Dalek embryo or finance sucking, vampire lightbulb? Take your pick.
We’re all for saving money but every once in a while along comes an invention that makes us say, ‘Hmmm’. To celebrate some of the more dubious finds, moneysavingzone has a new category aptly called, “Hmmm’.
In our sights today we have, amongst others, the Dutch electrical giant, Philips. Their latest announcement centres around the 100 Watt energy saving bulb. Has to be good, right? We all want to save some cash and what could be better than cutting down our electricity bills?
The new range of bulb pushes out an impressive 100W of light (although the Philips engineers are keen talk about lumens – Watts went the way of Queen Victoria) whilst consuming on 9.3W of electricity. Genius! “Where can I buy one?”, I hear you say.
Don’t hold your breath – the new bulbs will be available from 2013 onwards for the meagre investment of about £37 a throw! Close your mouth: we’re talking about the saving the environment here.
According to the dome headed engineers at Philips, each bulb has a lifespan of about 22 years. To get this kind of longevity normally only associated with cavemen and starlings you’ll need to power the energy saving bulb for about 3 hours per day.
Even at a reduced cost of about £17 per bulb it’s still an expensive way to save energy. Look at this way: a standard bulb costs about 50p and will last, on average for about 4 – 5 years. By my reckoning that, currently, gives the good old filament bulb the upper hand.
I’m not going to preach. We know that world’s energy supplies will grind to a crunching halt at some point in the future. Resources are running out fasting that you can build ugly, inefficient wind turbines but there has to be something better than this.
If electrical manufacturers really want to save the world they’ll have to come up with something better than this! I’m sure a lot of our readers have a garden shed full of cheap bulbs that don’t finally warm up when it’s time to go to bed.
Philips aren’t the only company to announce new energy saving bulbs. American electrical company General Electric and Sylvania have also joined the road to eco-beatification with their own offerings. Before you ask, no, their offerings aren’t really any cheaper!
That’s enough from me. I’ll leave you to decide if the love child of Davros and Thomas Edison really is worth the money.