This thing is expensive — for now. Next year or two, with Chinese or Korean knockoffs, well under $10 for sure. Then, imagine the number of power plants we wouldn’t have to build if everyone switched to using them.
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Does anyone have an accurate estimate of the energy savings? I would say lighting is a small part of energy use.
80% of the energy we put into an incandescent is lost to heat,
Here in Michigan, that’s a feature. The heat isn’t waste at all, it’s the only 100% efficient source available. But, that only works in the winter.
32…Tell me if I’m on the right track here…LEDs are often strobed when used in battery-powered devices to increase run time. This dinking with the duty cycle has been typical with LED displays since forever. With the sorts of home lights now available, duty cycle can be used to dim them, or get extra brigtness at the potential expense of flicker. Obviously though, running them at 60 Hz is bad because unlike incandescents they go completely off between cycles…the rate has to be a lot higher, in the low kHz range. Been a while since I experimented with this.
We need to harness all the hot air that comes from Congress. It should power a small city. 🙂
he problem I have with my CFL bulbs is the time it takes for them to fire up – the …2…3…4… count bugs the SH*T out of me
Lots of good points … I’ve been using Compact Fluorescents for over a decade. They now don’t flicker as much on power-up, hum, or emit unsettling light as much as they used to. They are also available in more convenient sizes. However, I find that recently-manufactured CFLs don’t last as long as claimed.
Let’s do the math… about 100 million homes in the US. Assume each home has 500 watts of incandescent lighting on… that 50 GW.
About the same as 50 nuclear reactors at most – assuming all the lights are on.
BUT… since the peak load occurs in the day, when these lights are mostly off, the answer is near zero impact on the number of power stations.
39,
you didnt go far enough…
Most lighting and machenery, is ON during the day. After 5 pm it goes to the homes.
THINK of all the CFL(flouresent lights) that is turned OFF, at 5pm.
So many companies use flouresent lights, and OVER DO IT…
Then look at the Mall lighting…TONS of flouresents.
Things like this are great to work on, but only because they’re cool technology. We’re still going to die from Global Warming (TM). this just makes it more fun on the way out.