By Matt @ GreenovationTV

Born to Thomas Edison in 1880, Incandescent Bulb was killed in its sleep this week by its godfather, General Electric.  Incandescent leaves an illuminating legacy through his two children: CFL and LED.  After over a century of inefficiency, and shamed by the cost-savings of his children, he was no longer welcome in most American homes or even in a WalMart.

GE finally pulled the plug on all development of incandescent bulbs.  They will focus all research on light emitting diode (LED) bulbs and the organic light emitting diode (OLED), which use a small fraction of the energy of an old-school incandescent.

In 129 years the incandescent bulb hadn’t changed much.  Recently, many began referring to them as “heaters” rather than “light bulbs” since 95% of the their energy consumption was converted to heat and only 5% remained for light.

GE spokesman David Schuellerman said this about GE’s current plans:

“GE Consumers & Industrial and GE Global Research have suspended the development of the high-efficiency incandescent lamp (HEI) to place greater focus and investment on what we believe will be the ultimate in energy efficient lighting — light emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Research and development of these technologies is moving at an impressive pace and will be ready for general lighting in the near future. LEDs and OLEDs used in general lighting are now poised to surpass the projected efficiency levels of HEI, along with other energy-efficient technologies like fluorescent, and have the additional benefits of long life and durability.”

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