Battle of the bulbs; Ted at TED
My Clean Break column from Monday takes a look at the emerging battle between General Electric and European lightbulb makers Phillips and Siemens. GE wants to breath new life into the incandescent bulb while the rest of the light bulb pack wants to march more aggressively forward with a shift to compact fluorescents and eventually LEDs. GE’s introduction recently of a new advanced incandescent light bulb technology will certainly add volume to the debate, and raise the issue of whether our policy focus should be on banning particular bulb technologies or setting hard rules on light bulb efficiency that is technology-blind.
Another story of mine that appeared today is a short look at Ted Sargent, an engineering professor at the University of Toronto and nanotechnology expert, who has been invited to the exclusive TED conference in California to speak about the future of spray-on solar technologies. Sargent led the U of T team that developed quantum dots that can absorb infrared light and convert it to electricity. These nanoparticles, which can be added to polymer liquids and literally sprayed on surfaces, could increase the efficiency of thin-film solar PV technology by collecting energy from the invisible spectrum of the sun. It could also lead to the inexpensive production of energy-collecting materials, such as solar clothing, tents and pool covers. Sargent will be sharing the stage with Bill Clinton, Paul Simon and Sir Richard Branson, to name a few. Quite the honour.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
March 7th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Hmm… So big ol’ GE is scared of Asian producers holding much of the CFL / LED market and doesn’t want to get put behind by a ban on ‘heat bulbs’ just because they have a technology that will not even match the efficiency of CLF’s when released in 2010 and *might* eventually match the efficiency of TODAYS CFL’s? Did I miss something? Who says that CFL tech (and LED) will not improve in 3 years as well.. further widening the gap?
This argument sounds like an echo of the American auto industry that is slowly going the way of the DODO because they fell too far behind, basing business on inefficient products and refusing to step forward because they were worried about re-tooling plants and emissions standards hurting the bottom-line of today… all while overseas companies saw the promise of efficient technologies/products and went full steam ahead.
GE does make the valid point of having the policy focus aimed on efficiency standards… but it wont save the heat bulb, or GE if they continue with focusing innovation in limited technologies when other areas of lighting technology are making leaps and bounds.
Also – what about CCFT?
March 9th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
What’s the deal with Sargent and the canned photos? I am familar with his work and I’ve seen them interspersed in his publications as webpage.