Laser Blast Makes Regular Light Bulbs Super-Efficient 559
guruevi writes with news that a process using an ultra-powerful laser can crank up the efficiency of everyday incandescent light bulbs. Using the same laser process covered several years ago, the tungsten filament has an array of nano- and micro-scale structures formed on the surface making the resulting light as bright as a 100-watt bulb while consuming less electricity than a 60-watt bulb and remaining much cheaper to produce. "The key to creating the super-filament is an ultra-brief, ultra-intense beam of light called a femtosecond laser pulse. The laser burst lasts only a few quadrillionths of a second. To get a grasp of that kind of speed, consider that a femtosecond is to a second what a second is to about 32 million years. During its brief burst, Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point. That intense blast forces the surface of the metal to form nanostructures and microstructures that dramatically alter how efficiently light can radiate from the filament."
Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Laser Blast Makes Regular Light Bulbs Super-Efficient
So that whole time in Star Wars, they were just trying to make each other Super-Efficient? That's a whole lot nicer than what I was led to believe was initially going on.
LASIK makes a lot more sense now too.
I'm learning!
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
I think you just redefined "learning". But, it is in line with a lot of the "facts" I've picked up on /.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Well I just learned how femtoseconds work. Thanks to TFS.
Though it might have been more helpfully put if they said that a car travelling at 40 furlongs per fortnight goes 6.652x10^-8 Angstroms in a femtosecond.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
I knew a girl like that in high school. At least, that's what other guys said she'd do but she never wanted to go out with me. Still, D&D was fun.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
Though it might have been more helpfully put if they said that a car travelling at 40 furlongs per fortnight goes 6.652x10^-8 Angstroms in a femtosecond.
A person I worked with during the Pioneer 12/13 Venus launch was responsible for a program called "orgeom" (orbital geometry, Fortran 4P on a PDP 11/40 iirc). For a lark, he first computed the trajectory using furlongs per fortnight. Later (I'm sure the two events were not linked) there was a VMS SYSGEN parameter called "IOTA" (an arbitrary value assigning kernel/exec computing time to a process for accounting purposes) somewhere around 4.0 or so that was measured in "microfortnights".
Resolved: Geek humour runs on a 14 day cycle.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
James Bond: Do you expect me to talk?
Auric Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to be more efficient!
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Couple this thing with a few femtosharks, and my high-efficiency evil lair will be complete.
Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score:4, Funny)
Couple this thing with a few femtosharks with frickin' femtolasers, and my high-efficiency evil lair will be complete.
There, fixed that for you.
And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Never. Incandescent light bulbs are banned from Europe in a coupe of months.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
They're not "banned", that makes us sound so draconian. It's just guideline, advice, to anyone who likes their freedom and who likes their hands being attached to the ends of their arms, not to try and buy or sell them... in a friendly kind of a way.
Production cost (Score:3, Interesting)
Hold on a sec. They're...
I'm having a little trouble with imagining how it could be efficient to do that for every lightbulb sold.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Production cost (Score:5, Informative)
So let's say for the sake of argument that the power and pulse length are both an order of magnitude larger. Then say it's only 10% efficient, so that the process actually takes 1kJ. This energy corresponds to all of 25 seconds at 40W. In other words, the break even lifetime is under one minute.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, but these incandescents contain nanoparticles which are going to reduce our world to grey goo! Fear! The certainty of yet another generation of children subjected to scientifically-proven mercury poisoning is much less scary than the possibility of the destruction of all life on earth!
Re:And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:4, Interesting)
You can find CFL bulbs that overcome these limitations [google.com], but it's unlikely you will find them in a store near you. If you really want to be green, buy florescent lamps where you don't have to throw out the ballast and bulb at the same time and don't use more light than you need.
power factor (Score:4, Informative)
a longer description of Power Factor:
http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~instlab/Experiments/05_FlurLamp/PowerFactor1.pdf [bgu.ac.il]
Re:And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:5, Informative)
1. Only if you use non-dimmer compatible CFLs. These are findable at the local walmart (at least my local one, YMMV) and are easily identified by "DIMMER COMPATIBLE!!!!" on the packaging.
