Gorebulbs rendered obsolete?
Some smart guys at Purdue have found a way to make efficient LED lighting cheaper to manufacture. Which could have some seriously awesome side effects:
…since about 1/3 of U.S. electricity is used to produce light, this is major. “If you replaced existing lighting with solid-state lighting, following some reasonable estimates for the penetration of that technology based on economics and other factors, it could reduce the amount of energy we consume for lighting by about one-third. That represents a 10 percent reduction of electricity consumption and a comparable reduction of related carbon emissions,” said Timothy D. Sands, professor of Materials Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering states at Purdue.
From what I’ve seen of LED lighting, it doesn’t flicker and make me tired the way CFL screwbulbs do. Plus it doesn’t have a bunch of toxic mercury inside it that no one really knows how to clean up if you should break one.
Previous Gorebulb blogging here and here.
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{Post by See-Dubya. Hat tip to Anwyn.}
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I’ve been following the LED developments for a while now, and there’s another benefit…LED bulbs are said to last up to 20 years. There’s another story in the NYT about Philips LEDs, however those bulbs cost $107 each.
Cost has been a huge factor, but if they can really lower the price, this is one bulb I will switch to.
I have learned NOT to jump on bandwagons. Everyone buying green bulbs or green cars are spending a lot more money than I am. In time, a lot of these fads will fade and I will still be driving my F150.
If I can read by them AND feel safer with them in the house, go for it. I hate CFL’s, they are too dim witted for me.
LED technology has made significant leaps in automotive lighting over the last few years. It seems logical that the technology would cross over to home use.
The answer is all in the math. If I can save money I will adopt the new technologies.
I will not simply jump on board for some so-called higher purpose. if a technology is viable it will win in the marketplace.
In fact I am researching solar technology for my vacation home. As well as geo-thermal. So far it looks promising.
Good Math makes life more fun.
Which is precisely why I do not allow CFL bulbs on my property.
I was offered a complimentary half-dozen a few months back by a privately sponsored environmental advocacy group that wanted to speak at our school about conservation, but I refused them. I told the person I didn’t have the money to pay for a haz-mat crew to come to my house and clean up should one of the bulbs get broken, which happens often around my house.
The person had no response or advice on how to remove the spilled mercury, only that the benefits to the environmet out-weighed the potential dangers.
Yeah, right!
LEDs are a great advance!
Low heat, low power draw, small size, no lag time to full brightness (watch some of the truck brake lights), high durability, low or no toxicity, huge advances in brightness, and multiple colors.
Once they get the costs down, which happens with all new tech, other lighting will be obsolete.
There’s an outfit called C. Crane that has been selling LED lights for a while, but they’re expensive. This is a very interesting development. I already own an LED flashlight which was given to me as a promo item by a business associate. I’ve had it for a year and I’m still using the original batteries!
The prices are coming down for LED and will continue to do so. Typically, the lamp manufacturers develop new products and then the fixture manufacturers try to find ways to incorporate them into efficient, attractive, and cost-effective luminaires.
I have been in the lighting bidnis for over 30 years and seen a lot of fads. The LED will gradually gain market share, but is still a way from replacing incandescents and compact fluorescents.
I hope Purdue has made a breakthrough, just what we need: more American ingenuity!
Why not ship them off to Gore’s megawatt estate? Our “hero” will know what to do with them!
If not, I have a few suggestions…
If they’re really that good, I expect the companies that manufacture the (awful, seizure- and migraine-inducing) CFC bulbs to pay off Congress to ban them. *heh*
I kept away from buying CFL’s till there were dimmables and 3 -ways. They came on the market and they were, in a word, crap…. failed after three months. Now I have a box full of these failures. LED’s seem to be a smarter alternative…. God bless incandescents.
I’m all for tech advancement. Just don’t force me to buy it when it debuts. Price usually dictates how I lead my life - not hype or coercion.
I always wondered what AlGore and his power hungry cult’s position was on toxic mercury cleanup regarding their light bulbs of choice. I suppose he would recommend buying more
of his company’s ‘carbon credits’ and, presto, problem solved.
