It’s time to put the light out on incandescent lights.

The incandescent bulb came to being in 1880 in the shop of Thomas Edison but it was only in 1910 that the tungsten filament lamp as we know today came into being.

Since then for almost a century the incandescent bulb has continued to be the most accepted lighting device. While it is the most accepted it isn’t by any means the finest lighting solution. The advance of engineering has meant that the bulb is today completely outdated. In a typical case of survival of the fittest – the bulb has lost to its more power efficient challengers – CFL’s and LED’s. While it is still more popular than the modern technology, the incandescent bulb is on the decline .

The move away from incandescent light bulbs

The incandescent bulb was banned in Cuba in 2005, and will cease to be sold in Argentina, Philippines, and Australia after 2010. Many countries have an interchange plan for light bulbs and there are others that are preparing to power the conversion from bulbs on the backs of carbon credits provided by saving electricity. With the European Union and Canada preparing to bar bulbs after 2012 and many states in the US prepared to follow suit thereafter, the existence of the incandescent bulb are over . New federal rules mandating a 25 % advance in performance in lighting devices could well be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back as nearly all incandescent bulbs will not be able to equal the new stricter regulations . Halogen filled bulbs will be able to meet the new regulations but their survival shall also be in question once stricter rules requiring lighting devices to produce at least 60 lumen’s per watt kick in . GE is reported to have seen the writing on the wall and is said to be preparing to shut factories creating bulbs and moving towards LED bulbs .

LED Lights are the future

With the incandescent bulbs not able to endure the Darwinian struggle for being and the CFL plagued with problems of mercury contamination , flickering lights, safe recycling and incompatibility with dimmer circuits – LED bulbs are obviously the future of lighting.

The Incandescent Bulb – Inefficient and Unsafe

A 10% performance ceiling – The incandescent light bulb uses less than 10 pct of the electricity it uses to create light and wastes the leftover 90% as heat! A one hundred watt incandescent bulb has a incandescent efficiency of less than 3 pct and its theoretical upper limit of efficiency (that is practically unattainable) is realized at 10 pct. What this means is that a 100 watt bulb throws away close to ninety-five watts in heating the room and then the air conditioning unit has to cool the room !

Short being span – The high temperature at which the light bulb works at 3170 deg F means that that filament expires quickly requiring frequent changes of fixtures . A cluster of solid state Light Emitting Diode based lights with a being span of 30,000 hours or more for each separate light , is the clear winner with the risk of significant failure reduced to just about zero .

Burn risk – As anybody with a small child will show the hot incandescent bulb is a dangerous thing to have close to a kid. Not only can a bulb break and cause glass pieces on the ground it can also burn you.

Given that a 6 watt LED bulb can easily generate as much light as a 50 watt incandescent light bulb means that a reposition away from the incandescent light will save 88% of lighting overheads, several tons of mercury emissions from coal fired power plants, and millions of tons of carbon emissions.

Whether you desire to be an early adopter of the technology of the future or desire to help with the fight against additional carbon emissions and consequent global warming or you want to child proof your house or save money on your energy bill or wish solely for a safe yet high return investment decision, LED lamps fit the bill.

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