2. No, they do not use that power, by definition. The power is sent through the lines and sent back. There is still transmission loss on that power and it increases plant load, but still less than an equivalent incandescent. a 100W equivalent CFL draws 23W, so 46VA (which gives us 40VAR) using his PF=0.5 figure. Let's be generous and say the grid loss is 50%. That brings the real power use to 23+(40*50%)=43W in actual power used and power company having to push out 46VA.
Compared to a normal 100W incandescent, you're still drawing less than half.
Compared to this new trick, we're drawing about 3/4s the power.
Re:And they will hit the shelves in... (Score:5, Informative)
But don't expect things like facts to convince the people who irrationally hate CFLs, you cannot reason people out of a position they have not reasoned themselves into.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Most CFLs have a power factor of 0.5. A device with a power factor of 0.5 means the device uses twice the rated power. Residential power users don't usually pay for the power needed to correct for a low power factor.
This doesn't seem like much of a problem on a device rated 11W especially if I'm not paying for the extra.
High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
But it doesn't matter (at least to those of us in the USA), because in 2014 incandescent bulbs will be banned.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Australia FTW!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6378161.stm [bbc.co.uk]
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch for sales of incandescent bulbs to triple in 2013.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
This is not correct, and, in fact, the restriction that motivates this misconception is, in fact, the reason why it matters particularly to those of us in the USA. There is no restriction, first of all, of incandescent bulbs meeting one or more of the exclusions or exceptions in Section 321 of the Energy
Independence and Security Act of 2007 (Pub.L. 110-140) [slashdot.org] (the law imposing the new restrictions), including:
* Bulbs producing less than 310 lumens
* Bulbs producing more than 2600 lumens
* Bulbs whose operating range is not with 110 V - 130 V
* Bulbs not intended for "general service" use
* Bulbs that don't have a "medium screw base"
* appliance lamps
* black light lamps
* bug lamps
* infrared lamps
* left-hand thread lamps
* marine lamps
* marine signal service lamps
* mine service lamps
* plant light lamps
* reflector lamps
* rough service lamps
* shatter-resistant (including shatter-proof and shatter-protected) lamps
* sign service lamps
* silver bowl lamps
* 3-way incadescent lamps
* traffic signal lamps
* G shape lamps with a diameter of 5 inches or more
* T shape lamps using not more than 40 watts or having a length of not more than 10 inches
* A B, BA, CA, F, G16-1/2, G-25, G30, S, or M-14 lamps using 40 watts or less
But, more importantly, even for the bulbs those that don't meet one of those exclusions, they aren't banned, they just need to be significantly more efficient than they currently are. Which the improved efficiency claimed by this process (more than meet.
IOW, if the results claimed are accurate and the process is commercially viable and this efficient for incandescent lamps generally, its quite likely that all classes of incandescent lamps (provided this process was applied to the manufacture of those covered by the Act) could continue to used in the US after the restrictions in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 go into effect, because this would make those bulbs covered by the Act efficient enough to continue to be used under the limits imposed by the Act.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
Since most power plants in the US (and many other countries too) burn coal, which contains mercury, these slightly-more-efficient incandescent lights will most likely end up dumping more mercury straight into the atmosphere (and then into the waterways with rain) over their lifetime than CFLs, which contain the mercury within the bulbs.
So in your quest to avoid mercury pollution by using incandescent bulbs, you're actually causing MORE mercury pollution in the long term.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, the ideal solution so far seems to be widespread LED lighting, combined with widespread nuclear power. With nuclear power, we could use incandescent bulbs without polluting the environment until LED bulbs sufficiently come down in price to be viable for use in every home.
I consider myself a true environmentalist, like Hank Hill; I believe in finding pragmatic solutions to keep our environmental treasures available for the next generations, by reducing unnecessary waste. Most modern ecomentalists are really just anti-industrialists and anti-technologists, fighting scientific progress. This is why they're opposed to nuclear power -- because it would allow our increasingly technological lifestyle to continue growing without killing the planet.
