The big three lighting companies — General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — are all working on energy efficient incandescent bulbs, as is Auer Lighting of Germany and Toshiba of Japan.
Indeed, the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation.
“There’s a massive misperception that incandescents are going away quickly,” said Chris Calwell, a researcher with Ecos Consulting who studies the bulb market. “There have been more incandescent innovations in the last three years than in the last two decades.”
The first bulbs to emerge from this push, Philips Lighting’s Halogena Energy Savers, are expensive compared with older incandescents. They sell for $5 apiece and more, compared with as little as 25 cents for standard bulbs.
But they are also 30 percent more efficient than older bulbs. Philips says that a 70-watt Halogena Energy Saver gives off the same amount of light as a traditional 100-watt bulb and lasts about three times as long, eventually paying for itself.
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Via Edward Tenner, “Light bulbs aren’t the only surprise in energy efficiency studies. I was recently amazed to learn from The Green Home site that at least in smaller sizes, cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions actually use fewer watts per square inch than liquid crystal display (LCD) sets”