When Edison created the light bulb, the filament was much larger and thicker, so it was harder to burn out. When a bulb burns out, the heat of the lit filament actually burns through itself. Back when light bulbs were invented, the coiled coil filament was wound by hand and a thin filament like what is used today would never have worked. Also, business are trying to make money! They don't want to make such a long-life bulb because it would cost them too much revenue. The Icetron cost over a hundred dollars, so they make up for that one on the first cost. It's main applications are for wet areas and hard to maintain areas such as the underside of a bridge or inside a large tunnel.

Nafango, what is it being used for where you live?

 

Maybe we should hand that task over to FEMA...they're reputable.

 

Seriously, I don't trust any government agency with anything aimed at saving us money. The companies that make the bulbs that last half a year pay taxes for them to splurge on themselves. I've already discussed how they are inhibiting the production of natural fuels, and there was an oil tanker named the USS Condolezza for pete's sake!!!

I'd give it to a team of masters degree or doctorate students at Cal Tech, Virginia Tech, Carnagie Melon, Emory, etc.

 

nevermind. lol, i googled it, and i seriously doubt my dad paid that much for a light bulb...

but we seriously do have a square-shaped CFL in our basement that has been there for easily 8 years... its just the light at the bottom of the stairs...

 

WOW ... looks like the price quadrupled over the past 7 years!!! I'll have to find the fax that I got as an intern with a price quote on it from when they first introduced it!! Back then I was an energy managenment consultant/engineer, so I was looking at all of the new energy saving technologies. Another good lighting system is fiber optic lighting that uses a single halogen or metal halide bulb and "pipes" the light to various fixtures. Disney uses fiber optics in their display cases since the heat source is remote .... this came as a result of a genious woman sitting her child on the display case and the kid got his legs burned. Obviously it was Disney's fault so she sued them .... like the lady that didn't know that McDonald's coffee is hot. Don't we love stupid people?!?

Alright, now that I thread jacked my own post within the same one, I'm done

 

Yeah right.... falkore24 saying he's done....for some reason I find that hard to believe.... call me crazy...

 

From here:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl.../National/home

Antarctic ice sheet shrinking at faster rate

New scientific study links melting to upwelling of warm waters along continent's coast [/align]
MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT
From Monday's Globe and Mail
January 14, 2008 at 6:00 AM EST[/align]
One of the biggest worries about global warming has been its potential to affect the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet, a vast storehouse of frozen water that would inundate the world's coastal regions if it were to melt because of a warming climate.
The southern continent contains enough ice to raise ocean levels by about 60 metres, a deluge that would put every major coastal city in the world deep under water and uproot hundreds of millions of people.
The huge implications posed by the health of the ice sheet have prompted major scientific interest into whether it is growing, shrinking, or stable, with no clear consensus among researchers about its overall trend.
But a new study released yesterday, based on some of the most extensive measurements to date of the continent's ice mass, presents a worrisome development: Antarctica's ice sheet is shrinking, at a rate that increased dramatically from 1996 to 2006.[/align]"Over the time period of our survey, the ice sheet as a whole was certainly losing mass, and the mass loss increased by 75 per cent in 10 years," the study said.
The results of the research project, led by Eric Rignot, principal scientist for the Radar Science and Engineering Section at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., are appearing in the current issue of Nature Geoscience.
In an e-mail, Dr. Rignot attributed the shrinkage in the ice sheet to an upwelling of warm waters along the Antarctic coast, which is causing some glaciers to flow more rapidly into the ocean.
He suspects the trend is due to global warming, and isn't part of a normal natural fluctuation.
"I see that as the main driver for the change in ice mass. And this means that we are not in a natural cycle, but in something that is related to global warming or global climate change, whichever you want to call it," he said.
The study said the continent had a net loss of about 196 billion tonnes of ice in 2006, an amount that is equal to more than a third of the water in Lake Erie, up from 112 billion tonnes in 1996.
The figures were calculated by deducting the amount of ice losses on the continent from the amount of snow that computer models indicate it receives.
The figures were based on satellite data on ice thickness and the speeds at which glaciers are flowing into the ocean.
Dr. Rignot said the Antarctic ice loss in 2006 raised sea levels about half a millimetre, putting it on par with the contribution to sea level rise from the recently observed melting of the Greenland ice sheet.
Within scientific circles, there is little doubt that Greenland's ice is melting, but there has been more uncertainty over the fate of the larger stores of ice on Antarctica.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN-sponsored scientific body that compiles information on global warming, said last year that studies on the subject have been all over the map.
Some have suggested the ice cap was expanding by 50 billion tonnes a year from 1993 to 2003, while others projected losses over the same period of up to 200 billion tonnes.
It said the wide range of estimates reflected such factors as the small number of ice measurements made on the continent and disagreements among scientists on what techniques best estimate trends there.
Some experts have even speculated that global warming might lead to increases in ice accumulation in Antarctic's interior due to more snowfall.
However, many experts say that this effect is unlikely to offset Antarctica's contribution to sea level rise because of the rapid melting of coastal glaciers.
"The concept that global warming will increase precipitation in Antarctica and mitigate sea level rise is a lullaby," Dr. Rignot said.
"Our [study] shows that the main driver for the mass balance is the rate of glacier flow to the sea, not the precipitation rate because other studies already showed recently that the precipitation rate has not changed significantly."
Another member of the research team, Curt Davis, director of the Centre for Geospatial Intelligence at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said the new study is the "most comprehensive" to date on the status of Antarctica's ice, and has zeroed in on exactly where the losses are occurring.
It found that the biggest losses are in West Antarctica, around the Amundsen Sea, and in the Antarctic Peninsula, the continent's distinctive long arm of land that points like a finger up at South America.
One encouraging finding from the study is that the largest ice sheet, the one covering East Antarctica, has remained relatively stable, showing a small net gain in size.

 

Here in Aussie we get a subsidy to convert to liquified petroleum gas [lpg] in West Aus we get $1000 from the state goverment and $2000 from the federal goverment. My mate has a gas conversion/mechanical breakdown business and i cried at him till he did the job for $2990, so i got $10 and a conversion for free. on a full tank of petrol i get about 600k's on gas i get 450-500k's. i dont notice the lack of 15-20% in city driving and with 2 tanks i have a good range. it's a bit of a bastard if i need to carry something that needs the bak seat down because the tank is along the back of the seat. but igot a big boot space genrally.Pete

 

There are dimmable CFL's, we have some in the living room. They are actually par lamps, like the ones in recessed can lights....Some ppl will say that the disposal of CFL's puts mercury into the atmosphere....It does, but in very small doses...Very small compared to the amount of mercury released into the atmosphere by burning coal to create electricity....Using CFL's requires less energy, they lastat least 5xlonger. Meaning their use could eventually ease the need for coal burning plants.

 

But then many hard working coal miners may be out of jobs