Sorry if this seems like a bit of a rant. It's not against you, it's just a beef I have. :)
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Insightful)
Out of genuine curiosity what would you do with the nuclear waste?
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Insightful)
The same thing that the Japanese and the Europeans do--reprocess it into the smallest possible quantities, and securely bury what's left. The volume of waste that this requires you to bury is inconsequentially small compared to the amount of solid waste (ash) you have to dispose of when you burn coal.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Informative)
You don't need to "dispose" of fly ash from coal burning. You give it to concrete makers and they use it as filler in concrete.
But yes, reprocessing is the best use of nuclear waste. It's a lot better than pouring tons of carbon dioxide and various pollutants (including mercury) into the atmosphere.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Power plants produce millions of tons of fly ash every year. Not all of it can be used in concrete filler (maybe 35% nationwide). In many cases, the fly ash needs to be post-processed before it can be used, which is added cost.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nobody has got that to work properly yet. The French made some progress but still have a lot of problems with reprocessing. Having to do absolutely everything by remote control and being very careful about containment makes reprocessing high grade waste a very difficult and expensive task.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You dont have to dispose of it from coal though, the wind does it for you!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Y is invariably a social engineering problem, not a physical engineering problem, based on fear born of ignorance and mistrust. The fact is that if we can otherwise store cubic miles of assorted dangerous industrial trash, we can certainly store cubic meters of nuclear waste.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
Uh, nuclear "waste" isn't a problem.
If it's radioactive we use it smaller plants.
There are "portable" nuclear reactors designed for neighborhoods, blocks, etc.
Lower yield material is still useful.
When it becomes too low-yield to be useful, simply bury it. It won't cause cancer or awaken latent mutant powers in angsty teenagers, even if it got exposed, released, etc.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Insightful)
With nuclear power, we could use incandescent bulbs without polluting the environment until LED bulbs sufficiently come down in price to be viable for use in every home.
I consider myself a true environmentalist, like Hank Hill; I believe in finding pragmatic solutions to keep our environmental treasures available for the next generations, by reducing unnecessary waste.
Okay, pragmatically speaking, how long do you think it will be until enough of our power is produced by nuclear and not by coal for this argument to work? And remember, we're talking pragmatics, so you can't calculate how long from now assuming the entire nation agrees that this is what we should do. Even if we could, we'd be talking decades, but we can't, so it'll be even longer. By the time it happens, I'm betting we'll already be switching to LEDs anyway.
CFLs are a fantastically pragmatic solution for today. They immediately give an efficiency and pollution improvement in most common situations in America. They work in existing outlets. They work today and are only getting better (more efficient, better light, less mercury). If in the future, as in a couple decades from now, we transition to something newer and better, then what's the problem?
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear works DECADES ago.
Hydroelectric works DECADES ago.
Solar works DECADES ago.
Wind works DECADES ago.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Informative)
Carnot Efficiency goes up with the temperature [wikipedia.org] you're adding to the system. At the temps nukes run at, it can be quite a bit better than 40%, and a lot better than the best photovoltaic cells in a labratory.
The most efficient use of solar power doesn't come from photovoltaics, but from solar reflectors [wikipedia.org], which are also limited by Carnot Efficiency.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First, about LED lighting: what are the environmental costs of producing it? Remember, semiconductors are usually produced in expensive fabs, which are known for needing a lot of fresh water to run. Of course, they do have the advantage of much longer life than other light sources, so this may not be a big problem.
LED lighting seems to me to be a matter of spending more upfront to gain a long-term benefit, both economically, and -- as you point out -- environmentally. LEDs manufacture causes a certain amount of environmental damage, but they last so much longer than either incandescent or fluorescent bulbs that it seems to be worth it, since we essentially never have to replace the bulbs (with exception for very strange environmental conditions to find in the home).