Hmm, on second thought, Amy Klobochar, Keith Ellison, Oberstar and McCollum are gonna get small packages delivered soon….heh heh heh
You know if you break one of these bulb in your house and you have kids you might as well call the HAZMAT crew to come clean it up.
Al Gore is a total joke making money on fear mongering!
What a HOAX!!!!
I shall wait for His Exalted Lardship Algore to Render (poor choice of word with Lardship?) His Exalted Wisdom on all things LED. While the scientific and engineering communities have down great things with LED His Exalted Lardship Algore has yet to make a science fiction movie about it so I am at a loss.
What happens when the two Annointed, Exalted Ones meet? Will that create enough energy to solve our problems?
Fine choice there Rob, fine choice.
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Allah be Praised
Allie OOP OOP 2
Great.
Another miracle energy cure.
When do the Boon Pickens’ ads start?
When do the government subsidies start?
When do the government mandates start?
OMG, someone has put some thought into an energy saving device that will not poison the environment? Al Gore must be rolling over in his grave and he isn’t even dead yet.
This is great: LED trumps AAG!
A lesson I learned from watching the mistakes of others. In 1982 I worked in a video rental store and saw people pay between $1200 and $2000 for Betamax players.
Suffice to say, it was not their wisest purchase.
James Felix
Now wait a minute Beta was a great technology, really.
Was there an Alphamax?
And the LED lights do NOT give me a migraine.
Actually LED is wide spread now and I imagine you have devices with it. Now if we can keep Sammy and his DOE away from it we’ll see more advances. If DOE and friends get involved we’ll get locked into a static technology, waste billions and be no better for it.
The subsidies and mandates stopped real research into practicle-useful solar in favor of BIG. More Billions gone.
Fine post except for the headline. Why is Gore bad for advocating the best available technology?
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Allah be Praised
Allie OOP OOP 2
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damn, twice now )o:
Maybe CFC’s will be the Betamax of lightbulbs.
Because he is not? Because his whole premise is wrong, cost us Billions and stopping us from finding REAL solutions to REAL problems? Besides that not a damn thing lgm, not a thing.
Al Gore is a 21st century Flim Flam Man and that is all he is; flim flam as in crook. Buy some Carbon Credits and make the world a better place.
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Allah be Praised
Allie OOP OOP 2
Gore is bad because he’s a liar….. he “plays upon our fears”….heh.. had to do that…… he is hypocritical in his actions and he has NEVER ever been educated in climatology. Hell, I had a minor in meteorology and I know more than that dolt. CFL’s suck. and I ain’t talkin Canadian football.
He can buy it, he can shill for it, he can even choose not to use it himself, but when his “advocacy” turns to government coercion, he has gone too far.
Subtle point, probably lost on lgm.
LED technology has been around a long time and has a proven and easily tracked history and loads of statistics on power consumption and light emitted. It has just had limited uses due to cost.
The only LED I think I have in my house right now is the little green light on the ASUS motherboard in my computer.
I know people hate jumping bandwagons but if you are unfamiliar with the technology I would urge you look into it. Once the price comes down these will be everywhere and not just in computers and flashlights and truck lights like they are manufactured for now. I look forward to it, LED lights have a wide range of colors that can be used.
Oh, and thanks for the tip on where I should mail my gorebulbs when they burn out. I’m sure Gore will know how to dispose of the mercury.
I heard the same thing about CFL’s. I have been installing LED’s for some time. It is hit and miss like any other bulb.
Never bought the CFL’s just because I was told I should. Mercury issue was always there and, I will not submit!!!
lgm,
Just one (1 - you know how many that is, right?) CFL light bulb has enough mercury to render 6000 gallons of drinking water toxic.
Try that on for size.
There must be a host of things that one can do to reduce consumption, but stay with cheap incandescent lighting. Low voltage with transformers, drop down one category of wattage for most tasks, etc.
If the solution becomes more expensive, it ain’t a solution, IMO. My big, beautiful hydroelectric power plants use water - clean, going nowhere (remember the water cycle?), already built. no harmful emissions, dam power, baby!
Oh, I forgot, the enviros want to tear down the dams. And you wonder why I dislike the enviros so much…
I’ll buy these — as long as they’re not crammed down my throat. LEDs are way cool. I just wonder if the militant environmentalists will relinquish their death-grip on CFLs.
you can’t be serious, MERCURY eventually making it into the groundwater is the best available technology?
