Obama's $50 light bulb: 'Too pricey'?

The Obama administration announced last year that it would award $10 million to the company that could create a light bulb that was both eco-friendly and affordable. The winning LED bulb, made by Philips, is about to hit the market. There's only one problem: It costs $50. The price of your standard incandescent bulb, on the other hand, hovers in the $1 region. The $10 million award, dubbed the L Prize, is part of the government's plan to phase out all energy-wasting incandescent bulbs over the next several years. But could Obama's $50 light bulb possibly be worth its price?

Really? $50 for a lightbulb?!!! On top of the 10 million the company received to develop it?!

Consumers will likely see it as a luxury item, especially since "similar LED bulbs are less than half the cost."

They were paid 10 million to develop a "similar" LED product to the ones that I can buy for about $5 last I checked (energy efficient ones, not the old style ones)

Over the course of a decade, consumers will shave more than $100 off the cost of their electricity bill.

WOW!!! Thats a whole 83 cents per month savings, minus the 42 cents per month for the cost of the light bulb. That equals 41 cents per month I would save (if the kids don't knock the lamp over, or slam the front door too hard and ruin the bulb, then I'm way in the hole for that $50 bulb)

And for businesses, which have to hire workers to replace light bulbs, "the savings are dramatic."

Does anybody really know someone who's job title is "LIGHTBULB REPLACER"?

news.yahoo.com...

I feel kind of bad for Obama. He tried a few ventures into better energy management. Sadly he failed. And we are supposed to pick up the tab. Yeah forget that.

reply to post by tinker9917

Let's see...22.5 billion euros turnover in 2011. No, I'm sure the price is VERY reasonable.

Q. How many Philips employees does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Five. One to hold the lightbulb and four to turn the table....

ETA A 600 watt HPS Philips bulb costs less than that LED.

Competition for a better bulb my ass...

More likely there was a tax break or earmark Obummer couldn't fit through a bill that was promised to Phillips as a campaign contribution promise.

Did anyone else hear about this competition before it happened? I know of many people that would have loved to get their hands in this, and would have done better.

All I am waiting for is to be shown an article where they promised Phillips to use these new lights in government facilities for the next X amount of years buying them at Y per light.

Just doesn't smell right...

Originally posted by tinker9917

And for businesses, which have to hire workers to replace light bulbs, "the savings are dramatic."

Does anybody really know someone who's job title is "LIGHTBULB REPLACER"?

news.yahoo.com...

edit on 11-3-2012 by tinker9917 because: (no reason given)

edit on 11-3-2012 by tinker9917 because: (no reason given)

This is called cooking the numbers. See, there is no savings in this bulb. What are the odds it will actually last 10 years without being lost, smashed, or otherwise physically damaged? Now multiply that times every bulb in your house. In mine I have 20 bulbs just on the first floor. That is $1000 to replace those bulbs with this PoS, instead of near 20 dollars.

So, since there is no real savings they have to make up things. So, I am sure some brainstorming session was commissioned to find a way to say this bulb saves money where someone said, "Hey, what about those light bulb replacer guys, they won't have to replace bulbs so this saves money on their salary!".

Wow, that is just retarded and here is why.

1: the light-bulb replacer guy is normally a facilities person who had plenty to do and light-bulbs are a very small part of that so that person's job isn't going away
2: work facilities and industrial buildings use florescent bulbs which won't accommodate these pieces of junk. This means millions would be spent swapping out the existing bulb mounts and ballast
3: and most importantly, they don't save any money. Because the bulbs don't save any money they have to justify this PoS by saying it saves something else. Something that isn't really measurable (how many man-hours are spent swapping light-bulbs in a building anyhow?). So, like their jobs numbers, they can now say they have saved millions of dollars (like jobs saved). Prove them wrong.

This is just friggin stupid. And to top it off, I can already buy a 5-10 dollar LED bulb which is 6 watts vs. 60 and get good lighting, I have a number of them in my house already.

$50? Gimme a break! What is wrong with this administration? Not only are the eco-nuts they are BAD at it!

reply to post by Bakatono


Very well said

Originally posted by cconn487
I feel kind of bad for Obama. He tried a few ventures into better energy management. Sadly he failed. And we are supposed to pick up the tab. Yeah forget that.

I feel kind of bad for me. I didn't ask the government, via my representative in congress, to go spend my money to develop a copy of a bulb that already exists and make it more expensive!

This is why governments are supposed to stay out of business. They suck at it. To the government $10 million dollars is nothing. No name routine workers in the government have authority over this kind of money. They are not engineers or even qualified to wire a light socket into a house. They are just government stooges who think they know a lot because they read something online and had a vendor or two blow smoke up their patooties, making them feel important.

I am sure Philips spent plenty of time sending their sales folks to talk to whatever gov stooge was in charge of this program. Plenty of lunches were procured and smoke up patooties blown. In the end the stooge did an "eval" and found this to be a winning device (without even looking at the market which already offers cheaper equivalent bulbs). Then the stooge signs a memo authorizing the release of the $10 million. See, it isn't the stooges money so why does the stooge care?

Even more scary, the stooge will probably get an award or bonus. Gov employee performance is not evaluated on how much they save or how proficient they are, it is on how much they spend or control. You will not find a government management resume anywhere that says anything like: I worked at blah.gov for 10 years and spent only a fraction of my budget, or, I worked at blah.gov for 10 years and didn't break a working program, or, I worked at blah.gov and reduced overall spending.

Instead the gov resume says: I worked at blah.gov for 10 years and was in charge of spending $*** Millions of dollars. I grew my division from 5 to 20 people and created * new programs each worth * millions of dollars.

THAT will get you promoted. See? there is no incentive mechanism in the government to save money and millions are meaningless to them.

Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
reply to post by tinker9917

 

Let's see...22.5 billion euros turnover in 2011. No, I'm sure the price is VERY reasonable.

Q. How many Philips employees does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Five. One to hold the lightbulb and four to turn the table....

ETA A 600 watt HPS Philips bulb costs less than that LED.

edit on 11/3/12 by LightSpeedDriver because: ETA

i wonder what you are doing in holland with a 600watt sodium bulb?

reply to post by glen200376

Oh I didn't say I had one, I was just comparing the cost. I would imagine (certain) people in Holland do the same with those lamps as people elsewhere. The horticultural industry (bell peppers and...some other vegetable they grow here which escapes me) use similar lamps in large "industrial" greenhouses although they could be metal halide too, depending on light needs. They are mainly used as supplemental lighting in the winter months. Phew...

ETA If you ever landed at Amsterdam (Schiphol) airport, you can see some of those greenhouses when you get close. Eindhoven (in the South) is also known as the City of Light because that is where Philips traditionally had their huge factory producing regular old fashioned light-bulbs. They did so well they have their own football team called PSV (Philips Sport Vereniging, Philips Sport Club). Production has been stopped or outsourced for much of Philips production operations though, to the chagrin of the Dutch. Prices never went down, I'm sure profits soared though. Philips are a bunch of [snip] but their lamps are still highly regarded.


ETA2 So much suspicion on this board!