I was convinced enough that I replaced the incandesc
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Interesting)
The river was too hot because of the lack of water, not the nuclear power. When you dump heat into a river, it is almost instantly and completely transported away from the site. The volume of water mixing with it is also more then the discharge so it won't be a complete 1-1 transference.
Anyways, a drought in the area caused the river's water levels to drop so low that the sun was heating it up to dangerous temps on it's own. The call to shut the plants down was made because the water levels was too low and the current too slow to carry the heat away. This wasn't a situation where the power plants heated the water too much.
Plants along the Ohio River had to create contingency plans over the same scenario because throughout the summer the water levels were starting to get low there too.
This is something that has been a problem in the past. In most states, electric companies have had to employ feedback isolation units to protect pole workers and the line men have special safety procedure they have to employ before servicing an outage, and laws have been passed requiring generators and non-grid power sources to be totally isolated from the mains when in use. Most modern generators have circuit breakers built into them that will trip if the back feed into the grid because of the power drain.
About 25 years ago, good friend of mine (a line man for AEP) was knocked out of a bucket and fell 16 foot to the ground breaking his leg, arm, collar bone, and ribs plus suffered from burns over 15% of his body from a shock caused by someone plugging a generator into dryer outlet to feed the house without disconnecting the mains. The guy happened to be "fixing" the generator by bypassing the built in circuit breakers because they kept blowing, and achieved the successful fix about the same time he was reconnecting the downed lines. The power interrupters where pulled but the jolt blew a transformer and caused the electricity to jump the safety precautions that were normal at the time.
The problem and concern is the DIY people who don't spend the money on a qualified electrician to connect the units or don't maintain them properly or modify the systems somehow (putting larger units in place of rated equipment) because of lack of money, knowledge, or whatever reason. It's a real concern when "everybody" has it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you know that it's possible to recycle CFLs so that the mercury can be either re-used or disposed of according to federal guidelines?
You don't have to put them in the trash, ultimate destination: landfill. Moreover, if you do put them in the trash, you're despicable -- you can, for free, recycle your used (but not broken) CFLs at retailers like Home Depot (they are the one I know for sure; the EPA is working with other retail chains to implement similar programs -- and I believe som
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Insightful)
Coal power plants, not light bulbs, are the problem.
We need a sustainable electric grid, and the best way to create one right now is to tax coal and subsidize alternative power sources.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
and the best way to create one right now is to tax coal and subsidize alternative power sources.
And to subsidize efficiency increases. Every watt you save is a watt you don't have to generate.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Work on that plan while at the same time working on the CFL plan. Eventually, LEDs will replace CFLs (probably - or something even better). In the meantime, we can offset the tons of waste spewed out by the coal plants which includes mercury along with a whole host of other nasties. Switching to CFLs will actually make it EASIER to eventually replace conventional power plants, as your new technology won't have to support the same peak load.
So embrace CFLs, knowing that they aren't perfect but they are feasible.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not always. It might do so in a business where they could use the money saved to invest in something that sucked up more power. However, the increased efficiency in my house created by replacing burned out incandescent has resulted in zero increased demand from my house.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"est way to create one right now is to tax coal and subsidize alternative power sources."
Oh-kay - coal gets taxed. How about 10,000%, to punish coal for polluting the air. How much is your electric bill going to increase?
Maybe you're rich, and the increase won't hurt you.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
So in your quest to avoid mercury pollution by using incandescent bulbs, you're actually causing MORE mercury pollution in the long term.
Considering that the average American's face contains more mercury than 100 CFLs (~0.5g per filling, ~0.4mg per CFL), and CFLs are recyclable anyway, this truly smacks of a red herring like the environmental costs of the battery packs in hybrids/EVs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Apples and oranges. You're talking about two different problems as if they're the same problem.
The local problem with CFL's (they contain a trace of mercury) is outbalanced by the central problem of coal-burning releasing even more mercury.
The local problem with an internal combustion engine (it constantly pumps many pollutants into the environment) is not outbalanced by the central problem of power plant pollution.
