Today's NYT has an article on incandescent bulbs that meet the energy efficiency mandates that were expected to make them obsolete.
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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.
Looks good, I especially like the low parts count to make them. I hope someone combines the reflective coating technique with the laser- etched filament technique to possibly obtain even greater efficiencies. I never liked throwing out a ballast and all those other parts with a CFL. I still contend that the supply chain needed to make a CFL (resistors, transistors, capacitors, coils, mercury, phosphor, gas handling, etc) outweigh a simple bulb with only 5 low- tech parts. If you add up the total cost of manufacturing and mining and delivering the resources for all those individual parts then dump them all into landfills, I think the "true cost" of CFL goes way up. But the lobbyists conveniently leave out the cost of logistics and deep supplier costs associated with all the parts needed to make a CFL.
Not being a physicist, I don't know whether the combination is possible. I does seem an obvious way to further improve it. The laser etched filament seems similar to the "tungsten lattice" developed at Sandia Labs.
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.
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 >This looks like some interesting stuff Dave. In particular the 39
There hasn't been that many new products in the LED home lighting products that I encounter here in the sticks, but I'm also a flashlight fanatic - and there has been some really impressive products introduced over the past couple years. My latest flashlight is an Olight M30, 700 lumen blaster! This flashlight "feels" like it puts out as much light as the 1,000,000 CP lights from the sporting goods stores. It seems like ever other month they double the last record for output. I'm still of the opinion that LED will be the light of choice in the future for many applications in our homes and automobiles. While I'm not happy about the narrow beam of the LED lamps in my bath, I recognize that had I known about these lamps I could have planned the lighting to work around the lamps shortcomings. A couple extra recessed housings with LED lamps would give me the lighting I want and the wattage is so low a few extra lamps is nothing.
The notion that there is/will be a single 'winner' has always been -- and will continue to be -- overly simplistic in my opinion.
As new technologies emerge, they in turn provide opportunities, increase expectations, and create niche markets for what ultimately become 'must-have' goods. For example, many of us can remember when dimmable electric lights were not one of life's necessities ;-)
The lights in our kitchen are an example. There are now halogen incandescent, CFLs and LEDs in the ceiling cans. The LEDs are purposely 'white' types that complement well the natural daylight through the window. The CFL cans are
3200K and match the halogens at full brightness. 12vdc track lighting provides task illumination and, when dimmed, warm lighting for ambience.
The mix is similar but different on the outside of the house. I still haven't had to tie two ladders together to replace the halogen floodlights up at the third floor eves. And maybe I won't have to because we changed our outside lighting strategy to use candelabra-base CFLs' in the existing yard-level lamps and only turn on the floods as an emergency/security/special need. In this way we save maintenance, electricity and, with our change in expectation and behaviour, even better than before.
I also recently purchased an outdoor RGB LED wall-washer that is controlled by DMX512. It's the cat's meow for outdoor lighting. The output of the
110VAC-> 24vdc power supply is externally accessible. so it will be simple to power from the distributed DC power system in our house with its intrinsic backup.
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It can be 'infinitely' dimmed, the color changed subtly or garishly, and made to strobe or flash or otherwise vary intensity or color systematically for holiday lighting, or panic/emergency signaling or ambience, or whatever.
I've been experimenting with DMX in my house for a decade. The emergence of RGB and RGBY lighting becomes a compelling reason to have the multi-channel capability that DMX-512 provides. Eventually being able to change color and/or color temperature may become as much a "must-have" as dimmers ;-)
The assertion that others have claimed that CFLs would literally "save the world" is a false straw man you created to distract from your intemperate and disproved assertions and poor predictions.
There are at least four major energy sectors, residential being the second smallest. There will need to be reductions in each.
Using Dave's broken logic, there is nothing worth doing because any given use which in turn is only a fraction of the total usage within any of four major energy sectors. There are very roughly 16 use-sector subdivisions so each accounting for ~~6% -- EACH ONE OF WHICH needs to be reduced for global efforts to be successful.
Dave Keeps repeating this despite the fact that he now knows that current CFLs (at least those in my house) have power factors > 0.93 measured (with a Kill-a-watt).
