Lynne Kiesling
As I mentioned earlier this week, incandescent light bulb innovation is occurring. So is LED innovation. As this Engadget post points out, GE is pushing forward on both. Keep it comin’ …
1 thought on “Ge’s Light Bulb Development Pipeline”
Comments are closed.
Some additional thoughts from my comments on the other post…
A lot of people are saying that politicians setting standards can make “manufacturers wake up” and improve their products – ie make them more energy efficient.
Let’s be clear about energy efficiency:
It’s obviously an advantage in itself, but it usually makes products more expensive – or they’d be efficient already – and can alter a whole lot of other qwualities besides.
I have written extensively on the topic
“Why all energy efficiency regulation is wrong”,
in particul;ar response to the US Energy and Climate Bill
and US automobile efficiency regulations., that may be of interest:
Why All Energy Efficiency Regulation is Wrong
http://ceolas.net/#cc2x
The Consumer Side
Product Performance — Construction and Appearance
Price Increase — Lack of Actual Savings: Money, Energy or Emissions
Choice and Quality affected
The Manufacturer Side
Meeting Consumer Demand — Green Technology — Green Marketing
The Energy Side
Energy Supply — Energy Security — Cars and Oil Dependence
The Emission Side
Buildings — Industry — Power Stations — Light Bulbs
A New Car Deal for America:
All cars available and their emission output lowered
Basically,
“There is no free lunch”
All products have advantages, otherwise noone would buy them and they would have no reason to exist.
Inefficient products need to be especially attractive.
Why?
Because energy efficiency is obviously a useful feature, so inefficient products need to have great compensating attractions.
In fact inefficient products end up being particularly popular.
Think of say, the attraction of sports cars and pre-fab buildings or the fast heat from fan/bar heaters.
The popularity of inefficient products is of course why banning them is supposed to bring such great savings:
There is little benefit in banning impopular products!
Performance is affected
For any defined unmodified product, greater energy use means better performance.
Conversely, to maintain performance with the greater energy efficiency that laid down standards require of a product, the product need modifying expense.
Construction and Appearance are affected
A more efficient product requires a more complex construction (and/or uses more expensive components) or the product would be efficient already, since it is an advantage.
Price and Savings are affected
All else being equal, greater energy efficiency means more expensive appliances, or they would be energy efficient already, since energy efficiency is an advantage.
That is assuming that modifications can actually be made to meet the standard required.
Savings are affected, for too many reasons to give here,
but for example short term or rare use of an expensive product gives little if any savings, and consumers may not take care to save on what effectively becomes cheaper energy use.
More efficient incandescent lights already exist…
as Halogen lights, and they have a very different whiter light, look different, are hotter, often have quartz enclosures that need careful handling, may need transformers etc, compared to ordinary incandescents:
Similar may occur with the GE bulb.
Of course they are still welcome, as new and different lights, but it shouldn’t be seen as justification to ban less efficient varieties (the inefficiency of ordinary light bulbs, with energy waste as heat, may not be unwelcome anyway: http://ceolas.net/#li6x )