Science In Daily Life

The Energy Waste Dilemma - With the price of gasoline on the upswing(again, April 20, 06), there seems to be little sign that we Americans are at least trying to conserve fuel, though there are pockets of concerned groups that are making their voice heard, mainly against Oil Company price gouging. At the same time the automotive advertising media seems to be pushing the higher gas consumption Suv's and cars. Granted, along with trucks, etc., these are the prime fossil fuel guzzlers, but they are by no means the only culprit for our increasing fuel dependency, be it fossil or renewable.    With all due respect to mr. Edison, inventor of our non-directly fueled commercial lighting system, which was design for practicality and therefore efficiency at the time had not been entered into the  picture. The goal was only to provide a method of supplying the world with inexpensive, widely available commercial lighting. From this gigantic effort, we know, the incandescent light bu...

Talk About "Hidden" Costs Technically Speaking - Each one of us, at one time or another has either driven or been a passenger in an automobile and experienced our traffic control lighting system. Originally unique, but now part of a global system. Situated at every fully functional traffic light intersection is at least one "Red" light which is timed to turn on and off regularly to "Stop" traffic. It employs a 100 Watt(varies between 90 and 120 Watts)incandescent light bulb. Several years ago, these light bulbs began being replaced with the latest LED(Light Emitting Diode) cluster assemblies, as were the other lamps at the same intersection. The newer Led lamps consumed only 10 Watts to accomplish the same light output(mostly greater). The clincher ! The original incandescent bulb only radiates approximately 10 % of the power consumed in visible light. The other 90 % is radiated as "heat". And with the red filter used on the original assembly to...