Toshiba says goodbye to incandescent light bulbs

[wpsedgwick]

Source: Examiner

Toshiba announced the end of its manufacture of mass-market incandescent light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs use a ton of energy, burn out quickly and pale in comparison in terms of energy efficiency to CFLs and LEDs.

The move ends the company’s 120-year history of incandescent bulb production. The decision signals that the lighting industry is poised to become significantly greener.

"Toshiba estimates that switching 60 percent of the world's incandescent lights with LED lights would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 125.5 million tons in 2025, compared to 2000," the company said in a statement.

Read more: http://www.examiner.com/x-42287-Chicago-Green-Technology-Examiner~y2010m4d6-Toshiba-says-goodbye-to-incandescent-light-bulbs

[Paulie]

1. What will I use in my oven?

Can we bake LED's? :)

[4lbs]

3. Use a LED flashlight to look in the window?

:shrug:

[Warpy]

6. That's what I do

only I use a kiddie flashlight that uses 4 AA batteries. As long as I keep the door glass clean, it works just fine. The inside of the oven is a pale grey and that helps.

[jeff47]

4. Yep (nt)

[Taverner]

14. There are multiple ways to skin that cat

High Pressure Sodium, Metal Halide, Mercury Vapor, and LED as well

[kentauros]

20. You could also just open the oven door and look.

According to Harold McGee's book "The Curious Cook", you can leave the oven door open for up to a minute. The interior temperature may drop a hundred degrees, but will go right back up to normal temperature in less than a minute when the door is closed again.

I have no window and no interior bulb in my oven and never have a problem opening the door long enough to turn a dish. However, I also keep a large baking stone on the lowest rack, so that's some added thermal mass. Still, if all you want to do is check your food, opening the door for a few seconds isn't going to ruin it ;)

[Incitatus]

22. I know. It's going to take me forever bake a cake with LEDs.

[tomm2thumbs]

24. probably fiberoptic will lead the light to the oven and keep the heat from the bulb

just my 2 cents

[Canuckistanian]

27. That's a good question

I've banished incandescents in my house - but those pesky oven bulbs just don't seem to have a replacement.

Also, my Lava lamp. It uses the same bulb.

[bainz]

2. Or we could just use the sun

It's already there

[jeff47]

5. Except at night (nt)

[The Straight Story]

7. It turns into the moon at night

:)

[jeff47]

11. Which isn't very bright for about 14 out of every 28 days. (nt)

[Canuckistanian]

28. You are wise in the ways of science

May I follow you for a few years to learn your wisdom? I'll be no trouble and I flog myself regularly, so it would be no bother to you....

[The Straight Story]

29. No need to follow me, just follow others in science who are always right

;)

[Renew Deal]

8. Bullshit!

I looked outside and I don't see no sun.

[Taverner]

15. Um....yeah

The sun will really work at night.

Sure, SOLAR panels - but they have to use something to luminate

But going back to living in caves is no priority of mine

[4lbs]

9. CFLs have cut the electricity costs at my house.

CFL = Compact Flourescent Lightbulb

I replaced nearly all the bulbs in the lamps with CFLs some years ago, 23 watts each, which have the same brightness as a 100-watt incandescent bulb. Even though some of them I leave on for 4 or 5 hours at a time, my electricity bill decreased.

I still use incandescent in rooms that will be frequently turned on/off or that get really humid. That means bathroom and kitchen.

CFLs, while lasting longer than incandescent bulbs, still have a weakness in that their internal electronic relays are only designed to last about 2000 cycles. That means turning on and off 2000 times.

So, if you put a CFL in a socket and turn it on/off about 10 times a day, it will last only about 200 days. They were designed to be turned on, left on for several hours, and then turned off, just once or twice a day.

CFLs use 1/4 the power as the equivalent incandescent on average, so leave them on twice as long, and you'll actually save money. A 100-watt incandescent left on for 10 hours, uses 1 kWh of power. A 23-watt CFL, left on for 20 hours, uses less than half that.

