New $60 (or $20) LED Bulb that Lasts 20 Years

The greater troubling issues beyond the $60 price of the L-Prize bulb.
The problem is that the L-Prize contest which was supposed to foster U.S. green technology competitiveness was RIGGED.

As a foreign based (headquartered) corporation Philips was excluded from eligibility according to the law that established the L-Prize, in particular public law 110-140 section 655(f)(1). Under U.S. federal law the term “a primary place of business” that is used in the statute refers to the single headquarters location, which in the case of Philips is Amsterdam,Netherlands.

When this issue arose after the announcement of Philips as the L-Prize “winner” the CEO of Philips Lighting North America Zia Eftekhar went on record falsly stating that the L-Prize bulb was “conceived” and had its “origins” in the U.S. See http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4218797/Born-in-the-USA–Philips–L-Prize-LED-bulb The truth as evidenced in Philips patent application on the L-Prize bulb, is otherwise. See http://www.google.com/patents/about/ELECTRIC_LAMP.html?id=adH3AQAAEBAJ The patent application which was, originally filed in Europe in 2008, but published in the U.S. two months after the Philips executive made his misrepresentations, lists only Dutch inventors, no U.S. inventors and assignes the patent to the Dutch Philips entity, not to a U.S. entity.

Philips also spent $1.79 Million lobbying for appropriations for the L-PRIZE see http://freebeacon.com/wp-content//uploads/2012/03/Philips.LightBulb.pdf

Nonetheless “A House Appropriations Committee report issued in June slammed the department for announcing the $10 million prize without prior approval from Congress.” see http://freebeacon.com/obamas-dim-bulbs/

The L-Prize entry also failed to meet key technical requirements of the contest. The Philips entry does not meet the stated uniformity requirement of the contest. This is admitted in a document obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), see https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B25T0YFa8TKaMDFmYzZmNGItYTMyOS00YmM1LTgyZjAtZWJiNzQ2NmM1MWY3/edit The curt justification asserted in that document based on comparing uniformity to a standard incandescent lamp is factually (quantifiably) false. The L-Prize lamp submitted for evaluation was actually less uniform. See https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B25T0YFa8TKaTHVVbDVrLTVSSkNEcW5MaVNzVTI4dw/edit

The production L-Prize bulb also does not meet the published L-Prize uniformity criteria of +/-10% of average in the zone 0 to 150 degrees. See data on page 41 of http://www.usa.lighting.philips.com/pwc_li/us_en/lightcommunity/trends/l-prize/assets/EnduraLED_A19_Bulb_9290002097.pdf and https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B25T0YFa8TKaWExFamtJcG9nSUE/edit?pli=1

Whether the Philips lightbulb actually satisfies the L-Prize 25,000 hour lifetime with less than 10% failure requirement is put into question by the fact that in an independent laboratory evalutation conducted by the Southern California Edison 1 of 16 bulbs failed by changing color to red. See http://www.etcc-ca.com/component/content/article/48-Commercial/3044-l-prize-lab-evaluation

The Philips entry also failed to produce the required amount of light. In one test 62 out of 100 bulbs failed. (See above linked FOIAed document) Whether the commercialized version will consistently produce the required amount of light is an open question, HOWEVER the stated procedure for the contest was that if the entry failed a required test the entry would fail. See flowchart on page 15 of http://www.lightingprize.org/pdfs/LPrize-Revision1.pdf

What happened is that Philips wanted to submit prematurely to claim the prize (see http://reason.com/archives/2012/03/09/feds-pay-10-million-for-50-light-bulb ) and the Department of Energy did not want to follow the rules and fail them, rather they embarked on RIGGING the contest. They kept the failure secret and proceeded with other tests.

The result is that a bulb developed by Dutch inventors, built with some (possibly most) of its parts made in Shenzhen China (see http://www.dailytech.com/Philips+Wins+10M+USD+Govt+LPrize+for+Worlds+Most+Efficient+Light+Bulb/article24082.htm ) has been given a great initial advantage which may allow it to dominate U.S. competitors, even though the contest is RIGGED.

We may wind up with Dutch citizens enjoying social welfare benefits such as vacations for the unemployed, supported by Chinese workers working 16 hours a day and American consumers squeezed by $60 light bulb prices whether they pay that amount at the check out counter or indirectly pay for subsidies through their electric bill.