Tuesday, Jul 8, 2008
Edison's 19th century invention still burns on, a wasteful contributor to global warming. There's got to be a better way.
Jun 16, 2004 | Let's say this first, because it isn't said nearly enough: The modern electric incandescent light bulb is an almost perfect consumer product, worthy of our admiration and praise. Measured on just about every axis -- cost, usefulness, reliability, attractiveness, practicability -- a standard light bulb beats out nearly everything else we consider dear to our lives. What else does so much so well for so little money, with so few hassles and no learning curve, safely and effectively, all the time?
The incandescent light bulb's near-perfection is, however, a mixed blessing. Electric light was invented in early 1800s by Humphry Davy and perfected later that century, in the form of a long-lasting bulb, by Thomas Edison. Innovation in incandescents has been remarkably static since then; the lights we use today have not changed substantially for decades. This is because the bulbs are so good. Incandescent bulbs so easily and reliably produce so much high-quality light that for the longest time we were all a bit blinded to their greatest flaw, inefficiency. More than 90 percent of the electricity consumed by a light bulb is wasted on heat.
When you think about it, the number seems incredible. Not just in terms of waste, but in the context of the human impact on our environment. Every time we switch on a light, we're contributing to global warming and the depletion of fossil fuels in a fantastically inefficient manner.
But who ever thinks about that? Who has ever asked for a redesigned light bulb? Much of what we find in this world is faulty or buggy, ripe for reinvention. Just about every product you can think of, starting with the PC and ending with toothpaste, could do with some kind of extreme makeover. The innocent incandescent light bulb does not seem like one of them.
Yet in the last few years, across a range of applications, the hegemony of the incandescent bulb has begun to flicker. Various lighting manufacturers, government agencies and utility companies are now working furiously at bringing us brighter alternatives. These parties are all taking different approaches to the task, and few of them proclaim so lofty a goal as bringing down the light bulb. Some of the groups -- such as the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which has sponsored innovative ways of persuading consumers to use efficient fluorescent lighting -- merely want people to start thinking about the inefficiency of incandescent bulbs the next time they're at the store.
Other agencies are looking for a more technologically sophisticated revolution in lighting. At government-sponsored labs like the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, as well as at numerous private companies around the world, researchers are attempting to produce high-powered white LED lights that might transform the way we light the world. LEDs -- light-emitting diodes -- are made from semiconductors rather than tungsten filaments; they efficiently convert electricity into light through a process known as electron-hole recombination.
LEDs are far from uncommon in your average electronic gadget, but recently these lights have been edging their way into unexpected places -- traffic signals, concert stages, billboards, automobiles and, perhaps one day, a practical white-light lamp for your home.
Replacing incandescents with more efficient lighting will undoubtedly be good for the planet. According to researchers at the Sandia Labs, one-fifth of all the electricity produced in the world is used for lighting. Doubling the average efficiency of white-light lamps -- through LEDs or fluorescents -- could reduce global electricity consumption by 10 percent and carbon emissions by 200 million tons a year. It could make the whole world a brighter, lighter place.
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