Daily Loaf

Back in 2007, when Congress passed a law setting more stringent rules on the manufacture of light bulbs, a lot of people sounded the death knell for Thomas Edison’s incandescent bulb. Australia got rid of them, along with a few other countries, and news articles and blog entries in the United States dubbed the planned phasing out as a full-on “ban.” Now, with President Obama’s most recent call to make lighting more efficient in homes and businesses, it again seems that the incandescent bulb will go the way of the dodo in the name of energy savings.

Or will it? It seems that some folks are instead using this governmental push for efficiency as the kick in the pants they needed to finally stop making outdated products.

As one example, companies like Deposition Sciences, an optical-coating company in California, are working to make special reflective coatings to surround an incandescent bulb’s filament and make it more efficient. When a tungsten filament is used to make light, most of the energy is actually wasted in the form of heat, not light. It is hoped that special coatings can make a heat mirror that will reflect heat back into the filament and transform that into light. So far, such coatings have created only a 30-percent increase in efficiency in bulbs that have been sold so far, but Deposition Sciences says it has gotten a 50-percent increase in the labs. This tech is being used in bulbs like the Philips Lighting Halogena Energy Savers. Such bulbs are reputedly not as efficient as CFLs, but they do create an alternative to the slower start-up times, potentially dangerous mercury content and other components that lead some to criticize CFLs.

However, some people have just bitten the bullet and focused on non-incandescent options, like working with LED bulbs. LEDs (light-emitting diodes) can be clustered together to make a larger light source, like a bulb you can stick in that lamp on your end table. The advantage is that, through the joys of parallel circuitry and the like, if one little diode dies, there are still plenty other diodes pumping out light like nothing’s wrong, so the “bulb” lasts for a good long while. The disadvantage is that such bulbs are expensive – usually ranging from $65 up to $100 and $120 apiece. Now, I like the concept, and mercury is also not a factor with these bulbs, but I don’t want to have to sell my liver just to buy one. Here’s hoping scientists can think up a way to lower the price tag.

The bottom line is that legislation might be getting tougher, but innovations in energy efficiency might just help the future look a little greener (and brighter, natch).

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