Research team "near production" of a cheap lightbulb, lasts up to 60 years
By Laura June 
posted January 30th 2009 4:42PM
posted January 30th 2009 4:42PM
We've seen plenty of high-efficiency lightbulbs rolling around, but this new one -- if it ever sees the light of day (groan) -- has impressive potential. Cambridge University's team of researchers are apparently quite close to bringing to production an LED bulb that can last up to 100,000 hours (about 60 years), and which -- unlike some other eco-friendly lighting -- contains no mercury. In the UK, where sale of some incandescents has been phased out, the team estimates they could reduce carbon emissions by about 40 million tons. The team has also significantly cheapened production by growing the LEDs on silicon wafers rather than the sapphire ones normally used, thereby bring the cost to... wait for it: $2.85. So when can we expect to see these badboys on the market? "Soon."
[Via Switched]
[Via Switched]
Wow.... I've never seen a troll able to flip a subject like that... He turned a post about LED light source to the iPhone...
... That's it, I gotta get rid of my iPhone. I don't want to be associated with people like this anymore...
What I think of when I hear "soon": http://www.wowwiki.com/Soon
That's because you never played Everquest where the actual term was coined.
Reminds me of nuclear fusion tech.
whenever anybody asks how soon we are to fusion power, we're about 30 years away.
Is "someday day" soon?
Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie?
Colonel Sandurz: Now, you're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happend to then?
Colonel Sandurz: We passed then.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now. Were at now, now.
Dark Helmet: Go back to then!
Colonel Sandurz: When?
Dark Helmet: Now.
Colonel Sandurz: Now?
Dark Helmet: Now!
Colonel Sandurz: I can't.
Dark Helmet: Why?
Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.
Dark Helmet: When?
Colonel Sandurz: Just now.
Dark Helmet: When will then be now?
Colonel Sandurz: Soon.
I didn't play EQ because I was too busy with UO, the superior of the two.
Soon = Vaporware = FACT.
When these little mofos appear I'll be tres happy, U-Turn my statement and go buy some.
Peace
Instead of delaying the analog to digital TV switchover, maybe the Obama administration should concentrate on making a new switchover from old fashioned light bulbs to these and other energy efficient light sources
I used to think the CF flourescent bulbs should phase out the old style bulb completely - and stop be being produced...
But the reality is, the financial savings you get from CF bulbs takes time to accumulate since they are more expensive and you are shelling out $ up front for them - therefore some people don't like em. Secondly, in many circumstances, they don't fit older sockets. For example, in my basement and my garage, I still have to change my fixtures to accomodate CF bulbs.
I think LED technology would be much better. Only problem is, when these LED strips in cars go out, they are costly to replace.
Canada will ban incandescents by 2012.
If you buy a future child a LED bulb you can tell them "the next time you will buy a light bulb you will be collecting old age pension!"
@ Ogo
60 years from now people won't know what a pension or retirement is.
Flashpoint :
Yeah but isn't the huge negative of fluorescent bulbs is that they are terrible outside? At least in cold/storm conditions. This is like the same idea behind diesel. It's an awesome product if you live in California or near the equator but if your winter temps hit 0 degrees then your car is now an inconvenience. You have to keep the engine warm enough at all times so it wont get frozen which is impossible to do unless your boss provides outlets for everyone in the parking lot. This is technology and the first alternative shouldn't be the only one and we shouldn't lean on it just yet. Hopefully these new bulbs can handle the outdoors but there is really no information about them yet.
@Amish People barely know those things now, but they will never have them.
@Flashpoint: My power company actually contracted a company to replace everyone's bulbs with CFLs for free. Having nearly all the homes in New York City use 75% less power for lighting means there is less of a strain on them during the summer. There is the disadvantage of them not being useful outside, but most people only need one outdoor bulb for their entrance, and only at night.
@Flashpoint: Actually, CF bulbs are one of the very fastest ways to get payback from energy-saving technology. They're cheap as dirt these days and with moderate use (say a few hours a day from a 100W-equivalent) should save well over their purchase price in a year.
You're right that the fact they only work in standard fittings is a disadvantage. A few different formats are available now, but unusual ones are very expensive and I don't think you can get them in the really small formats. That - and dimmer switches - are where LED should really shine, if you'll excuse the pun.
