Re: Long Live the Incandescent!

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

John,

I also thought LEDs might be the winner but costs need to come down a lot
more plus they need to improve dispersion.

I've never denied that CFLs save money - I've only objected to the
propaganda that grossly over promised that they would save enough energy to
"save the world". If the 7% figure is accurate it means residential lighting
uses less than 3% of total US energy. (Interestingly, a study done in
Cambridge in the UK came up with the same figure.) Saving even half of that
3% isn't very significant, especially when most of the CFLs have low power
factors so the actual savings on the generation side ends up at much less
than 1%. As only about half of our electricity comes from coal-fired plants,
the reduction in C0² is near zero. Meanwhile, the rising sea levels and
disappearing arctic ice would indicate that we have already passed the point
of no return and that much more drastic measures are needed.

The obvious advantage of these new incandescents is that they can be built
on the same production lines used for the old style incandescents so
production costs should be lower.

BTW, the "tungsten lattice" project at Sandia and the silver band-pass
filter project at Rensselaer involved the same individual, Shawn-Yu Lin.

John M <2ac16mo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>This looks like some interesting stuff Dave.  In particular the 39
>page article will be on my nightstand to read in bed tonight.  I
>woould have bet that LEDs are the wave of the future.  In fact I have
>4 lamps in my bathroom fixture.  They product intensely white light.
>Unfortunately the light goes straight down with very little spill to
>the sides.  I've become accustomed to it, and lean a little further
>forward when I'm shaving ;-)  These were reasonably priced at Sam's
>Club for something like $7.00 each.  IIRC they use around 4 watts
>each.  For 16 watts they product a LOT of light.  At the same time
>I've been using CFLs for perhaps 14 or so years now and have been very
>happy with them other than much shorter life than advertised.
>
>Cheers,
>
>John, SW Missouri
>
>
>On Jul 6, 6:33 am, nob...@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston) wrote:
>> Today's NYT has an article on incandescent bulbs that meet the energy
>> efficiency mandates that were expected to make them obsolete.
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/energy-environment/06bulbs...
>>
>> And last week, when announcing tougher energy efficiency mandates for
>> straight tube fluorescents and reflector bulbs, Obama said that 7% of US
>> energy use goes for lighting. That's about the same percent that I had come
>> up with using DOE statistics and a far cry from the bogus 20-25% figure used
>> by the eco-terrorists and other Wallmart shills.
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/business/energy-environment/30light...
>>
>> And here's another interesting read on CFLs.
>>
>> http://sound.westhost.com/articles/incandescent.htm
>