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NCPA: Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs Not Worth Cost and Trouble Report Says Government Should Not Force CFLs on Consumers DALLAS (Dec. 10, 2008) - Although touted by many as the smart energy choice, compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs are not suitable for many common uses and should not be required by the government, according to a new report by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). The Environmental Protection Agency states that CFLs will reduce energy use and will last longer than standard bulbs. However, NCPA Senior Fellow and report co-author Sterling Burnett argues: "For many uses, compact fluorescent bulbs...

NISKAYUNA, New York (AP) -- On a bank of the Mohawk River, a windowless industrial building of corrugated steel hides something that could make floor lamps, bedside lamps, wall sconces and nearly every other household lamp obsolete. It's a machine that prints lights.

It was an inspiring evening. A very close friend and colleague invited a few intimate buddies to his 80th birthday at Tavern on the Green in Central Park. More than 300 people packed the main banquet room. He has been a great mentor to me, a pioneer in the art of television lighting. Literally a pioneer That term is bandied about, but when Immie started there was no such thing as TV lighting. He was trained in theater, so when he was hired on at ABC in 1950 he told his new boss that he knew nothing about TV lighting....

Standards Set For Energy-conserving LED LightingThese solid-state lights are powered by energy-efficient light emitting diodes and are among the first ones of a new generation expected to cut energy needed for lighting by 50 percent by 2027. (Credit: NIST) ScienceDaily (July 1, 2008) — Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in cooperation with national standards organizations, have taken the lead in developing the first two standards for solid-state lighting in the United States. This new generation lighting technology uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of incandescent filaments or fluorescent tubes to produce illumination that cuts energy consumption...

Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in cooperation with national standards organizations, have taken the lead in developing the first two standards for solid-state lighting in the United States. This new generation lighting technology uses light-emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of incandescent filaments or fluorescent tubes to produce illumination that cuts energy consumption significantly. Standards are important to ensure that products will have high quality and their performance will be specified uniformly for commerce and trade. These standards—the most recent of which published last month—detail the color specifications of LED lamps and LED light fixtures, and the...

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A young prisoner accused of throwing a grenade that injured two U.S. soldiers and their translator in Afghanistan called the Guantanamo war court illegal and unfair on Wednesday, and then refused to participate further. "I've been tortured. I'm a human being. I have not violated any law," Afghan prisoner Mohammed Jawad said in his first hearing on charges of attempted murder and causing great bodily injury. "I've been brought here illegally . I am innocent. It's an injustice to me," he said through a Pashto translator. His hearing occurred as the United...

Brighter LEDs pave the way for a new type of home interior lighting The LED, or Light Emitting Diode, has been around since the late 60’s but only over the last few years have LEDs made headway into commercial mainstream use. Some new vehicles now use LED’s in headlights and taillights. The benefits of this are brighter light and much improved life span for the bulbs. Some stop lights also use LEDs to combat against the hazard of a stop light burning out. Of more interest to technophiles is the advent of LEDs for use as backlighting in our notebook...

Third Brigade Combat Team Soldiers waved Chemlights while singing Christmas carols during a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, Dec. 8, at Forward Operating Base Hammer. Photo by Spc. Ben Hutto, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division Public Affairs. FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — Soldiers of the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT) attended a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, Dec. 8, at Forward Operating Base Hammer to welcome a Christmas season spent with their Army family. “I enjoyed the ceremony. It was very motivating and very uplifting,” said Staff. Sgt. Derrick Mears, from Richmond, Va., a communications non-commissioned officer in Headquarters...

They wink at us every day from computer screens and stereos. But the humble LED is heading for a brighter future. New generation Light Emitting Diodes will purify water, make lights that mimic the colour of sunshine, and keep private data immune from hackers. Dr Rachel Oliver, an LED researcher from the University of Cambridge, thinks that they could easily succeed tungsten bulbs as the main way to light our homes. "LEDs have enormous benefits over standard light bulbs because they're a great deal more efficient, come in a range of different colours and have a very long lifetime. They...

DETROIT — How many Ann Arbor city workers does it take to screw in a light bulb? Soon, none. Instead, they will be installing light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to replace about 1,400 street lights.< >...LED technology, which uses less than half the energy of traditional bulbs and could save the community $100,000 a year.< >..."LEDs pay for themselves in four years," said Mayor John Hieftje...< >

General Electric Co. will accelerate the shrinking of its 128-year-old incandescent light-bulb business in response to global pressure to switch to energy-efficient lighting. GE said it will close seven of the 54 plants and warehouses that serve its incandescent-bulb business by November 2008 and lay off 1,400 workers. Over two years, GE will have eliminated 16% of its lighting work force. GE previously laid off 3,000 workers in the unit. The downsizing or sale of the lighting business has been expected for several years as the market has changed. The lighting business contributed about $2.5 billion in sales in 2006,...

