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Is the efficiency of an incandescent lamp really a problem though? If your power comes from renewable sources then over its entire lifespan an incandescent bulb

Is the efficiency of an incandescent lamp really a problem though? If your power comes from renewable sources then over its entire lifespan an incandescent bulb has to be way cleaner than an LED. In general something that's a coil of wire in a glass bottle with the air sucked out that you could reasonably make in a blacksmith's forge is going to be less environmentally horrible than a hundred grams of plastic, fibreglass, epoxy, copper, tin, bismuth, gallium arsenide, phosphorus and so on that has to be put together in a multi-billion-dollar factory.

adrian_b 4y ago
The difference in efficiency is too high to not matter. In the past, I had used for the lighting of my house various combinations of 100-W incandescent lamps. When better technologies have appeared, I have substituted them with other lamps having an 1500-lumen light output, which is slightly more than provided by the 100-W incandescent lamps. With compact fluorescent lamps, I have used 22-W lamps, while during the last decade I have been using 13-W LED lamps (with 1500 lumen at a pleasant 4000 K color temperature, i.e. only slightly warm, not noticeably yellow, like the lamps with a color temperature of 3000 K or less). Even the early prototype described in the research paper can achieve 1500 lumen at 8.7 W. The difference between 100 W and 8.7 W is too large to ignore. In my case, both transitions, to CFL, then to LED, have been extremely visible in my monthly bills.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Okay, but leaving aside the bills, how much damage do those LEDs cause to the environment? Consider that electricity mostly comes from renewables now, it just doesn't matter what the efficiency is.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    > Consider that electricity mostly comes from renewables now That isn't remotely true yet. And while renewables are much better for the environment than other energy sources, they're still a lot worse than not using that energy in the first place.
  - kenmacd 4y ago
    > Consider that electricity mostly comes from renewables now, it just doesn't matter what the efficiency is. As far as I know we're not yet in a post-scarcity energy economy. Think of your favorite topic of research. Now consider if you'd rather spend some of that renewable energy furthering that research, or on generating unwanted heat from a bulb and then moving that heat out of your living space.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      Why would I move that heat out of my living space?
  - adrian_b 4y ago
    Considering that until 20 years ago (before switching to CFL) I had to change a few bulbs every year and now, after almost 10 years after switching to LED lamps I did not have to replace any of them yet, I believe that their effect on the environment is less than that of previous technologies, even when not counting the energy savings. I have worked in semiconductor device manufacturing, so I am much more aware of the quantities of materials and energy that goes into them than most. Except for special applications like solar panels, most semiconductor devices are very small (much smaller than their visible packages) and they form a very small fraction of a complete electronic device. In many cases a low-tech device and a high-tech device of similar size may have similar environmental impacts, determined more by the amount of copper and other metals and of plastic and glass, than by the types of semiconductor chips that might be included in them. The only solution for the environmental impact of industrial manufacturing would be legislation that would make a list with chemical elements that are less abundant and/or more difficult to extract or to dump without environmental damage and which would mandate that they must be used in closed circle. That means that for any industrial product that would contain some of the listed elements, the manufacturing company or another company contracted by them would have to design a process for recovering those elements from the finished product, and not only, like it is done now, the manufacturing process that converts the raw materials into the finished product. To receive the license to sell any such product, the manufacturer should have to demonstrate that the recycling process exceeds some recovery efficiency mandated by law, e.g. 90%. The selling price of all affected products should include the cost of the recycling process, not like the fake prices of today, when many people enjoy what look like cheap products, but that is only because someone else will have to pay in the future for the consequences of how they have been made. Until such laws are enacted everywhere, any other measures just delay the undesirable outcome.
  - dghlsakjg 4y ago
    Can you point me to somewhere that backs up your claim that most electricity is renewable. That appears to be outright false unless you cherry pick certain regions of Europe and North America.

adrian_b 4y ago

The difference in efficiency is too high to not matter. In the past, I had used for the lighting of my house various combinations of 100-W incandescent lamps. When better technologies have appeared, I have substituted them with other lamps having an 1500-lumen light output, which is slightly more than provided by the 100-W incandescent lamps. With compact fluorescent lamps, I have used 22-W lamps, while during the last decade I have been using 13-W LED lamps (with 1500 lumen at a pleasant 4000 K color temperature, i.e. only slightly warm, not noticeably yellow, like the lamps with a color temperature of 3000 K or less). Even the early prototype described in the research paper can achieve 1500 lumen at 8.7 W. The difference between 100 W and 8.7 W is too large to ignore. In my case, both transitions, to CFL, then to LED, have been extremely visible in my monthly bills.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
Okay, but leaving aside the bills, how much damage do those LEDs cause to the environment? Consider that electricity mostly comes from renewables now, it just doesn't matter what the efficiency is.
- nicoburns 4y ago
  > Consider that electricity mostly comes from renewables now That isn't remotely true yet. And while renewables are much better for the environment than other energy sources, they're still a lot worse than not using that energy in the first place.
- kenmacd 4y ago
  > Consider that electricity mostly comes from renewables now, it just doesn't matter what the efficiency is. As far as I know we're not yet in a post-scarcity energy economy. Think of your favorite topic of research. Now consider if you'd rather spend some of that renewable energy furthering that research, or on generating unwanted heat from a bulb and then moving that heat out of your living space.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Why would I move that heat out of my living space?
- adrian_b 4y ago
  Considering that until 20 years ago (before switching to CFL) I had to change a few bulbs every year and now, after almost 10 years after switching to LED lamps I did not have to replace any of them yet, I believe that their effect on the environment is less than that of previous technologies, even when not counting the energy savings. I have worked in semiconductor device manufacturing, so I am much more aware of the quantities of materials and energy that goes into them than most. Except for special applications like solar panels, most semiconductor devices are very small (much smaller than their visible packages) and they form a very small fraction of a complete electronic device. In many cases a low-tech device and a high-tech device of similar size may have similar environmental impacts, determined more by the amount of copper and other metals and of plastic and glass, than by the types of semiconductor chips that might be included in them. The only solution for the environmental impact of industrial manufacturing would be legislation that would make a list with chemical elements that are less abundant and/or more difficult to extract or to dump without environmental damage and which would mandate that they must be used in closed circle. That means that for any industrial product that would contain some of the listed elements, the manufacturing company or another company contracted by them would have to design a process for recovering those elements from the finished product, and not only, like it is done now, the manufacturing process that converts the raw materials into the finished product. To receive the license to sell any such product, the manufacturer should have to demonstrate that the recycling process exceeds some recovery efficiency mandated by law, e.g. 90%. The selling price of all affected products should include the cost of the recycling process, not like the fake prices of today, when many people enjoy what look like cheap products, but that is only because someone else will have to pay in the future for the consequences of how they have been made. Until such laws are enacted everywhere, any other measures just delay the undesirable outcome.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  Can you point me to somewhere that backs up your claim that most electricity is renewable. That appears to be outright false unless you cherry pick certain regions of Europe and North America.