Terra Bulbous

[Henry Musikar]

A 96-year-old light bulb: It's still going

>From Correspondent Don Knapp  

LIVERMORE, California (CNN) -- It is no great surprise that the fire  
bell at the Livermore Fire Station, installed in 1876, still works.  

But, surprise! So does the fire station's nightlight, a  
turn-of-the-century light bulb that Chief Lynn Owens claims has been 
burning practically nonstop since 1901. 

The long-lived light bulb illuminates today's quest for a cheaper,  
more durable artificial light source. Why don't the light bulb 
companies make bulbs like the fire station's bulb anymore? One 
researcher suggests maybe they never did.  

Steven Johnson of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory says the  
choice has always been the hot, shorter burn of efficiency or the 
cooler burn of longevity.  

He rejects the claim made by some: that manufacturers program bulbs
 to die after a short life so consumers will have to keep buying them.
  

Rather, he says bulb makers are responding to consumer demand.  

"They can make it very dim to last for a very long period of time, or 
they can make it bright, like you the consumer want it, and last for 
750 or a thousand hours," he said.  New technology is bright, 
economical 

If you want the latest efficiency, Johnson says, look to compact  
fluorescent lamps, which give more light for less power.  

Although the bulbs are oddly shaped and the initial outlay per bulb 
is relatively high, millions have chosen them over standard 
incandescent bulbs over the past few years. And with the help of 
power company cash incentives, consumers can even partly offset the 
high purchase price for each bulb.  

By contrast, the popular tungsten halogen lamps are one of the least 
efficient alternatives. About 40 million of these lamps, with their 
bright, hot lights, have been sold. By some estimates, they ate up 
all the energy saved by the compact fluorescents.  

Johnson's group has come up with a lamp that looks just like the 
popular halogen models, but uses the more efficient compact 
fluorescents.  

And yet another type of bulb may be the wave of the future: the  
"microwave lamp."   
"It's exciting, sulfur in a quartz envelope with a microwave  
radiation, coming from a magnetron very similar to the magnetron in 
your home microwave oven," he said. In other words, you put some gas 
in a bulb and zap it, and it lights up.  

Such technologies are of no interest to the staff of the Livermore  
Fire Station, however.  

It's not efficiency they worry about, but longevity, as they wonder  
how much longer their little night light will give off its warm glow.

AsB4,
Henry Musikar

Keep cool, but care. -- TRP
Moderation in moderation. -- Husky Mariner