MORE LIGHT WITH LESS POWER

However wonderful the invention may have been in Edison's time, the incandescent light, or simply the common light bulb, is an engineering monstrosity unworthy of the 20th century. Only about 5% of the electric power it guzzles is converted to light, the rest is wasted as heat. And its life is ridiculously short compared with most other electrical equipment. By all rules of logic it should long ago have been driven out by the fluorescent strip light, which has an incomparably (5 to 8 times) higher efficiency, lasts longer, and has a color spectrum much closer to that of sunlight.

Yet the fluorescent light has not completely displaced the light bulb in large plants and offices, and it has made almost no inroads into the American home. The reasons are somewhat of a mystery, but doubtlessly one of them is that it is easier to screw in a new light bulb than to replace a fluorescent strip light.

Not any more. Lighting Conversions, Inc., of San Rafael, California, have recently obtained a patent on a ring shaped fluorescent light that screws into the regular light bulb socket, after perfecting an idea that had originally been patented in 1956. A 100 watt bulb, for example, is replaced by a 22 W fluorescent fixture providing the same light. The company leases the fixture (called Sava Watt Lite) for 60 months for a total of $39 (after which time the customer can keep it if he pays a sales tax) and guaranteeing a $60 saving on lighting costs over the life of the lease.

A California firm that has installed 573 of these lights in the corridors of its offices reports a saving of more than $l00 a month through cutting consumption by almost 22,000 kWh, and a San Francisco college slashed power requirements by 21,000 kVVh per month, or nearly 90%.

And so, where logic has failed, necessity may do the job as the energy crunch gets crunchier.