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A light bulb that burns as hot as the sun

luxim-bulb-cnet-001.jpgWe all know that the current generation of light bulbs are woefully inefficient, sucking up juice and not converting all that much of it into light. So what are we going to replace them with? Well, we know there are some current options out there, but none of them come close to the efficiency of upcoming Plasma Lights.

Plasma light bulbs heat up to an insane 6000-degrees Kelvin at their core, the heat at the surface of the sun. It also puts out 140 lumens per watt, which is almost ten times as efficient as an incandescent bulb. And because the temperature is close to the color temperature of daylight, it's a much more natural color than the harsh white light that some other bulbs put out. Sold!

CNET, via GadgetLab

 
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(6) COMMENTS

Tashanna Stevenson:
Im 11 and yes i dont why i came on thissite but its cool. I was looking up a question so can any of u smart ppl a...More »


Comments

By mocmylov at 10:49 AM ON 04/09/08

Kelvin is not actually a measure of degree... It's just Kelvin, 6000K... If you want to say degrees, you can say 5726.85-degrees Celsius... But otherwise, this tech is awesome!

By eCurmudgeon at 12:14 PM ON 04/09/08

And how many fires will this so-called bulb set? I remember the hoo-hah over halogen bulbs some years ago -- those did set a few fires, and now you want to use a bulb that gets to 6000 degrees in use? What fools these mortals be ...

By lisetiffner at 5:18 PM ON 04/09/08

It’s funny how people confuse color temperature and heat temperature. This appears to be the case as 6000k is the brightness of the sun and 4100k is what we normally spec for lighting temperatures in commercial buildings. If you said this light burns as bright as the sun then you would be closer to accurate. It definitely does not burn as hot as the sun or that glass tube would not survive. Interesting technology.

By Kyle Huff at 8:27 PM ON 04/09/08

I left an excellent comment explaining black-body radiators and color temperature, but upon submitting, I got the error: "Text entered was wrong."
Now my comment is gone with no way to retrieve it. Nice comment system. Thanks.

By Rudy at 6:06 PM ON 04/10/08

As someone who sells light bulbs for a living, I find this advancement to be exciting. Currently, we sell quite a few compact fluorescent bulbs, but many of our customers have concerns about their mercury content. If this technology were to become scaled down to a size that could be utilized by the average consumer, it would be far more efficient (in terms of lumens per watt) than compact fluorescents, and presumably less toxic.

By Tashanna Stevenson at 5:45 PM ON 10/21/09

Im 11 and yes i dont why i came on thissite but its cool. I was looking up a question so can any of u smart ppl answer this for me it says.. How is the sun a lightbulb? Please respond


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