A TECHNOLOGICAL DISGRACE

But the year is 1976, and Edison's great invention has become something of a technological disgrace. A 60 W lightbulb gives only some 5 W of light; the rest is wasted as heat. And that heat, for the whole country, translates into almost 1 million barrels of oil a day.

Quite unnecessarily. A fluorescent light will convert 40% of the input energy to light; in addition, its spectrum (mix of colors) is closer to sunlight, and its large light-emitting area produces only soft shadows. Fluorescent lights have made it into commerce and industry, but not into the American home, perhaps because they cannot be screwed into existing lightbulb sockets; but ring-shaped fluorescent lights with screw-in threads (AtE Oct 73) have not made a dent.

Now comes news of a fluorescent light that not only screws into a lightbulb socket, but is more efficient and lasts five years. In a conventional flourescent light, incandescent elements (at the ends of the tube) emit electrons which bump into the atoms of the low pressure mercury vapor and kick out one of their electrons, or ionize the atoms. When this happens, the atom emits ultraviolet light, which causes the fluorescent coating on the glass to emit visible light.

Now plasma physicist D.D. Ho11ister, founder of LITEK Corp. in Fullerton, Calif., proposes to ionize the gas by the electric field of a radio wave. That introduces a small radio transmitter, but eliminates the present wasteful and unreliable parts: the incandescent elements, "starters" and chokes. The main trouble with the LITEK system seems to be price: With the aid of a $310,000 ERDA grant, Ho11ister hopes to develop his light so that it will retail between $7.50 and $10. He believes that the 5-year life and lower electricity bill will justify the price.

But will the American housewife agree? The private lamp producers didn't think so, and declined to finance the idea. They may have been wrong, of course, particularly in the present climate, with government over-regulation stifling innovation.

On the other hand, a new trend seems to be appearing for energy innovation, particularly in solar energy: Those who can, do; those who can't, go to ERDA.