Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff
I'm based in Houston, Texas. Energy capital of the world.
Say goodbye to the 60-watt incandescent bulb. This year manufacturers started phasing out 100w and 75w bulbs. On January 1 it will become illegal to import or manufacture traditional 60w and 40w bulbs too. Time to stock up? Not so fast. First, check out Cree’s energy-sipping new 75-watt replacement bulb.
I used to be outraged over the federal government’s draconian moves to outlaw traditional lightbulbs. For 100 years we’ve lived and thrived under the warm glow of incandescent lightbulbs. Aside from the fact that 90% of the electricity used by the bulbs is radiated in the form of heat rather than light, these glass orbs are a perfect invention. So perfect that a lightbulb symbolizes a good idea. How dare Big Brother force manufacturers to stop making these bulbs!
For years the alternatives to incandescent bulbs were terrible. Compact fluorescents flicker, give me headaches and make everyone look like zombies. When they break you practically need to call in a haz-mat team to clean them up because of the mercury inside. Never had to do that an old Edison Edison bulb. I have a bucket full of CFLs that work perfectly well, but that I refuse to use. I would toss them in the trash if not for the toxic chemicals inside.
Early LED bulbs weren’t a good replacement either. LED’s are directional light sources (kind of like weak lasers), so LED bulbs didn’t give off the same omnidirectional glow that incandescents do. And early attempts to replicate Edison bulbs with LEDs were crazy expensive and looked like Doctor Who’s robot arch enemies the Daleks.
But that’s all changed. Earlier this year I learned how to stop worrying and love the lightbulb revolution when I did a Forbes Magazine story on Cree, a leading maker of LED lightbulbs. (See “How Cree Perfected The 20-Year Lightbulb“) Cree, as you can read, finally cracked the nut on how to make LED bulbs that give off light almost indistinguishable from incandescents. What’s more, the shape and look of the Cree bulb is virtually indistinguishable from old-school bulbs — a huge boon in getting folks to adopt the new technology.
Home Depot Home Depot has been selling 60w and 40w Cree bulbs for about $10. That may seem like a lot for a lightbulb, but when you consider that these bulbs use 80% less energy and will keep working literally for decades, the value proposition makes complete sense. I installed a handful of Cree’s soft, warm light bulbs around the house a few months ago, and my wife hasn’t noticed any difference.
Now Cree has reached another milestone with the introduction of a 75-watt replacement bulb. At $24 per bulb, it’s going to take awhile to catch on, but the thing uses just 13.5 watts to produce 1100 lumens of light. And it is cheaper than a competing offering from Phillips, at $30.
If you use the bulb three hours a day, then over a year’s time it will draw about 15 kilowatt hours. At roughly 10 cents per kwh (plug in your own electric cost) that’s about $1.50 in electricity per year. In comparison, an old 75-watt incandescent would use about 82 kwh, costing about $8.20. That savings will pay off your Cree bulb in about three years.
There’s no mercury in these bulbs, and their glass is coated with a protective film that makes them shatter resistant. (Cree says the government required that safety measure — pointing out that our beloved old Edison bulbs would never be approved for the mass market if invented today.) They turn on instantly with no need to “heat up,” and are dimmable.
Replacing traditional incandescents with such LED bulbs will end up being a win-win-win proposition. We’ll save money on electricity, emit less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion, and be able to enjoy more, higher-quality light. Over time this will be especially beneficial in the developing world; to think that millions in sub-Saharan Africa still rely on smoky kerosene lanterns for light at night. Where villages have insufficient or intermittant access to electricity, LED bulbs hooked up to rechargeable batteries will provide a reliable light source.