Comments on: Reinventing the lightbulb, with nanotubes

Researchers create a prototype bulb with a carbon nanotube in place of the standard tungsten filament. It uses less power, burns brighter and could lead to the first major overhaul in bulb design in a century.

L.E.D's

Erm, so what? i mean, technically shouldn't we all be using LED bulbs by now? as near enough white light bulbs have been available for a few years now, they take a fraction of the power, and should last almost indefinately (certainly longer than 10 years) I remember it must have been about 5-8 years ago I heard on the radio that the LED's were ready, but the power convertor for a normal light bulb socket would be 'prohibitivly expensive' at £2-£3, though that's not what i would call a problem for environmentally friendly low power lighting we dont have to replace every couple of months...

[hadaso]

The Space Elevator

One much more exciting appliation planned for carbon nanotubes is the elevator to outer space!

http://gizmonicsinc.com/elevator/index.html

[STS]

Who cares? (Take 2)

First, Edison used carbon filaments in his original design, many of which are still working today! What is new about this? The use of carbon NANOTUBES... There are better uses for nanotubes.

Second, LED's are "obviously" the future of lighting. As pointed out by Yakumo, they use a SMALL fraction of the electricity, produce almost NO heat, and last 50K-100K hours. Also, the spectrum output is "tunable" for for a more natural light than is possible with any other light source.

Let's acknowledge that incandescent is a loser technology and spend money on something that is more useful.

[Michael Grogan]

Short lived..

350 hours is far to short a lifetime when compared to current bulbs (especially LEDs) and translates to prohibitively expensive bulbs even if they cost the same.