The incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation.
Despite a decade of campaigns by the government and utilities to
persuade people to switch to energy-saving compact fluorescents,
incandescent bulbs still occupy an estimated 90 percent of household
sockets in the United States. Aside from the aesthetic and practical
objections to fluorescents, old-style incandescents have the advantage
of being remarkably cheap.
"There's
a massive misperception that incandescents are going away quickly,"
said Chris Calwell, a researcher with Ecos Consulting who studies the
bulb market. "There have been more incandescent innovations in the last
three years than in the last two decades."
The first bulbs to emerge from this push, Philips Lighting's Halogena
Energy Savers, are expensive compared with older incandescents. They
sell for $5 apiece and more, compared with as little as $ .25 for
standard bulbs.
But they are also 30% more efficient than older bulbs. Philips
says that a 70-watt Halogena Energy Saver gives off the same amount of
light as a traditional 100-watt bulb and lasts about three times as
long, eventually paying for itself.
The line, for now sold exclusively at Home Depot and on Amazon.com, is not as efficient as compact fluorescent light bulbs,
which can use 75 percent less energy than old-style bulbs. But the
Energy Saver line is finding favor with consumers who dislike the light
from fluorescent bulbs or are bothered by such factors as their slow
start-up time and mercury content.
"Due to the 2007 federal energy bill that phases out inefficient
incandescent light bulbs beginning in 2012, we are finally seeing a
race" to develop more efficient ones, said Noah Horowitz, senior
scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Some
of the leading work is under way at a company called Deposition
Sciences here in Santa Rosa. Its technology is a key component of the
new Philips bulb line.
The big three lighting companies -- General Electric, Osram Sylvania and Philips -- are all working on the technology, as is Auer Lighting of Germany and Toshiba of Japan.
A third technology, bulbs using light-emitting diodes,
promises remarkable gains in efficiency but is still expensive. Prices
can exceed $100 for a single LED bulb, and results from a government
testing program indicate such bulbs still have performance problems.
That
suggests that LEDs -- though widely used in specialized applications
like electronic products and, increasingly, street lights -- may not
displace incumbent technologies in the home any time soon.
Read More: NY Times
Green Directory: SolutionsForGreen.com ~ Certification Programs: GreenJobWizard.com
