Philips showcased their new 60 watt LED light bulb at the Lightfair International tradeshow in Las Vegas.  This bulb is set to completely replace the normal 60 watt incandescent light bulbs we are all used to.  The original incandescent bulbs accounted for almost half of all light bulbs sold on the market.  The new bulb will accomplish two things; it will only use 12 watts and last almost 25 times longer.  This means up to 80 percent savings on energy and removes the need to replace your bulbs as often.   LEDs work much more efficiently and require less energy to run.  “Philips estimates the potential saving of 32.6 terawatt-hours of electricity in one year.”  That amounts to enough energy to power the lights in 16.7 million United States homes.

Philips had to come up with an effective and creative way to design their new product and it required a new technology – this technology is known as remote phosphor technology.  This new light bulb will help reduce our carbon footprint vastly.  “It has the potential to eliminate the generation of carbon emissions by 5.3 million metric tons per year.” Their new bulb will have a life expectancy of over 25,000 hours compared to the old bulb which only lasted 1,000 hours.  This new LED bulb marks a big improvement over the last big innovation – the CFL.  The new LED bulb will be capable of controlling motion sensors and will be able to have dim features.  If you don’t have to replace something as often you save a lot of money and a lot of resources.  Over the lifespan of the new LED bulb; it would cost $120 per light source if you were using regular incandescent light bulbs.

I think the LED light bulb Philips unveiled Wednesday is an amazing innovation and there doesn’t appear to be anything negative about it.  It was only a matter of time before a company developed the technology to save massive amounts of energy, money, and resources.  This single product has the potential to save households $120 per lamp and over 32 terawatt hours of electricity in one year!  People will be wasting fewer resources by throwing away bulbs which contain materials that cannot be recycled.  When energy is being saved – less of our Earth‘s fossil fuels are being used and wasted.

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