For $10 Million, The Best Bulb Will Be Seeing Green

As a follow-up to the 09/25/08 blog entry on an LED light bulb concept, a 09/26/08 New York Times "Bits" article reports that a competitive prize of $10 million will be awarded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy for the best LED bulb that can be produced.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/the-10-million-light-bulb/

Apparently spearheading a federal push toward greater national energy-savings, and to encourage excellence in quality and practical design innovation in this area, the contest criteria have been set high. According to the article, a standard bulb must produce the light equivalent of 60 watts, but use less than 10 watts, and last longer than 25,000 hours. Given four hours a day of use, the article notes that that's equivalent to more than 17 years.

The article says: "If LED lighting eventually takes off, this could be a big deal. According to the Department of Energy, if every socket in the United States that now had a 60-watt bulb switched to an LED equivalent, the country would save 34 terawatt-hours of electricity a year, or enough to light Las Vegas for two years (no jokes about whether it might be better to keep it dark)."

But the winning bulb must also meet key standards of high quality over the "junk" construction associated with many existing LED bulbs already on the market. According to the article, the "L Prize will also set manufacturing standards, which should weed out the stuff that would otherwise give the technology a bad name."

What's even MORE interesting, though, are the reader comments to the NYT article, especially those that "illuminate" complications, drawbacks and criticism surrounding the idea -- regarding the irony of manufacturing overseas and what some consider a misguided government-funded project.

- Misako M.