On July 29th, 2008 at 11:37 am, lgm said:
He’s not. He only advocates something if it’ll get him megabucks. Additionally, he’s a flaming hypocrite.
I hereby take an oath not to even dignify a response or slam on one of lgm’s moronic posts.
ajmontana
LGM, you sir are a moron.
Over the past decade many local governments have switched to LED traffic signals. The reduction in energy costs has been astounding, and the Return on Investment will be 2-3 years. Plus, if a single LED burns out, so what - there are hundreds of others still working. Burn out an incandescent bulb (especially the red one) and watch out!
Some municipalities are also looking at replacing the street lights with the white LED bulbs, but the successful application of that technology is still a few years away.
If I can save money to put to my other hobbies/addictions, I will.
I have a traditional photographic darkroom, and have used an amber LED bulb as a “safelight” for 4 years. It’s a 35 watt bulb and lights up my 12ft square darkroom brightly enough so I can easily read anywhere in the room.
Whoa…where are you (or where will you be) dumping your old, mercury-laden bulbs?
Best not be in my drinking water.
It is encouraging to see problems solved by technology. If we imposed a carbon tax of $5/gal on gas, you can bet that technology would develop pretty fast. The Prius of today would look like a gas guzzler.
America can solve problems once it faces them. We can solve global warming too.
Hail Purdue! Boilermaker ingenuity comes through again.
LED is what I am in the process of converting my house over too, less power usage and more life span. Just look at some of the cool things you can do with LED and I will tell you when people walk into your house they say “Thats cool, where did you get those light is that neon” and some of the task lighting in my kitchen is the LED bulbs, I must say it is expensive though but like everthing else, the more people buy and use the price will drop. So come on you guys I have 5 more rooms to do.
Nexxus lighting
Wiedamark lighting
TriNorth lighting
Look what $5 diesel is doing to our economy you idiot. You add $5 more dollars and this country would fall into depression the next day. Can even you be this stooped?
As for your ever loving Gorebal Warming, our climate is controlled by the sun and moon – not carbon. Carbon increases when the temperature increases. But don’t let the facts bother you (or brain damage for that matter). You want to help your cause? Quit breathing. We would all be much better off.
Actually, he’s rolling over in some powdered sugar like a giant donut…
The worst thing about Gorebulbs is how dim they are…
Hate to be the wet blanket, but when you make something cheaper, you don’t use less of it: You use more. If you make electrical lighting cheaper, more people will light things with electricity because it’s cheaper.
All the lefty enthusiasm for increasing energy efficiency to reduce energy use is similarly likely to produce perverse results. If they were able to get twice as many miles out of a gallon of gas, it would be the equivalent of cutting the price of gas in half and result in people driving more.
Exactly, I want more LED’s so go out and buy some.
Uh, they use a lot less energy than your Edison bulbs, so if the bulbs were cheaper than they are now, people would switch - reducing energy consumption. I’m assuming you wouldn’t put twice as many light fixtures in your house…
Cool. We currently use several CFLs at our house because my husband was desperate for a longer-lasting bulb. He was having to change our front porch light every 2-4 weeks. Insane.
Absolutely! It should only take a few years to develop a device to shrink solar output from our sun! Of course, we could always wait for the downturn of the solar cycle, but then we would just seem lazy… work harder, not smarter I always say!
/sarc
Who is this “WE” of which you speak? You go putting a heavy tax on gas and this country would fall into one BIG recession/depression.
Trucking company and railroad contracts would all be void with that big a jump; any goods they move would either have a huge increase in price or disappear altogether. Construction, Manufacturing and such would be toast.
Unemployment would jump through the roof and government service would collapse due the fall of Income and Social Security taxes. The fall in sales taxes would collapse local and state governments.
Let the government in the mix and you will have chaos, which might be a good thing.
Hell lgm, you just might be on to something. But in ten years come back and tell me about global warming. The ‘discredited’ global cooling model is the one you want to watch, If the Annointed One and His Lardship Algore let you.
And lgm is an idiot.
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Allah be Praised
Allie OOP OOP 2
Agreed.
