One of the things that is so important in the realm of technology is something that many people take for granted.
Light.
Slashdot's post, A Super-Efficient Light Bulb points to a video on ZDNet, where you have to put up with 10 seconds of annoying advertising at the start, but if you can choke your way past marketing world domination the video itself is interesting. I restarted the video a few times because I thought I got the wrong link. This advertising just annoys me.
A visit to the Luxim website doesn't net much aside from this press release (PDF, small) and a list of information regarding the LiFi product line.
What I can't seem to find in writing in a single place are the claims of the video on ZDNet - a 250 Watt argon bulb by Luxim puts out higher light output than a 400 Watt bulb. So - if you have 1,000 streetlights operating at 400 Watts and replace them with these bulbs, you reduce energy consumption by about 37.5%. That is a lot of energy saving, and could be a big boon for the world in energy savings on something people use every night.
It also makes renewable energy for streetlights even more sensible. 37.5% less of a power requirement means 37.5% less of infrastructure needed to support it. The trouble is, no one is saying what the cost of these bulbs are.
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I suspect we will know soon enough as Luxim is debuting on the global stage next month @ Light and Building, which is expected to have 130,000+ attendees.
http://light-building.messefrankfurt.com/global/en/home.html
I believe Luxim is still a bit in stealth mode, coming off their initial entry into the rear projection TV market last year. Their current offering seems to be quite a bit more efficient than their LiFi 4000, featured on their website, and which Panasonic replaced all UHP mercury lamps with in their rear projection TV line-up.
Thanks for the pointer.
If the price is right - that is, its rate of return on investment depends a lot on the size of the investment. Granted, larger countries adopting first will decrease prices - theoretically - but if the price allows smaller countries to adopt at the same rate, these things could be the best thing since hot pastrami on rye with a dill pickle.
Look more careful...
The streetlamp has a reflector, so its light i pointed upwards! The Luxim argon lightsource in the video has no reflector, and so it spreads its light in all directions (which is clearly visible in the video).
And the camera is "looking" at the light sources from the side.
OF COURSE a 250 W non-directional light looks brighter from the side than a directed light turned away from the viewer!
Also, the argon gas is a plasma light source at 6000K, and thus has about the same spectrum as the sun.
So, is the IR component (quite substantial in sunlight) of the ligthsource included in the Lumen figure? That part is of little use when lighting up streets or homes. And how much heat due to the IR radiation is produced? Seeing a lightsource being turned on for a few seconds in a video doesn´t say a lot about its long-time performance.
Finally the energy is transmitted to the gas "without electrical contacts". Well, naturally, it´s 6000 K hot! But this requires an extremely strong electomagnetical high frequency field, so how do you keep the EM emissions that might end up as radio, TV or communications frequencies down to the few microwatts permitted by laws in many countries?
Don´t get me wrong. I think it is a very interesting concept, and bringing down the energy costs is always good, but we shouldn´t be too overwhelmed by new technology just because it is new. It might be a future light source, it might not. Just because it brings you light, doesn´t mean it is ready for mass use.
A nuclear bomb produces huge amounts of visible light, but there are side-effects...
Look more careful. ;-)
The reflector did point the other streetlight upwards - but if you look carefully, you'll see that the Lumix light is also using the reflector. Same housing. And if you consider it, a street light is supposed to disperse light anyway - so the shape of the reflector is meant to accommodate that.
You're right about the side effects, etc. We'll find out about the pricing and other details soon enough - but right now it looks very interesting. The price tag is going to be what decides its future, I think.
All Efficiency numbers are not created equal....
i think there is more than a bit of salemanship going on here that neglects a few "minor details", From the photo the comparison appears to be made against a high pressure mercury lamp which is the most inefficient of HID lamps and will soon be "outlawed" in many contries. When one considers the total system efficiency (power from the grid to useable lumens), the LUXIM system is less efficient than many lower cost solutions presently offered by leading lighting companies such as OSRAM and Philips. The LUXIM claim of 140LPW is calculated based upon 170 W to the lamp, but the drive electronics requires almost 300W of input power from the AC line. That means less than 50LPW. Not really very impressive.........
Not all...
sorry should have said 80 LPW not 50...
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