Lighting

 

The Navy has some background data from 2002 (also linked from Data) that shows Low Pressure Sodium generating well over 100 lumens / watt (183 for the biggest lamps). Lumens is the standard measure of the amount of light emitted from a bulb. Watts are what we pay for and incandescent lights consume a lot of watts (e.g. 100W) to make not so many lumens (e.g. 1700 or 17 lumens/watt). More lumens / watt is better and below are some better-than-incandescent options.

 

Would you carry and trade CFLs on your next trip?

What are the "induction lamps" mentioned that Cupertino is installing?

 

Lighting characteristics

There are typically four things people care about with lights, especially when it comes to incandescent alternatives.  Progress is being made on all fronts for both CFLs and LEDs, but it's important to be on the lookout for the mythical "dimming, soft-white, mini, instant-on" bulb (i.e. behave exactly like an incandescent :).

• warm-up time: older CFLs could take up to a minute to come to full brightness and CFLs that live outdoors in the cold will take longer to come on than warm bulbs.
• size: if you can't fit a bulb into your fixture or if it looks ugly in your fixture, you're going to resent an incandescent alternative.
• color temperature: lots of progress is being made in this area, but if you get blue light where you wanted yellow or three bulbs from the same package aren't exactly the same color, you get unhappy users
• dimming: many lights are on dimmer switches and normal CFLs don't dim.  Some folks also claim the dimming bulbs don't last as long (even if not dimmed?).

 

CFLs (~75 lumens/watt)

Sources & Advice

• In addition to CFLs up to 500W equivalence(!), http://1000bulbs.com/ sells some CFL types that may be hard to find locally: dimmable, 3-way, "torpedo", and globe. Now what was I reading about cold cathode fluorescents?
• TopBulb has a CFL wizard that is pretty handy-looking as well as a selection of different temperatures for each bulb option.
• Find an Energy-Saving Light Bulb from Environmental Defense looks very useful in part because they have reviews of specific models. Perhaps better than the EnergyStar equivalent search.
• Home Depot has begun selling a new line (name?) of CFLs which comes in three different color temperatures: soft white, bright white, and full spectrum. That's better than incandescents.

 

Disposal

• EPA fact sheet
• many lighting and hardware stores, such as IKEA and Home Depot, accept fluorescent bulbs for safe disposal
• lamprecyle.org has a state-by-state recycling contacts map

 

Analysis

• THE Bulb Math from the carbon-offset CFL folks
• EnergyStar requires that bulbs light up quickly. According to all anecdotal evidence, IKEA's CFLs are good on many fronts (e.g. color temperature & size) but are severely lacking in terms of coming up to full brightness promptly.
• Among other reasons EnergyStar labels on CFLs are good:

 

 

 

• thebulb.com's about page includes an explanation of color temperature:

 

 

Description	Color Temperature
“Warm white” or “Soft white”	< 2700 K
“White”, “Bright White”, or “Medium White”	2900 - 3000 K
“Cool white”	4000 K
“Daylight”	> 5000 K

Source: http://www.thebulb.com/store/t-compact-fluorescent-light-bulbs.aspx

 

LEDs (~55 lumens/watt?)

• 3000K "Pharox" bulb is claimed (Feb '11) the "warmest[-color] LED bulb available" 
• Home Depot is now selling a dim-able "40W equivalent" (~500 lumens/8W = ~60 lumens/W)
• Home Depot is now selling a dim-able "65W equivalent" (~575 lumens/10.5W = ~55 lumens/W)
• Lemnis is slowly making progress, now with a $50 bulb that will produce 300 lumens.
• C.CRANE is selling a variety of LED bulbs, from $15-$45 / 26-200 lumens. Perhaps the directionality of the lights allows for fewer lumens, but the comparison at the bottom of the page, between a 60W incandescent bulb (produces at least 600 lumens) and their 31-lumen "CC Vivid 2" seems like comparing the difficulty of carrying a watermelons to carrying a cherry.
• Brilliance Lighting has announced an 8W incandescent replacement. It produces "up to 400" lumens for 7.9W of power ... and they claim "47 lumens/watt."
• Toronto Hydro explains the potential of LEDs and highlights xmas lights, traffic signals, and EXIT signs as very practical products.
• standard size and track light bulbs you can get now. Most are pretty dim, so it's important to check the number of lumens (lumens/watt are similar to CFLs at best unless color comes into play).
• http://www.everled.com/ sells 4' tube replacements ($149!) and links to interesting resellers of their $40 flashlight replacement LED bulb and $20 mini MagLite LED bulb.
• http://www.theledlight.com/ (new products) sells pretty much everything LED-related including a maybe-60W equivalent LED bulb and under-sink options (longer).
• http://www.ledsupply.com/ sells interesting parts for building your own lights, including EverLED's tubes.
• http://www.ledtheway.com/ sells floodlights, including colored stage lighting!
• http://www.ultraleds.co.uk/ also seems pretty comprehensive
• http://www.carmanah.com/uk/ does solar LED lighting
• Meritline is selling a 29-LED AA-battery powered camping light for $6
• http://www.galliumlighting.com/ talks about some of the first products to emit as much light as incandescent or CFL. Unfortunately, lumens/watt isn't yet above that of CFLs (no mercury, 20 year life is a good start, though):

 

 

 

• PG&E used LED lights for their solar billboard in SF.

 

 

Halogens?

• 30% more efficient than bulbs filled with (more common) gas? 
• "Whats wrong with Halogen"
• summary: "still an SUV"