strange, bluish outside light is actually just as friendly as the glowing tungsten wires of mother's basement. Your eyes may even have already started to adjust, so that this light looks as normal to you do as it does to normal humans. Go on back inside for now, that's enough for one day, just remember what you've learned: real light can be friendly too.

  11. Make bastards frost-proof and we can continue... by SharpFang · · Score: 2, Informative

    From my experience, the lifetime of the energy-saving bulbs in -15C frost doesn't exceed 2 weeks. They are okay indoors, but I still use a standard bulb for the garage light. After replacing three supposedly "survives 20 bulbs" energy-saving ones in matter of two months.

    --
    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  12. Incandescent is ugly too... by Joce640k · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If you'd been brought up on CFLs or LEDs and they were trying to get you to switch to incandescents you'd be all, "It's horrible it makes everything look yellow!!!"

    --
    No sig today...
  13. Re:So? by Steve+Max · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There are absorption lines in sunlight. Photons whose energy matches an excitation level for atoms (or molecules) in the heliosphere are absorbed. This is very easy to see with a light spectrum analyzer, or in a Fraunhofer-style experiment. In a Fraunhofer difraction test you'll see something like this for sunlight, for example; a continuous spectrum wouldn't have black lines.

    Sunlight is almost continuous, with some absorption lines. CFLs have a really low continuous emission, and huge emission lines. That is the difference: absorption lines vs emission lines.

  14. go the way of vacuum tubes by confused+one · · Score: 2, Interesting

    but vacuum tubes are still available... Time to form a company to make "vintage" light bulbs for use in historical applications.

  15. Re:Aerosol Effect Education by c6gunner · · Score: 2, Informative

    I like how you cut out what they actually said, and replaced it with your own nonsense. Pretty slick.

    In fact, a CFL bulb has nowhere NEAR as much mercury as a blood pressure device. That's why the phrase that you quoted - and changed - actually says:

    "Spills from the breaking of a blood pressure device or larger sources can produce airborne levels high enough to cause serious poisoning and even death.

    In fact, the mercury content in a blood pressure device is likely to be measured in multiple grams, which is orders of magnitude higher than the 4 milligrams present in a CFL.