You lost me. I contend that creativity is most effectively fostered through freedom and encouragement, not through punishment. Think of it like parenting.
Except that the globe has actually been cooling for the past eight years, and the computer models upon which the UN based its “scientific” studies (the ones that predict a 1-2 degree uptick in earth temperature over the next 100 years) have now been critically assessed as misapplied, and that a large professional organization of scientists has just reversed its position on man-made global warming, etc.
The only thing that drives me nuts about the tree-huggers is that they don’t know what they want. Use clean energy BUT don’t construct windmills; they kill the little birdies. Use CFL’s BUT don’t throw them out; they contain mercury.
Send all broken and burned out CFLs to the Algore-lgm Group.
I put some CFLs into lamps that stay on all night. They have to be 5/6 years old and I never had a problem. But that was my decision Algore, and only because I do not know they had mercury.
You are a Man among Men and a Hero to Us All and lgm isn’t. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
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Allah be Praised
Allie OOP OOP 2
So Congress is banning the sale of incandescent bulbs and shoving CFL’s down our throats, while technology and the marketplace — not government intervention — may soon give us affordable LED’s.
I think Congress owes my throat an apology.
Time to stock up on the incandescents.
I remember an episode of Mythbusters where they tested the myth that leaving lights on uses less electricity than if you turn them on and off over the course of the day (which was busted, of course). They tested the myth with a whole bunch of different bulbs, including an incandescent bulb, a CFL and an LED cluster bulb. The LED cluster bulb whooped the others when it came to power consumption, but I was disappointed to learn that LED cluster bulbs were expensive to buy. Let’s hope this changes things a bit, eh?
America can solve any problem confronting her, that is true, but only once the problem is defined.
Global warming is remains unproven and subject to doubt. Americans cannot solve problems that defy subjection to the basic tenent of the scientific method: definition. In short, we can’t solve problems that have not been proven empirically to exist.
“is/remains”
It was a student in the lab who quite accidently figured out how to make a LED produce a nice white light. Previously only a colored light was possible. LED’s are every where. Cars, computers, toasters, appliances, playstations, dvd players, got an appliance with a small light, it’s probably a LED. 2 years ago I changed every light bulb in my house with a cfl (over 70) including lamps, and monitored my electric bill. There was no change in kilowatts consumed. I compared 2 years of electric bills, yes I am a nerd. The bulbs in ceiling fixtures that hung upside down started burning out within a month, a common problem. The recessed can bulbs took 2 minutes to warm up to produce full light. Great for the long nights in MInnesota winters. Bulbs that are turned on and off frequently burn out quickly, another common problem for cfl’s. RIP cfl,s and good riddance. LED’s will rule. The costs will come down when demand mass production kicks in, think flat screen TV;s
Funny this should come up today. Less than a year ago, I replaced most of the bulbs in my house with CFLs, and just today, I noticed that one had burned out … the fifth one! The stinkin’ things were supposed to last 5-7 years.
Michelle. Come on now. Gorebulbs?
I hate changing bulbs, so I switched all my house bulbs almost 2 years ago to CFL bulbs. And I helped the Chinese by buying the cheapest ones I could find (6 for $6). Not one bulb has blown yet.
I don’t think the AlGore will benefit from my CFL bulbs. Go ahead, I know you want some.
Lynn, thank you for your dilligent efforts.
lgm won’t understand you though, because you have data and facts to back up your position. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t know fact if it bit him. Besides, anyone that believes that humans cause global warming has to be an idiot. This planet has warmed and cooled all on it’s own for 4 billion years. There have been times when the temperature on the planet was much warmer than today. It has cycled through these warming and cooling periods and will do so again without our feeble attempts to help or hinder it.
Get a clue, lgm. If you want to ruin a country, go start your own. Don’t ruin ours with your socialist stupidity.
lgm says:
LMAO Kool-Aid anyone?
Saving lighting costs will put some coin back in people’s pockets and reduce coal consumption by a noticeable margin, what will likely happen is that coal exports will rise as they’ll not be likely to reduce production capacity. Prices of coal will go down to make it more competitive. then level out. Changing lighting demands won’t have as much impact on our consumption of Oil.
But we don’t need the government to force us to understand the benefits of using more efficient lighting do we?