There are a lot of misconceptions about CF bulbs; for example, the colour of the light. In tests, light from modern CF bulbs is generally preferred to incandescents - they usually make them in 'yellow' tones which are a similar colour, but it's a softer light. Personally, I prefer (relatively expensive) 'daylight' bulbs; so yep, if you don't like the colour of the light, there are other options.
Up until now, cheap CF lamps have been a lot more efficient than the few awesomely expensive LED lamps that are available. If this technology really changes that (they claim 'three times more efficient' - is that for real? not a lot of numbers in the article), it'll be a big deal. Efficiency and price are the two reasons CF is the best lamp technology at the moment - for a while LED has looked like being the future of lighting, but I'd always assumed it would take a little longer to get to that future.
Incidentally, I wouldn't worry about the mercury in CF bulbs - nice not to have it, for sure, but they reportedly contain less mercury than the equivalent incandescent bulb would've caused to be emitted into the atmosphere due to the extra energy it uses that comes partially from coal-fired power stations... and it's really not very much mercury, so while breaking the things is probably not a great idea, it's unlikely to cause any major health risk. (Unless you make a habit of it - mercury exposure's cumulative.)
Oh and finally, I read in today's paper that some group is trying to find the longest-working incandescent lightbulb in the UK. They're looking for one in the 100-year-old range...
Mark... Last time I checked, people have figured out the whole desel in the cold issue. At least, they have desel in Canada, so I'm sure some solution has been figured out.
About how many $2.85 LED's would it take to replace one light bulb?
one, although it's not clear of how many watts. read the article.
Those things are incredibly bright so I think 4 or 5 would enough but then when you factor the price of all the light bulbs that you'd have to replace for 60 years, that's money well spent.
I'm interested in how any company would expect to make money off of these, given that people would only buy one every half century. You'd think they would sell for a high price or something. Still, very good news.
i think that they were talking cost
That's an interesting point. Makes me wonder whether the marketing team would offer a life-long warranty with the bulb?
while unlikely, it's possible the university could go into business and sell them. any proceeds could go towards further research, and it's a school so they don't really have to worry about it if they just break even.
It's easy for this to make money: even if these bulbs last 60 years you'll still have a steady stream of (profitable) sales. Sure total profits go down, but whoever brings this to market will get 100% of that lower number vs. competing with all the other light bulb makers for some fraction of the current market.
There's about 60 million people in the UK. Let's say the average number of bulbs per household is 10, and there are 4 people per household. Let's say 80% of people in the UK will want one of these (not unreasonable if those figures are accurate)
60M/4 = 15M households = 150M bulbs. With a 500% mark-up, the bulbs would retail at $14.25. That's $1.7 Billion from the UK market alone.
If the university decided to sell these, they'd make more than enough money to fund further research. Especially if they license the technology or sell the product themselves overseas.
@ KarlW and everyone I guess (^_^)
I meant how would a company bring this to market. Like if General Electric licensed the technology for example. Using your figure with an approx $15 bulb, that's $1.7 billion......divided over 60 years until the all fail. My point it that $1.7 billion over 60 years doesn't seem like good money compared to CFL's that need replacing far sooner. That's more what I was wondering about.
@ Serryl
I see what you're saying, but I don't think I used a good explanation my first try :-).
This tech. is good enough (assuming it works) that *someone* is going to bring it to market. This leaves a company like G.E. (using your example) two choices.
1) license the technology and sell the light bulbs, and their sales revenues drop.
2) Don't license the technology, and someone else brings the tech to market (i.e. Westinghouse, or even a company spun off by the college, which is a good possibility). G.E.'s 6-month CFLs are now obsolete and their revenues drop - to zero.
Every company in that industry has to make that call: use the new technology and make less money, or don't and make no money at all. Sure G.E. likes selling CFLs, but given the chance I think they'd prefer to license the new tech and sell it vs. being pushed off the market because their existing product is now obsolete.
Come on, you don't buy new lighting or lamps? Where do you live in a cave? Anyway, don't be so narrow in your view. There is a world market of 6 billion people. I think that is enough sales.
Only 60 days?
