A Super-Efficient Light Bulb 468
Chroniton writes with news of a Silicon Valley company, Luxim, that has developed a tiny, full-spectrum light bulb, based on a plasma of argon gas, that gives off as much light as a streetlight while using less power. The Tic Tac-sized bulb operates at temperatures up to 6000K and produces 140 lumens/watt, almost ten times as efficient as standard incandescent lamps, and twice the efficiency of high-end LEDs. The new bulbs also have a lifetime of 20,000 hours. There's no mention of mercury or other heavy metals, which pose a problem for compact fluorescents.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Commercial use (Score:3, Insightful)
Price? (Score:5, Insightful)
So...how much does it cost compared to an incandescent? Or an LED?
Dan Aris
Re:Light pollution (Score:5, Insightful)
What makes you think these aren't just going to be used to... replace streetlights? Halving the power usage of streetlights nationwide would reduce atmospheric pollution measurably. If the choice is between light pollution and atmospheric polution...
Re:Commercial use (Score:5, Insightful)
To the contrary. The eye's range of sensitivity is tuned to the solar spectrum, emitted at a blackbody temperature just a bit below 6000 K. A bulb is most efficient if it emits light in the spectrum that the eye is sensitive to, and not in, say the infrared spectrum. So a bulb emitting blackbody spectrum becomes more efficient as the emission temperature goes up, and peaks in efficiency at around 6000.
Incandescent bulbs are not inefficient because they are too hot-- they are inefficient because they are not hot enough. They run somewhere about 2500 or 3000, and hence most of the light is emitted in the infrared, not the visible.
140 lumens/watt (Score:1, Insightful)
Taken in the context of some of the other posts, I have trouble believing their claim. If the product was that good, they would make it for general use not just video projectors. If the product was that good, it would be a real breakthrough because it beats LEDs by around 40%.
Re:Light pollution (Score:5, Insightful)
Things I want to know (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Color temperature - will it do warm white or something similarly pleasant?
3. Argon... isn't that toxic? (since the summary mentioned hazardous materials but didn't point that out, high school chem is so long ago..)
4. Price if none of the above are problematic
5. Time to market.
If someone can answer those, I'll be genuinely interested
Wow imagine the argicultural uses (Score:3, Insightful)
God this shit here is worse than digg (Score:5, Insightful)
a) Temperature=!heat=!"OMG IT WILL KILL US!!!". You dont really want to know the "temperature" of the electron beam in your old style TV... (yeah, i know its not in thermodynamical equilibrium, and thus temperature is not defined, thus the "")
b) This is nothing really new. It is based on the same principle like the old sulfure-plasma lamps in the early 90s.
c) It doesnt scale down well. It needs its power provided by microwaves, which is not efficiently possible in the lower power range.
d) Yeah, it uses 250W. But provides as much light as a 1500W halogen thrower. Wake up, moms basement (which you are most familiar with) isnt the world, there are plenty of things you would like to have 10ks of lumens for.
e) Reinforced from d: Yeah, a 250W bulb can be energy efficent. Because it puts out a fucking lot light, numbnut.
f) Doesnt compare at all with leds: Leds have low surface brightness, are effiecent and dont scale UP well. This things have a very high surface brightness, are efficient and dont scape DOWN well. Apple, meet orange.
g) A better comparison would be vs HID: there they are supperior (longer lifetime, less dangerous, not much more complex driver (HIDs need a high-voltage ballast, too).
Where does it talk about cancer? Nowhere... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't believe people are modding you insightful. First, where does it say that anyone is stopping work on curing cancer? I must have missed that in the article.
Second, this thing saves power, which is typically a good thing (TM). Why, with the power we save, we might even have more resources to look for a cure for cancer!
Halving power usage of streetlights, easy. (Score:3, Insightful)
OK maybe not quite half, perhaps cut by a third. Why do we need near daylight conditions for drivers at 2 in the morning, when they have perfectly good headlights?
Re:Halving power usage of streetlights, easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Light pollution (Score:3, Insightful)
"During the vast majority of our evolution we didn't have artificial light, but we did just fine" During the vast majority of our evolution, we didn't drive cars. The culture was also completely different so we may or may not have had any reason to walk outside at night. We may have had better night vision "back then" because no one grew up with artificial lights.
The next time you're going to make a "We didn't have XYZ, but we did fine!" argument, think about it for 10 seconds. Chances are, you'll see that it's fatally flawed.
Re:Beware - Parent post links to a virus (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Halving power usage of streetlights, easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Light pollution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Light pollution (Score:3, Insightful)
We clearly did not do fine before artificial lighting. Think for a second about what color is associated with evil. In virtually every culture on the planet, it was black. Do you know why? Because when you would wander around in the black of night, your chances of dieing went up dramatically. Since lots more people died in the black of night, the night must have been inhabited by evil beings, and thus black is the color of evil and death. This is a pretty good indication that we didn't do fine.
Of course, maybe I am taking you all wrong. It is possible that you recognize that virtually all of our environmental problems are caused by over population, and when you say 'we did just fine', you could mean that having more people die by turning the lights off would be good for the environment. With that, I could agree, even if it was an uncomfortable agreement.
Re:Halving power usage of streetlights, easy. (Score:2, Insightful)
Good argument until you consider there are no streetlights on the interstate. Are there more accidents on the interstate because there are no streetlights or just because people can go faster on the interstate? Or maybe there aren't more accidents on the interstate anyway compared to within the city in which case your argument is definitely not good enough to support not turning off streetlights at 2AM to save money.