ESL — a CRT-Based Replacement For CFL Lights Without the Mercury

New submitter An dochasac writes "Everyone knows incandescent lights are inefficient little space heaters which happen to convert 5% of their incoming energy to light. Compact Fluorescents (CFLs) are more efficient, but they contain toxic, brain-eating mercury and emit a greenish light. LEDs are also efficient and last longer, but if their blueish 'white' light doesn't mess up your melatonin balance, their price is high enough to wreck your checking account balance and give you the blues. A company called Vu1 has come up with something called Electron Stimulated Luminance (ESL) lights which claim to solve the mercury and price problem with a light based on Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) technology. These lights have the warm color balance of incandescents and are compatible with dimmer switches. The article has further ESL details along with an explanation of why it's still a bad idea to say these are 'trash can safe.'"

Comments

It only took a century

[i kan reed]

But we're finally trying to improve the lightbulb again. Thanks, energy crisis.

Re:It only took a century

[Attila Dimedici]

People have been trying to improve the lightbulb ever since it was invented. They have, so far, been unsuccessful, which is why they had to lobby the government to get rid of traditional incandescent lightbulbs, so that they could sell the "improved" bulbs they had developed.
If they had actually improved on the traditional incandescent, they would not need to have a law passed in order to displace it, people would have switched. Do people need to have laws passed against old computers to get people to buy new ones?

Re:It only took a century

[Kenja]

The LED bulbs I'm using sure seem to be an improvement. But perhaps you're using some metric other then price, quality, efficiency or environmental impact.

Re:It only took a century

[green1]

Price: LED $27.98, Incandescent $0.43 (Comparison of 60w incandescent vs 9w LED (approximately same brightness) at local home depot store)
Efficiency: 9w vs 60w, that's an improvement.
quality: very little ever goes wrong with incandescent bulbs, they work until they eventually burn out, often many years later. LEDs theoretically last longer, but there is a lot more that can go wrong with them, and I've seen many reports of individual LEDs within the arrays not working, or annoying flickers developing etc. Quality may be a wash, but it certainly isn't something I would easily award to the LED side.
Environmental impact... this is really hard to tell, sure the LED uses less electricity, but there is a LOT more involved in the manufacture as well including various components that are not exactly great environmentally. Additionally they are generally manufactured overseas and not locally as Incandescent bulbs are, so there's the shipping impact to add in to that as well. and when it comes to disposal, incandescents are just glass and metal, LED bulbs leave a bit more of a question as to their environmental impact.

Now for the bad news. I also can't give you usability. Sure they work just fine in standard fixtures, however they don't work in a couple of extremely common applications. 1) oven lights 2) microwave lights 3) enclosed fixtures (apparently the electronics can't handle the heat they generate) 4) dimmers (sure they CLAIM to dim, but I have never found any type of bulb other than incandescent that actually does, and I've tried quite a few)

Incandescent bulbs have 2 huge drawbacks, lifespan and efficiency. But they have everything else going for them. So far those 2 drawbacks are the only thing any of the replacements do have going for them, at the expense of all the others.

People want an improved light bulb, they just haven't seen one yet.

Re:It only took a century

[Hatta]

But perhaps you're using some metric

Spectrum.

Efficiency Depends On What You're Effishing For

[sehlat]

There are still good uses for incandescents, particularly in environments where the heat is a major benefit.

As an example, my wife's theater group has a detached wooden shed which is used to store costumes, wigs, etc. She keeps a 60-watt light bulb burning in that shed to keep the place warm enough that condensation and mildew aren't a problem. Since the bulb hangs in open space from the ceiling, it's a lot safer and much more efficient than any space heater, and it's also cost effective, since, as noted, it keeps mildew down.

Re:Efficiency Depends On What You're Effishing For

[Millennium]

And don't forget the lava lamps.

Please, won't someone think of the lava lamps?

Re:Efficiency Depends On What You're Effishing For

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget traffic lights. In cities up north that have replaced their traffic lights with LED units they are having problems with the lights getting obscured by snow and ice. The old incandescent bulbs kept the temperature up and melted the snow,

LED FUD?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get LEDs in any color balance you want now, including very warm color balances. For example:
http://www.cree.com/products/xlamp_mtg.asp

And price is falling fast:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitz's_Law

The lighting industry is rapidly gearing up for a complete transition to LED lighting.

The melatonin study? The comparison point is high pressure sodium, which produces very yellow light. I'd be surprised if there is anything specific to LEDs as compared to any other light with decent Color Rendering Index, other than that they are efficient enough to be a candidate to replace High Pressure Sodium.

Warm white? Yuck!

[Anonymous Coward]

I go out of my way to find daylight or cool-white bulbs. I have been living with cool white for over 10 years and when I see a regular incandescent bulb outputting that putrid yellow color, I cringe. It is awful. This is the year 2012. Why do we still want our artificial light to be the same color of candles used back in the stupid ages?

Warm LEDs [Re:It only took a century]

[Geoffrey.landis]

But we're finally trying to improve the lightbulb again. Thanks, energy crisis.

I'm not sure that they know what they're talking about when they say the "bluish 'white' light" of LEDs. Maybe five years ago white LEDs had a blue tint, but these days you can buy consumer LED bulbs in about any color temperature you like, including the "warm" light indistinguishable from incandescents.

fail: 30 lumens per watt

[madbavarian]

Their ads claim that it has similar efficiency to a CFL, but that is far from true for the CFL's one finds at Home Depot or similar.

The company's VU1 is 600 Lumens and uses 19.5 watts. (ref: http://www.jetsongreen.com/2011/11/vu1-esl-r30-light-bulb-lowes.html ) This comes out to 30 Lumens per watt.

A typical under $4 CFL from home depot puts out 1500 Lumens using 23 watts for 65 Lumens per watt or more than twice as much light for the same input power. (ref: http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-100686995/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=100%20watt%20cfl&storeId=10051 )

Mercury in Seafood-equivalents

[Guppy]

A couple years back, I wanted to get some perspective on just how much mercury is in a CFL. After looking up values for a typical CFL bulb, it turned out the entire mercury content of the bulb was equivalent to 4-5 pounds of swordfish.

Not sure if that's an endorsement for the safety of CFLs, or a warning to the effects of bio-accumulation on seafood.