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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA light bulb in the Livermore CA fire station has been burning continuously for 120 years
Old style incandescent bulb. Its signficance? It predates planned obsolescence as a corporate strategy. In the case of light bulbs, it was a collective, international, conspiratorial planned obsolescence.
JHB
(37,159 posts)... there is another factor which is likely the biggest factor:
It never gets turned off.
With no on/off cycle, the filament doesn't go through repeated expansion and contraction from heating up and cooling down. That expansion fatigues the filament material to the point where it breaks.
Without the fatigue, and protected from corrosion by the bulb glass, it keeps on shining.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Sure, planned obsolescence is real, but physical obsolescence and degradation are also.
Always question extreme and odd claims, and any suggestion that old-style light bulbs would have routinely lasted 100 years without planned obsolescence is definitely to be questioned.
BunnyMcGee
(463 posts)due to earthquakes, etc?
I think I read about this in Guinness Book years ago.
robbob
(3,528 posts)But I would imagine its the constant on/off cycling that wears the filament out over time, not the occasional interruptions that probably average out to once a decade.
Also; being a fire station means its possible they have emergence back up on the lighting system.
nykym
(3,063 posts)never let tRUMP see this.
Progressive dog
(6,900 posts)The lifetime cost of more efficient incandescent light bulbs would have been much much much less than those old technology light bulbs.
It's known as progress.
That's why I started buying LED bulbs over a decade ago. They are even more efficient now and they last longer than incandescents.
ratchiweenie
(7,754 posts)The secret is the size of the "filament", if you want to call something that thick by that nomenclature.
hunter
(38,311 posts)Incandescent light bulbs that last longer are less efficient. That's just the physics of tungsten filament lighting. If you want longer lasting bulbs then you have to burn more coal at the power plant to get the same amount of light.
In many parts of the world electricity for lighting was billed separately from electricity used for other purposes. During the first stage of electrification the electric company converted your home or business from gas to electric lighting and then charged rates similar to gas. This rate might be set by government regulation.
If you wanted to use electricity for other purposes those additional outlets were wired on a separate meter and this electricity generally cost more. The idea was that people using electricity for newfangled technologies other than lighting (electric toasters and such...) would pay the capital costs of building more power plants and increasing the capacity of the electric grid.
In some place it was illegal to connect anything but a light bulb to a lighting circuit. You could have your electric service disconnected if you got caught with one of those adapters that lets you plug an appliance into a light bulb socket.
Setting the standard for incandescent light bulbs at 1000 hours leveled the playing field for light bulb manufacturers and allowed them to sell more bulbs but it also reduced the amount of coal burned to power lighting circuits.
In 1951, Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Commission in the United Kingdom issued a report to Parliament and noted that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel