The twisted compact fluorescent light bulb has long been used as a design element to represent up-to-date technology, but at the rate things are going it will soon be representing out-of-date technology. This begins a brilliantly written, deeply insightful and yet charming article in today’s Concord Monitor about the surprisingly quick transition happening from compact fluorescent bulbs to LED bulbs.
There’s a sidebar with the title “Does electricity savings really pay for fancy-schmancy light bulbs?” if you want to poke around in some numbers.
Return to the Concord Monitor
I love LED bulbs. They have so many advantages over incandescent and CFL bulbs. However, they apparently are not a great choice for traffic signals in colder regions. Incandescent lamps generate heat which in turn melts any snow and ice that accumulates in front of the signal light. LED traffic signals do not generate all that much heat which therefore does not eliminate the build up of ice and snow. To counter this, manufacturers employ the use of an electric heater which is thermostatically controlled to eliminate the build up which blocks the light.
We won’t even get into the discussion about the Easy Bake oven my daughter had…
Ironic that a device used to save energy is not inefficient enough to do its job during the winter!
That is one of my favorite Tales Of Unintended Consequences.
And it’s a great example of how systems adapt to handle or even profit from bugs (in this case, heat inefficiency) – which makes it harder to fix those bugs later, because the fixes come with drawbacks.