Years. and sorry for the double post
Only 60 days?
I will never happen because people won't make money. I'll believe it when I see it
^^^ I'm with stupid. :-D
your comment doesn't even make sense?
Is it dishwasher safe?
So is this the new will it blend?
...which costs a mere $2.85 USD and despite being the size of a penny, produces similar light to a fluorescent bulb while lasting over four times as long with a lifetime of 60 years.
OK, so, how big a fluorescent bulb? 5 Watt? 8 Watt?
This says 100,000 hours. There are 8,760 hours in a year. That means to last 60 years you;d use it an average of 4.56 hours a day, which seems reasonable I suppose, but slapping on that 60 years thing is a bit misleading. In my office the lights are on over 12 hours a day. Also, fluorescents last a good long time, but I've never has one last 15 years which would be 25k hours at 4.56 hours per day. I don't think there is a consumer bulb that lasts half that long, especially not a CF.
This looks very promising, and I'll be first in line to try it out, but I can do with out the bullshit. I suggest Mr. Mick do a little more research and analysis in the future.
I visited my aunt's farmhouse out in rural Illinois once when I was a kid. She had a crazy old light bulb in one of the closets there. She said that the light bulb was something like 70 years old. I was afraid that when she turned it on, it would finally be the last time, but she flipped it on and off over and over and it was still going very strong. She told me that it was fairly normal for light bulbs to last that long.. they'd pretty much last until they'd break from other reasons.
.. Not sure if it's still going or not, she sold the house a few years ago.
So how many people required to screw one of those lightbulbs?
I highly doubt you got the brightest 5mm LEDs available.. Trust me, they don't come in bags of 1000.. If they aren't a brand name like Cree, Luxeon, Nichia, etc. then you got the common crap overrated LEDs.. Anyways, 20000 mcd give absolutely no indication to the brightness without the information about the angle and lumen rating (which I doubt you will be able to find for those LEDs you got). Sellers just use that to hype up their product and stuff.. And if you are really looking for household bulb replacing brightness you wouldn't go anywhere near 5mm LEDs.. You buy HBLEDs which can give over 100 lumen at 1 watt (some even over 1000lm at higher power) from Cree, Luxeon, Seoul Semi, etc...
sorry wrong person...
this is badly worded. Laura, you need to be much more clear.
i order LED's from China in bags of 1,000
20,000 mcd whites, the brightest 5mm dome LED's you can buy.
A bag of a thousand for about $80. If it takes a hundred LED's to replace on light bulb, we're talking about eight bucks apiece.
I really hope that $2.85 is referring to the cost of replacing a whole incandescent light BULB, not one LED.
...which costs a mere $2.85 USD and despite being the size of a penny, produces similar light to a fluorescent bulb while lasting over four times as long with a lifetime of 60 years.
Did you read the article?
what he said ^
that and they're grown on silicon chips not sapphire so they're cheaper.
I highly doubt you got the brightest 5mm LEDs available.. Trust me, they don't come in bags of 1000.. If they aren't a brand name like Cree, Luxeon, Nichia, etc. then you got the common crap overrated LEDs.. Anyways, 20000 mcd give absolutely no indication to the brightness without the information about the angle and lumen rating (which I doubt you will be able to find for those LEDs you got). Sellers just use that to hype up their product and stuff.. And if you are really looking for household bulb replacing brightness you wouldn't go anywhere near 5mm LEDs.. You buy HBLEDs which can give over 100 lumen at 1 watt (some even over 1000lm at higher power) from Cree, Luxeon, Seoul Semi, etc...
I'm all for LED bulbs, but they have to make them in that soft lighting like traditional incandescent bulbs.
The problem with compact fluorescent bulbs (outside of the obvious killer gas) is that they give off that yellowish tint.
The problem with LEDs (normally) is that they give off a bluish tint.
Also, I'm guessing any dimming switch feature will be fewer LEDs lighting up??
Anyways, here's to the future...
Actually the tint from CFL is usually too white. The trick is getting it to be warmer, more yellowish light incandescent.
No. You can dim an LED. Not an issue.
You can find CF bulbs that put of a soft bluish-white light. I found them at a local Kroger's and use them in my living room which gives me excellent light for my TV.