These two statements would only be in contradiction if the polluting effect of the mercury i
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Insightful)
If the figures in TFA are correct, these slightly more efficient incandescents are about half as efficient as a CFL.
You only need 23W in CFL to make the equivalent of a 100W incandescent bulb. TFA says these new bulbs can do it with 60W. 60W is still 2.6 times as much power as 23W.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe you need to get a better brand. I've got plenty of CFLs that are 2-5 years old, some more. I usually buy Sylvania. I once got some "Commercial Electric" ones from Home Despot but they were terrible, taking several minutes to warm up to full brightness.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My experience is just about the opposite of yours. We began replacing incandescent with CFLs a little under three years ago, replacing bulbs only as the old ones died, and it took about six months to go all-CFL. Since we started the experiment, to date, we have had one CFL die. The first CFL we installed, nearly three years ago, is still going strong. It's too soon for any hard numbers, but the current data we have says that in our house, CFLs typically last at least six times as long as incandescents.
T
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:4, Interesting)
I hooked an arduino and solid state relay up to a lamp and stuck a CCFL in it. I set in to cycle it was abou 1S on 1S off 50/50 duty cycle. I walked away to do something and when I came back the bulb had shattered. I now know there are CCFLs meant to be switched on and off for signs but don't know the cost or how much of switching they can take.
Incandescents won't do that as badly but you should still use DC and a PWM driven circuit to ramp up and down while leaving the filament with some current to keep it warm but not producing light.
Re:High-efficeiency incandescent bulbs (Score:5, Informative)
Were these in a bathroom, by chance? Humidity will shorten the life of CFLs. They never say how much, though. I stick with incandescents in the bathroom and outdoors (very cold winters that cause the flourescents to take forever). You may also have some funky electrical problems in your house that the CFLs dying are simply a symptom of. I've bought the cheap home depot ones for years and have replaced maybe one CFL since. That's opposed to the bathroom, where the incandescents have been replaced over and over.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How's the power quality on those lines? Spikes and strong fluctuations can be pretty bad for any electronics device.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I think we might have the answer
(from Wikipedia)
"The life of a CFL is significantly shorter if it is only turned on for a few minutes at a time: In the case of a 5-minute on/off cycle the lifespan of a CFL can be up to 85% shorter, reducing its lifespan to the level of an incandescent lamp.[10][11][12]The US Energy Star program says to leave them on at least 15 minutes at a time to mitigate this problem."
And here I am programmed to turn off lights when I leave the room. This being the case, I am more of an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is what so many big government types just can't understand. If we want to protect the environment we need to adopt it as a personal value and we each need to look at situations and use our own judgment. One size fits all legislation will never provide an optimal result. There are lots of situations like pantry spaces where a light needs to be own for only a moment. There are no alternatives for that which are as clean as incandescents. You have to consider the manufacturing and disposal as wel
Too late (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Too late (Score:5, Funny)
But... with LEDs you don't get to shoot a powerful laser at a tungsten filament!
Re:LED's not as efficient as CFL (Score:3, Informative)
FYI the best Flourcent bulb is 100 lm/Watt (CFL is 60-72) while the best white LED is 131 lm/Watt (over 150 lm/Watt for some other colors.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_fluorescent_lamp#Energy_efficiency [wikipedia.org]
so while currently most CFL beat most LED in efficiency, inherently it looks like LED has a better future. Especially with LED lights having a longer (best case) lifetime, and being instant on to full power, and no high voltages present.
The LED at home being a new trend, with in-efficient transforme
Surprising, actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the plus side, greater efficiency in incandescents is always good(though I'd be quite interested to know how cheap laser treating filaments can possibly be). I predict that this thread will probably be infested by the "CCFLs are Evil!" brigade soon enough...
Consistency (Score:5, Insightful)
... and remaining much cheaper to produce.
... Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point.
What?
Re:Consistency (Score:5, Informative)
... Guo's laser unleashes as much power as the entire grid of North America onto a spot the size of a needle point.
What?