1 kWh = 1000 Watts for 1 hour, or 100 Watts for 10 hours. Take the number of watts of the device multiplied by the number of hours used and divide by 1000. That's the kWh usage.

Another weakness of the CFL is dimmer switches. CFLs don't work well with dimmer switches. The internal electronics require a certain amount of power, and dimmer switches cut that down, screwing with the CFL.

If you want to have the ability to dim the lights to create a certain mood or ambience, it's better to get a separate small lamp, and install a 9 watt CFL in it instead of trying to use a dimmer switch with 23 or 30 watt CFL. A 9-watt CFL is almost the same as a 40-watt incandescent bulb.

I have a regular 23-watt CFL lamp that I turn on from 6:00pm to 11:00pm. Then I turn it off, and turn on the lamp with the 9-watt CFL for minimal lighting from 11:00pm to 1:00 or 2:00 am.

Total power usage? 23 watts * 5 hours + 9 watts * 3 hours = 142 watt hours, or 0.142 kWh.

If I left a 100-watt incandescent bulb on for just 2 hours? That's 200 watt hours, or 0.200 kWh.

So, even though I've gotten 5 hours of full light, and 3 hours of dim lighting from two different CFLs, that 8 hours uses less power than the incandescent bulb left on for a mere 2 hours.

That's 29% less power usage from just the lighting, even though I've left the lights on for a much longer period of time than I used to with incandescent.

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. We use CFLs but are going to (slowly, due to the cost) switch over to LEDs. Already have

them in the kids' student lamps by their beds. (Which they leave on all night, hence the need for a cool temperature low energy light source. Tried nightlights, but no dice. Not bright enough.)

[DCKit]

13. Wishing I could rec your post.

Not too many people actually THINK about these things, and you even got the on/off cycle thing right. Closets are the worst place to put a CFL, despite CA's new laws mandating them everywhere.

CFLs burn out in one of three ways:

1) All the mercury is absorbed into the glass (time limitation)
2) The electrodes vaporize completely (on/off cycles)
3) Bad electronics

The whole 2,000 cycles vs. hours is based on a balance between the amount of mercury and the mass of the electrodes at manufacture. I've got one of the early (huge) bulbs that's going on twelve years of continuous use in my kitchen.

[Greyskye]

21. +10 I learned quite a bit from your post.

Thanks!

[eppur_se_muova]

10. This .... is a BFD.

We're seeing an outmoded technology fading away.

I predicted this, of course. *ahem* Certainly I did.

http://banthebulb.org/

EDIT to add link

[Taverner]

16. Good

Time to move to more efficient technology

[Mr. Sparkle]

17. I read recently that Approximately 90% of the energy consumed by incandescent light bulbs

is emitted as heat. So it is a good thing.

The only downside is, imo, that they still are the better light bulbs, as there performance is better than there energy saving counter parts.

[Psephos]

31. The heat is not wasted during months when the furnace runs.

It's only wasted during months when the AC is running.

Here in Michigan, incandescent heat can be put to use at least six months of the year. Comes right off the heating bill.

[Mr. Sparkle]

33. How ?

[Tesha]

35. The heat isn't wasted if you'd need some other energy source to heat the building.

But you are buying expensive electric heat rather than cheaper oil
or natural gas heat (or even better, solar heat).

Tesha

[NYC_SKP]

18. And CFLs are on their way out, too. LED's are the future.

Department of Energy plans to phase out tungsten bulbs in four years an CFLs in ten.

LEDs have lifespans of 30,000 to 100,000 hours and put out more light for the energy than CFLs or incandescent lamps.

Read more: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x239969

Here's a 5,000 lumen LED array, 48 watts, more light output than a 300 watt incandescent.



:patriot:

[RC]

19. What color are they?

That harsh bluish color doesn't cut it. I want Daylight for truer colors.