LEDs Expand Their Reach Into the Aesthetic-Minded Market for Home Lighting EVERETT, Mass. (AP) -- Joey Nicotera's fascination with multicolored light bulbs bordered on obsession when he was a teenager. He framed posters in lights and decorated his own Christmas tree. When he couldn't find a color bulb he wanted, he got paint cans from the basement and made some himself, bathing his second-story bedroom in an eerie glow. "I'd be driving home from work at night, and I could see his room from five blocks away, with all the weird colors and flashing lights," recalls his father, Joe Nicotera...

Studio Fire Knocks WABC-TV Off Air By JENNIFER 8. LEE and ETHAN WILENSKY-LANFORD WABC-TV was knocked off the air just before its 11 p.m. newscast last night after a spotlight exploded and caused a fire at its Lincoln Center headquarters, according to a station official. The office was evacuated and no one was injured, according to officials of WABC, which broadcasts on Channel 7. “We had to go to black,” said the WABC news director, Kenny Plotnik. The channel was blacked out through the entire New York City metropolitan market for more than two hours last night and early today...

January 16, 2007 Futurists’ might need to reappraise their forecasts for the look of the future if the promise of a new electroactive polymer materials with remarkable properties reaches full commercialisation. Start-up Crosslink has developed a material with an array of real-world applications that could profoundly influence how our living environments, possessions and clothes look in the future as it effectively offers almost any object the ability to become a light source. SuperFlex is a lightweight, crushable, durable electroluminescent (EL) lighting technology based on polythiophene, an inherently conductive polymer known as PEDOT. SuperFlex can be formulated to emit light in...

Microscale lenses and better materials move OLEDs closer to lighting our world. In an advance that could hasten the day when energy-efficient glowing plastic sheets replace traditional lightbulbs, a method for printing microscopic lenses nearly doubles the amount of photons coming out of the materials, called organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. Stephen Forrest, an electrical engineer and vice president of research at the University of Michigan, says his technology increases the light output of the thin, flexible OLEDs by 70 percent. "They just create local curvature that allows light to pass through," he explains. This means that OLEDs, which are...

High efficiency flat light source could be the end for the light bulb April 19, 2006 The end of the lightbulb is nigh! Scientists studying organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) have made a critical leap from single-color displays to a highly efficient and long-lived natural light source. The invention is the latest fruit of a 13-year OLED research program led by Mark Thompson, professor of chemistry at USC and Stephen Forrest of the University of Michigan. If the device can be mass-manufactured cheaply - a realistic expectation, according to Thompson - interior lighting could look vastly different in the future. Almost...

How many engineers does it take to permanently unscrew a light bulb? At San Jose's Lumileds Lighting, the answer is hundreds. Lumileds, a joint venture of Agilent and Philips Electronics, makes semiconductor chips known as light-emitting diodes. LEDs are found everywhere, from the tiny flashes on digital cameras to the blue lights that illuminate the Arc d' Triomphe in Paris at night. And if all goes right, Lumileds will one day see its LEDs replace the common light bulb.

The main light source of the future will almost surely not be a bulb. It might be a table, a wall, or even a fork. An accidental discovery announced this week has taken LED lighting to a new level, suggesting it could soon offer a cheaper, longer-lasting alternative to the traditional light bulb. The miniature breakthrough adds to a growing trend that is likely to eventually make Thomas Edison's bright invention obsolete. LEDs are already used in traffic lights, flashlights, and architectural lighting. They are flexible and operate less expensively than traditional lighting. Happy accident Michael Bowers, a graduate student...

SPRING HILL - The first time lightning hit Emory Johnson, it wasn't so bad. The 1986 strike burned the inside of his truck and left him tingling. Wednesday's bolt was much worse. Johnson, 54, was working on the air-conditioning system of a four-unit villa under construction in the Heritage Pines subdivision in northern Pasco County. A band of rain passed over the area about 9 a.m., and he gathered his tools to work inside. He had just stepped to the floor from a fiberglass ladder when lightning hit a 50-foot pine tree just outside a nearby window. The electricity ripped...