For one femtosecond (10^-15 seconds). Rough figure from the world factbook shows the U.S. + Canada averaging 497 GW. So, if the laser fired one thousand pulses per second, it would only draw 5 W from the wall (assuming 100% efficiency). It's another case of really big numbers combining with really small numbers to yield nothing spectacular.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Fermentosecond?
Is that the time it takes for me to down a beer?
Or is that the time it takes for hot dogs, baked beans, and doritos to produce their, um, 'gastrointestinal distress signal'?
So what about the places that have banned these? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not set an efficiency factor on a bulb(like cafe standards) instead of banning the different technologies?
Something I never understood.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, that's easy to answer. It's a tag. Makes it easy to spot where people have been bought to push certain agendas and fill pockets. Let me just ask you this: Do you think profit margins on old-school bulbs are a) smaller or b) larger than on more modern alternatives?
Whenever legislation is worded in such a way that it does not encourage competition to reach a certain goal, you can bet your cute fanny that the true goal of said legislation lies not in the stated goal but in the way as to get there.
That's ba
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Too late? (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.formplusfunction.com/blog/2009/will-incandescent-bulbs-soon-be-outlawed/ [formplusfunction.com]
unless they can get the new bulbs to 70% less power used.
The clock is ticking to 2014 (when 40watts are outlawed).
sorry for the link, didn't have time to find a reputable site...
Too late (Score:5, Insightful)
And live longer too.
Yes, their light used to look shitty, but these times are over now as well - if you don't buy the cheapest
there are, the light out of fluorescent bulbs is perfectly fine. And LED "bulbs" may soon be there too.
Re:Too late (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Too late (Score:4, Informative)
Home Depot recycles them for free now and infrastructure to recycle them is spreading all of the time.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Laser Blast? (Score:2)
Am I the only one who thought of this [gamespot.com]?
super! (Score:2, Funny)
Try less than a second. (Score:3, Informative)
Energy and Power are not the same. Specifically, Power is Energy divided by Time. W = E/t
Based on just the US [wikipedia.org], which for the sake of half-arsed napkin engineering on /. I will double to get total energy usage for North America in 2005, we're talking about 58000 TWh / 8760 h = 6.621 TW average power output.
Thus the laser pulse itself uses 6.621E12 W * 1E-12 J = 6.621 J.
The "efficient" lightbulb saves 40W. 6.621 J / 40 W = 0.165 s.
So it takes less than a second to recover the energy used by the laser. I'm
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
6.621E12 W * 1E-12 s = 6.621 J.
oops.
Also, I said "power" instead of "energy" at the end of my post. Heh.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
LOL and I screwed up the exponent for "femtosecond"! At least my title is still accurate, but it's really less than a millisecond that it would take to save the energy. I didn't mean to be that half-arsed!
FFS use standard units. (Score:5, Informative)
This is the might Slash. We can understand proper units.
Femto = 10^-15
Lifetime (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lifetime (Score:4, Informative)
Incandescent lamps fail because the hot filament sputters off metal, gradually thinning the filament until it breaks.
You can slow this down a little by using gases like halogens or krypton, which reverse the sputter or slow the sputter, but the benefit is not dramatic.
To dramatically increase lifetime, you run the filament less hot. But while the lifetime goes up as the square of the voltage going down, the efficiency goes down as the cube (I think it's the cube might be more). So for the sake of efficiency, you want the hottest filament you can have.
This is the tradeoff with double-life incandescent light bulbs. The money they save you in lamps is more than offset by the cost of electric. The filament is a colder blackbody source, it lasts longer, it's more yellow, and less efficient. Don't use them unless they're for a bulb that's hard to change, like something you have to climb a ladder to get to.
In the opposite way, running a 75-cent lightbulb above the rated 2700k temperature, you'll get it more efficient and get whiter light. The bulb won't last as long you'll have to change it frequently. Maybe that makes sense for you, maybe not.
