Lynne Kiesling
As authorized by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy has , the L Prize (here’s the prize website). Cash prizes and other inducements for the development of solid state lighting to replace standard incandescent and fluorescent bulbs.
is a big deal. The light is emitted from a block of semiconductor material instead of in a vacuum in a tube or by exciting a gas in a tube. If you have any LED lights, that’s an example of solid-state lighting. They use very little energy per lumen of light, and they emit very little waste heat.
There are a couple of academic research centers working on solid-state lighting, and there are some . Mass-market solid-state lighting is not there yet.
However, if the alternative to this kind of policy is command-and-control technology standards and building standards, then this prize-based policy is more likely to generate effective, commercializable solid-state lighting. At least it stipulates the performance objectives without stipulating how the technology is to achieve those objectives (other than the technologies having to be solid-state).
I think that’s the real on-the-ground realpolitik comparison to make, although I also think that we should not ignore the crowding out question (especially as fuel prices and electricity prices rise).
Share This
Random Posts
