WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LIGHT BULB?

By: Mick Blankenship

You don’t have to think too far back, maybe a decade or so, to remember a time when a dollar and change could buy a four pack of light bulbs. Now, you’d be lucky to get one bulb for that price. What happened? Does inflation account for the price of light bulbs quadrupling over ten years? Even today’s inflation rates aren’t that steep. The light bulb has evolved significantly in recent years after a long time of little change. Incandescent bulbs ruled the thrown of electric household lighting since the late 1800s. Due to an oil crisis in the 1970s, scientists were pushed to find more energy efficient forms of lighting for household use. Since then, the household light bulb has evolved through two forms. Through economies of scale, these energy efficient bulbs are finally affordable. With a little help from the government, these bulbs will soon be our only option.

The history of the light bulb doesn’t start with the incandescent bulb. The first light bulbs were known as arc lamps and were invented in the early 1800s. They worked by producing a spark between two carbon rods. The problem was they didn’t produce light for very long, the light was too bright for practical use, and they made a horrible buzzing sound. They also produced harmful UV rays and emitted carbon monoxide gas.

It took most of the 1800s to create a more useful light bulb that was affordable. The invention of the incandescent bulb cannot be credited to one scientist. It underwent a series of improvements by many different scientists over many years. It was Thomas Edison who put the finishing touches on the bulb, making it affordable and useful for American households. By the end of the 1920s, the incandescent light bulb had taken over gas lighting as the preferred method of lighting an American home.

The incandescent bulb ruled supreme for over half a decade until an energy crisis in the 1970s got scientists to start working on more efficient forms of lighting. Fluorescent lighting already existed but wasn’t practical for home use. The bulbs were long and required a bulky ballast. They were mainly used in large commercial or industrial applications. Scientist figured out how to bend the bulbs into a spiral, and reduce the size of the ballast to be compact enough to replace a common incandescent bulb. These compact fluorescent bulbs, or CFLs, hit the market in the 1980s. They were 6 times more efficient and longer lasting than incandescent bulbs, but the down sides were significant. The price per bulb was astronomical, and the bulbs were still kind of bulky. They didn’t fit well in many household fixtures. It took 30 years to get the price low enough for a common American household to use. By the time CFLs were suitable to take over the thrown, a new technology had already emerged.

Just as shelves were starting to fill up with CFLs, it was time to make room for an even more efficient, longer lasting, and versatile option, the LED bulb. LED stands for light emitting diodes. I don’t want to lose you by getting too technical about how LEDs work, just know that they put out a lot more light with way less energy. See below the table laying out the differences in energy usage and lifespan between incandescent, CFL, and LED:

Incandescent CFL LED

Lumens (light) per watt 13 78 156

Lifespan (hours) 1,500 10,000 25,000

As you can see, an LED bulb can put out 12 times as much light with the same amount of electricity as an incandescent bulb. That means the portion of your power bill from LED lighting will be one twelfth of what it would be with incandescent lighting. It also lasts more than 16 times as long. I think that more than justifies 4 times the cost. However, people usually want to pay less today. LEDs have a higher up front cost. Incandescent bulbs would still be the number one seller had the government not gotten involved.

In 2007, legislation was put in place to phase out the 60 watt incandescent bulb, the most commonly sold light bulb at that time. In a proclaimed effort to achieve more energy efficiency, the 60 watt incandescent light bulb was gone by 2014. Since then, the Department of Energy has expanded on these regulations. By August 1st of this year, the sale of incandescent bulbs will be completely banned in the US, with a few exceptions. The most recent ruling requires all bulbs to meet a minimum efficiency of 45 lumens per watt, making CFLs and LEDs the only bulbs on the market for general household use.

As far as I can tell, it sounds like a good thing. We’ll spend less money and use less energy in the long run. We just have to shell out more bucks today. It will be interesting to see if these bulbs last as long as they claim. Will anyone actually see their power bills go down? Time will tell. The incandescent bulb had a nice run. It will always have a special place in my heart as it illuminated the first 30 years of my life. However, it’s time is over. LED it is.