light bulbs

IKEA plans to sell only LED light bulbs

Because IKEA is so fricking ubiquitous, this is actually a big deal.

Levitating LED light bulb could easily be the coolest thing in your house

The internet is full of makers, creating homebrewed technology out of stuff they have lying around, but every so often someone makes a thing that I can totally see as the centerpiece of tomorrow’s science-fiction way of life. For instance, this levitating LED bulb.

Here’s what to buy so you can stop living in self-denial

Trying to reduce a building’s energy footprint is so dang hard, especially when it involves leaving pee in the toilet, sweating through hot days, and nagging your significant other to please turn off the goddamn lights when leaving the house. And while some people might want to live like that, most people don’t. Normally we […]

Wooden light bulb is the most magical-looking LED bulb we’ve seen

There are all kinds of futuristic-looking energy-efficient light bulbs on the market — not just the traditional piggy-tail model, but liquid-cooled bulbs that look like glass jellyfish, and bulbs with gills like a mushroom or fins like a Cadillac. But for our money, this wooden bulb by artist Ryosuke Fukusada is the most beautiful energy-efficient […]

Ask Umbra: Why are my CFLs burning out so quickly?

Umbra offers illumination on CFLs (fritzy and otherwise), LEDs, and halogen incandescents.

Death of ‘lightbulb ban’ greatly exaggerated

Congresscritters who love inefficiency, waste, and air pollution — or at least the money that comes from industries that do — attached a rider to the spending bill yesterday evening that will reverse an earlier law to phase out crappy old-style lightbulbs. The crazy thing is that the ban is still in effect, and the […]

Critical List: Congress does everything it can to screw the environment; fabric cleaned by sunlight

Congress voted to put sanctions on Iran, which would make it harder for Iran to sell oil, but potentially make oil sales more profitable for the regime overall. After all the work that the anti-Keystone coalition did, Republicans are trying to tack a measure to approve the pipeline onto a bill that extends the payroll […]

Don’t tell Bachmann, but lightbulb standards were a Republican idea

Republicans have been whining about the Obama administration’s liberty-squashing decision to phase out inefficient incandescent bulbs in favor of CFLs, LEDs, and (surprise!) more efficient incandescent bulbs. But (double surprise!) the idea of requiring efficient lightbulbs sprang fully-formed from the head of a Republican, Michigan Rep. Fred Upton. 

Critical List: Wind turbines get bigger and better; tree-killing fungi are thriving

Wind turbines are becoming bigger, more efficient, and more powerful.

Drilling in the Arctic is not such a hot idea, as any spill will be tricky to clean up.

The Southeast is the only region in the country that hasn’t put renewable energy mandates in place.