Not really super-efficient (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a nice improvement for an inherently inefficient and quite dated technology, but hardly but hardly "super-efficient" in the larger sense of overall luminous efficacy.
shark (Score:3, Funny)
So does this mean every evil genius lair is now only complete with sharks with freekin' light bulbs on their heads?
Conservation (of electricity) is a red herring (Score:4, Insightful)
Conservation is a red herring: population growth will outstrip any resulting savings. Instead, we should focus on generating energy sustainably. We can do that today with a combination of wind, hydroelectric, and nuclear power.
Conservation almost always reduces our quality of life. Why should we do that when we have the technology to not only save the environment, but improve our lives as well? We should be encouraging people to use more energy when that power makes life easier. By all rights, electricity should be cheap and plentiful.
I can't help but wonder whether conservation advocates feel guilt over civilization itself. I certainly don't. There's no shame in using technology to make our lives better.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Conversation is good, but it happens automatically when resources are priced appropriately. Look at how Prius sales went through the roof when gasoline passed $4 per gallon.
Any time you need to set explicit efficiency regulations (like CAFE limits for automobiles, the incandescent bulb phase-out, and low-flow toilets), it's the result of an insufficiently-regulated market.
Re: (Score:3)
Conservation is futile in the presence of geometric population growth. Do you propose regulating reproduction as well?
As for energy: we have enough nuclear energy to last at least a thousand years with thorium and breeder reactors. If you don't want to go that route, there's a lot of uninhabited land to harness for solar, even at relatively low efficiency. And if that isn't good enough for you, there's orbital solar with practically unlimited potential.
Too late. Bye bye. (Score:3, Interesting)
an added bonus (Score:3, Interesting)
I remember reading somewhere that incandescent bulbs are made somewhere in America -- Tennessee? Whereas the great majority of CFLs come from China. If incandescent bulbs can be made significantly more efficient, and they're made locally, it sounds like a win-win to me.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Super Efficient? (Score:5, Informative)
Perhaps it operates more efficiently, but it doesn't sound like it is so efficient to produce. Unless I'm misunderstanding or misrepresenting the verbiage from the summary.
You forgot that femtosecond part. The usage of the whole USA grid is for an incredibly tiny fraction of a second, 10^15 of a second. The USA grid is 4x10^15 watts. So really, if you want to translate it into a more sane energy understanding, its about four watts per bulb to do this.
Re:Super Efficient? (Score:5, Informative)
You screwed up your units, there. (watts)x(seconds) = joules [google.com].
You also forgot the negative on the exponent, but I'll forgive you for that...
Anal for units (Score:3, Informative)
Watts is a measurement of joules per second, so if you multiple power by time (as in applying 4x10^15 Watts for 10^-15 seconds) you get 4 joules.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
There's an app for that.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Me and Steve Jobs shove iPhones up each other's asses for fun.
Steve Jobs and I.
Re:This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
The rest goes to feed the sharks.
Don't forget OLEDs. . . (Score:3, Informative)
Dunno if this is gonna happen yet, or not, but I've seen articles about the use of oLed sheets as light sources - instead of being a 'bulb' in the usual sense, think more like those ceiling mounted fluorescent light fixtures with diffusers so common in schools, office buildings, and retail. Or, think of a computer monitor that is all white (although, the light need not be pure white - could be offwhite colors - could even change the color when you want, maybe), but brighter. They also say that OLEDs will be
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
How many lightbulbs would they need to convert from 100W to 60W usage (over time) to equal the energy cost of 1 femto second laser blast
Dunno, but my guess is that for each lightbulb, it will take at least 3 Slashdotters to screw it in. One to hold the ladder, one to screw it in, and one to explain the significance of a femtosecond.
That's not including the dozen or so other Slashdotters who will want to attend and debate the relative merits of CFLs and LEDs, another dozen who insist they're wrong, a few ol
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
60W-equivalent (actual rating 11W) fluorescents are frequently on offer at ten for a quid: I've seen that deal twice in different stores in the last few months. Given how long they last, you could get yourself a lifetime's supply for the price of a decent round of drinks.