[rest deleted] And like that. We've been through all this before.
Yes, I finished the article. It was a serious piece of work. I was disappointed that it was so heavily into the CFL with very little on LED. He did bring up some points about CFLs which I had not thought about before. All in all a good read. I still like LEDs ;-)
Thank you Marc for making that point. It's not a matter of which ONE is the solution. Every little bit counts. There is the matter of 'total' consumption cost. But I'm pained to read the endless rants from idiots decrying ANY new movement because they've managed to brew up some numbers that make it look bad. The status quo is obviously not working so some movement is going to be necessary. I accept that this will take multiple efforts on many different fronts. Thankfully there are more choices, naysayers be damned.
"Bill Kearney" a écrit dans le message de groupe de discussion : psadnb2KkKxf68HXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@speakeasy.net...
One sector that is not being looked at enough is the Fridge and freezer's that people have at home...
One of the worst energy dinosaurs fridge that most American have is the old
20+ years fridge that keep our beer cold in the garage..
I've replaced my 7 years old fridge in the kitchen by an energy star one and took the old one to the garage, and I dropped the very old one to be recycled properly.
This was 4 month ago, I already see a difference in my electrical consummation just by that move. (And the beers are still cold ;-))
According to the Department of Energy, only 9% of residential electricity use is for lighting so it should be obvious to even the simple minded enviro-nuts (except those who fabricate their own statistics) that there are bigger targets. Single malt, straight, without ice is another way to save (electricity, that is). ;)
BTW, have you replaced the new fridge's light with a CFL?
The obvious thing is that we need to address energy consumption on all fronts -- not just a few "big targets." By dragging feet on everything but the most difficult areas to improve, we further delay doing anything at all -- while things continue to get worse.
I've done about all I can down here. I have a 3 month old Trane VS two stage heat pump (SEER 19) coupled with a VS 3-stage propane furnace (95%).
I have many CFL's in/outside the house, plus LED lamps in a couple locations. ALL my appliances are energy star (thanks to the tornado 3 years back). I'm seriously considering a new VW Jetta TDI diesel - just waiting for Obama to get the cash for clunkers rebate program in full swing.
I have a 2 year old Plasma TV, but I sure would like one of the new energy efficient LED TVs ;-)
To (hopefully) clarify, LEDs are in fact intrinsically "dimmable". Their light output is conventionally dimmed by holding voltage more-or-less constant and reducing current.
But incandescent lamps are typically dimmed by reducing average voltage, not current. So in practice, standard, conventional TRIAC-based dimmers are not well suited for dimming LEDs because they dim by reducing average voltage and current is held more-or-less constant (varies with filament temperature) during conduction.
Another issue is the 'dimmer curve' of particular wall-mounted dimmer. One description of a dimmer curve is the relationship between the rotation (in degrees) of a physical dimmer knob to the phase angle (in degrees)of the TRIAC conduction (output). A typical household dimmer curve that is appropriate for incandescent lamps may not be appropriate for an LED-based lamp. This issue is well addressed by emerging electronic solutions as well as by some existing conventional 'professional' dimmer consoles and panels such as those used in entertainment venues using DMX (DMX512)
There is at least one IC on the market that addresses both the current-control and dimmer-curve issues by interpreting the complex "chopped" waveform created by a TRIAC-based dimmer into the information needed by an LED for continuous dimming with a useful dimmer curve and then providing the appropriate current to the LEDs.
National's LM3445 detects the 0-180 degree phase angle of a conventional TRIAC dimmer output and translates that information into a current output with a 1:100 dimming range (about 6-1/2 f-stops of light).
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Incorporation of this sort of smarter electronics into LED lamps will reduce or eliminate the problem that Bill describes. I have a pair of dimmable LEDs intended for ceiling cans in the kitchen which I can place on the same circuit as halogen incandescents and CFLs in which they perform admirably. Like CFLs, and unlike incandescents, they are not 'infinitely' dimmable, i.e, they have an abrupt shut-off at about four to five f-stops below full brightness.
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