Linked by weildish on Wed 4th Feb 2009 04:54 UTC
Yes, actually. The old-school, inefficient, heat-generating incandescent bulbs are all but history, CFL (compact florescent) bulbs taking the pedestal what with how relatively inexpensive and efficient they are when it comes to both electricity consumption and overhead cost. However, even these may have a short-lived supremacy as British scientists developed a new way of "growing" the material needed for LEDs on silicon instead of sapphire wafers, which was the original and somewhat expensive way of doing it. Because of this, household-grade lights of LED nature can be produced for under $5.00 and last up to sixty years. LEDs are three times more efficient than CFLs, last substantially longer, and contain no mercury, so they're even more environmentally friendly. These wonder-bulbs are supposed to be available to consumers within two years. It is estimated that if these new bulbs were to be installed in every home and office, it would cut electricity used on lighting by 75%. I'll take twenty of those, please.
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Member since:
2005-09-21
Many bulbs meet they're early death by other means, such as surges in electricity, faulty wiring thats good enough most of the time, but unstable enough to kill bulbs like they were hired to do so. That along with temp/humidity fluctuation, physical damage, or poor workmanship in the bulb, not to mention you have no idea how certain materials age under the new duty's they have been given, you may find in a couple years some of the parts that make up the bulbs deteriorate in ways you never thought. So while its good to have longer lasting solutions on the horizon, its very unlikely they will reach the lofty goals they are talking about.