Sandia Labs Wants To Improve The World's Lighting

SUE MAJOR HOLMES

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Sandia National Laboratories scientist Jerry Simmons envisions a future of brighter, more efficient lights, with people even being able to tune the color of light in a room to suit a mood or the time of day.

What he has in mind is definitely not Thomas Edison's light bulb.

It isn't even a bulb in the sense of incandescent bulbs, the newer twisty compact fluorescent lighting bulbs or the fluorescent tubes that light offices.

What Sandia is working toward is a better light bulb using LEDs — light emitting diodes — such as those that power flashlights and traffic lights.

The payoff could be huge.

About 22 percent of U.S. electrical use goes for lighting, but much of that energy is wasted.

Fluorescent lights are only about 20 percent efficient. Even that's four times better than the 5 percent efficiency of incandescent bulbs.