[tomm2thumbs]

23. I just recently found a great warm version at Home Depot - in of all places, the

outdoor lighting dept from Malibu. Rigged it in a friend's home for indoor spotlight, but it was the first LED I ever saw that looked on par with incandescent - and was better than halogen which can often be greenish. And under 10 watts for a lot of light and will last years many times over.

I do think the good LEDs will be coming en masse within a year or so - they are already making their way into specialty lighting stores. I agree about the cold cheapy blue-ish white LEDs that you see from the first generation. Just horrid.

[Tesha]

36. Halogens are *NEVER* greenish. Perhaps you meant mercury vapor or metal halide? (NT)

[tomm2thumbs]

38. maybe they are repackaging them but the IKEA lights I got were greenish

http://www.amazon.com/WATTS-HALOGEN-LIGHT-DEGREE-SPREAD/product-reviews/B000XQ2F7C/ref=dp_db_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

they seem to have had the same problem - wondering if companies are relabeling because I thought that halogens were warm too and I was surprised.

[Heywood J]

25. LEDs can be made into nearly any color you need.

Especially since they can be arranged into arrays for bulb-sizing. It's like an LED TV displaying white light or any other color. Individual LEDs aren't bright enough to use as a bulb-replacement, and they're very directional. They pretty much have to be clusters or arrays.

[Crowman1979]

26. Can't wait for LED Black Lights!

:hippie:

[Tesha]

37. Ultraviolet LEDs already exist; I have a bag full of them...

...and the grandkids have "penlights" that are UV (used in a game).

Tesha

[tomm2thumbs]

39. you are right on the money!

http://www.cheaplights.com/cgi-cheaplights/sb/productsearch.cgi?__utma=1.1367412304.1270697212.1270697212.1270697212.1&__utmb=1&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1270697212.1.1.utmccn%3D(referral)%7Cutmcsr%3Dcheaplights.com%7Cutmcct%3D%2F%7Cutmcmd%3Dreferral&__utmv=-&__utmk=219298330

I know there are stick ones out there too

[NYC_SKP]

30. They come in "cool" and "warm", neither of these two are that blue you refer to.

The gel coating warms up the color profile. The 5000 lumen array is cool, the warm one has a lower lumen rating due to the gel.

Often, these are combined to get whatever color effect you desire.

Other mfgrs like CREE offer a very wide range by color temperature.

[tomm2thumbs]

40. Cree

I remember Cree a long time ago was the first company I know of that introduced the blue LED - which was amazing at the time - so much as changed, but still amazed by the wattage and brightness differences. LED's - love'em.

[truthisfreedom]

32. Yuck.

Yeah, yeah, we have to go green, blah blah blah, but I bet that the mercury (yes, there's mercury in fluorescent bulbs) and the carbon footprint necessary to make those ugly CFLs pretty much sucks.

I hate the look of white leds and all CFLs and fluorescents. We need clean energy, not new light bulbs.

[Xithras]

34. I just converted my kitchen back to incandescents :(

My kitchen/dining room has 8 recessed lights on a 3 way dimmer. I converted the whole thing to CFL's about a year and a half ago using Philips 3 way dimmable CFL floods that I paid $13 each for. The coversion reduced the overall energy footprint of the lit room from 600 watts to 160 watts.

The problem? None of the bulbs lasted. The first failed after only three months, and the last of them went out last week. Looking online, I discovered that this was a very common problem...dimmable CFL floods are incredibly unreliable.

When we converted to CFL, the incandescents were tossed in a box and stuck in the attic. As the CFL's failed, they were replaced by the incandescents we pulled out. The entire kitchen is now lit using the very same bulbs we removed in November 2008.

[Jokerman]

41. Dimmers keep me away from CFLs

I didn't even know they made dimmable CFLs but it sounds like the technology needs some work.

I installed dimmers on just about every light in the main living areas and I don't really want to change them back.

I have moved to CFLs in most of the security/night lights we use.