February 2009

Kevin Willmorth sums up the tradeoffs of globalization in his lighting and energy conservation blog. He makes the point that the U.S. economy is currently overly focused on taking profit from a devaluation process instead of one that builds value. The long term result is a loss of competitiveness and erosion of wages and qualify [...]

Friend, colleague and fellow blogger Kevin Willmorth, principal of Lumenique, performed an interesting experiment recently to produce an LED PAR lamp with a light pattern somewhere between an R20 spot and a PAR20 flood, with an R20 flood’s light output. He produced his own LED lamp using spare parts from a halogen PAR20, CFL, 4W [...]

Jason Bruges Studio, a UK-based studio producing interactive light sculpture and environments, was commissioned to create a lighting art feature for a 10-story atrium in Allen & Overy’s new headquarters at 1 Bishop’s Square, London. The Studio produced an eight-story 3D chandelier comprised entirely of individually addressable LED light globes developed with manufacturer Ledon, controlled [...]

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009–the “stimulus package”–has been passed, which includes $311 billion in appropriations. President Obama will sign the bill into law on Tuesday, February 17, and then let the spending begin. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the plan will generate 1-3 million jobs. In the past 12 months, 3.5 [...]

Day-Brite Capri Omega (DCO) Lighting Institute will hold a specifier seminar on office lighting at its facility in Tupelo, Mississippi on March 26 and 27. The seminar will focus on lighting issues, specifically how lighting can contribute to the creation of the most sustainable and efficient workplace lighting environments. Issues include glare, task visibility, psychological [...]

DOE’s main solid-state lighting proponent, Jim Brodrick, recently reported in from the DOE SSL workshop, just held in San Francisco, for those who couldn’t make it with one of his best letters (“Postings: From the Desk of Jim Brodrick”) to date. The conference presentations, by the way, should be published on the DOE SSL website [...]

NEMA’s Lighting Systems Index (LSI), which reflects sales of lighting equipment by NEMA members, dropped 4.8% between the third and fourth quarters of 2008. Lighting shipments fell six of the last seven quarters, but this is the biggest drop since 2001, bringing the index 16% lower than its cyclical peak level in early 2006 and [...]

The Berkeley Lamp II is a multipurpose luminaire providing upper ambient, lower task or combined lighting. Designed for use in living areas, lobbies or lounges where the budget doesn’t allow for wiring of ceiling or wall mounted luminaires, the Berkeley Lamp II uses a patented dimming control for control of the dual 70W lamps. At [...]

The Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) has released a report on “bright green buildings,” which CABA defines as a “building that leverages intelligent technologies to support environmental sustainability while providing a significant return on investment (ROI).” The report, titled Bright Green Buildings: Convergence of Green and Intelligent Buildings and authored by Frost & Sullivan, features [...]