When seeing how the LED's are spreading, I don't think many "classic" technologies will survive for too long.
The thing is, the LED's have already overtaken the system efficacy of practically all "classic" systems in many applications, with competitive cost yet their evolution had just only started. The reliability is just a question of the cost the customers are willing to pay for and even that is improving as more and more people learn how to handle them for given applications.
In that environment there will be very little investment into any of the "classical" technology, as there is no promise of any significant advancement (the technologies are nearly on their maximum principal performance - the mercury discharge in the fluorescents emits the vast majority of it's energy input already as UV radiation, all the losses come from the conversion and that has already nearly unity quantum efficiency, the principal maximum of the concept, so can not improve either),
while LED's are known to be still way far from the principal maximum, so quite significant progress could be still expected (todays blue LED's have efficiency of barely 50%, while there is no known principal physical mechanism, why it could not be 99.9%).

So it will be the normal market forces, which will wipe out first the lower power HID's (where the LED's are cheaper). It could be, some HID makers will remain in business serving the niche usage.
That would be similar to the market for carbon filament incandescents today: Way inferior in performance, in many cases even worse than their originals 100years ago, yet 100x more expensive than their todays way better performing counterparts. Just because unlike the 100year old originals, the present ones do not benefit from the economy of scale of the main product line as the 100years old did.

My observations on the lighting industry are EXACTLY the same as what you have said here Medved.
I think this is whats infuriating quite a few people that have an interest in artificial electric lighting, not just on LG, but on ALL lighting forums I am on.

Its the whole fact that its happening, and happening NOW, and theres nothing any of us can do to stop it?

I always say that it would be interesting if you could `come back` in a 100 years time, and see what light sources will have made LED obsolete?, imagine in the far distant future when the new light source is, say, `Jumbolium atom powered`! , that doesn`t even need electricity?, (yeah, I know thats totally sci fi, but just imagine for a second), would those of us here now be saying, "back in our day lamps were good old LED and electric, not like this new fangled atomic garbage they have today"?

I have read articles from back in the 1950s, when the first fluorescent street lighting was installed in London, and residents were up in arms about them, using words like `ugly`, `monstrosities`, `eye sore`!

Do you EVER hear anyone saying that today???

I`m a huge fan of the HPS lamp, I have them at home, and I will be sad to see them go from our streets, but at the end of the day, it WILL happen, whether I, or anyone else like it or not!

In the 50's they were talking that about the FL lanterns, where were those FL lanterns in the 90s ? None around, replaced with HID (and LPS) that were more acceptable. In some other places HID was there all along since the 50s. In some other places (Mainland Europe) the FL caught on better and were accepted. Choices

The LED revolution is all about putting an end to choice. That is, you won't be able to choose FL, HID or LED. You'll only be able to choose LED. Which makes perfect sense, LED have big inherent disadvantages that are there to stay, which make it a poor choice for many application no matter what Lm/W figures they get. When everythng is available and picked for the application with sense, LED will take place in some applications and thats it. The manufacturers want LED to be the one final and only option, therefore they must eliminate other choices

Electrical lighting was a revolution, but none of the emerging electrical lighting technologies by itself was a revolution. There was no "MBF revolution", "LPS revolution", "FL revolution", "HPS revolution", "Induction FL revolution", and so on. Those were simply newly developed technologies that found each its good use, without bells and whistles, and without intention to eliminate something else. The "LED revolution" is artificial. It is made to be a "revolution" with the intention to destroy everything else

Well thats not entirely true though it it?, yes the older techs were not `forced` on us like the green LED lobby do, but 1000s of incandescent lamps were assigned to the bin when fluorescent took over factories and industry applications, GLS was still available but no one chose it, and they were never re-introduced for industry use?

They also lost out in street lighting to MV, (at first), again GLS were available for street lighting but no one chose them, nor were they ever used again for streets?
Then when the energy crisis of the 1970 took hold, MV lost out to LPS, with MV always being available throughout the 70s and 80s, and onwards, (but here at least), they were never re-installed, being replaced with HPS.

And for domestic use, ALL techs are still available here, for those who want incandescent, their still available in stores in the form of halogen, and for those who choose fluorescent, these are also still sold, in both CFL and linear types, and even the LED shelves in hardware stores in the UK and no bigger than the latter two shelves.

It puzzles me when you hear people in the UK complain about the GLS ban???, er....guys, you can still get them for your home!, but in halogen form, which is a better and brighter incandescent light than the old none halogen type.

Mercury and Fluorescent were better for industrial and some types of commercial use, so took their place. In domestic use GLS stayed, in some corners of commercial use it stayed, and kept doing its work for many years

Here it was mostly Mercury for many years. HPS started coming in the 70s, made wide appearance in the 80s, and replaced a lot of Mercury too. But brand new Merury installations were very common up to about 2000, and occasional brand new Mercury installations appeared well into the 2000s, where ever Mercury was considered the most appropriate

None of that was shouting the megaphone like a revolution, shooting the guns like a revolution, or burning flags like a revolution, so it was not a revolution

Thats quite interesting to what happened here, did the 1970s energy crisis reach Israel?, I remember here we were rationed with electricity consumption in the second half of the 70s, it resulted in rolling black outs for hours on end happening EVERY week!

This along with the 1979 oil crisis prompted all our MV street lighting to be removed in 1980, when LPS lamps took over the whole of the UK.

Most installations of the time were quite minimal. 80W lamps (or 125's with very wide spacings) for "B" roads, probably no more than 250 for "A" roads, most inter-city roads being dark. Houses built at the time (actually, up to late 80s) had 1 Phase 25A supply. There probably was not that much energy used in the 1st place to justify extreme saving measures

However, i wasnt around back then to know, my family not either (we came in the 90s from the collapsing Soviet Union)

What I'm concerned about is that non-LED lights may not be available in the future, so I don't want to use them. That doesn't mean that I will not get more non-LED lights for my collection. I might use the really cheap non-LED lights as they are "disposable".

What I'm concerned about is that non-LED lights may not be available in the future, so I don't want to use them. That doesn't mean that I will not get more non-LED lights for my collection. I might use the really cheap non-LED lights as they are "disposable.

They will probably be around forever, unless they reinvent the lava lamp, as they NEED the heat from the bulb to work!

I don't have anything against leds but the only annoying problem I see is that many led fixtures dont have anykind of shut-off mechanism for faults. I've seen some led lights flashing on and off rapidly as the faulty led driver is trying to start and stay on and thats really annoying. There should be a requirment to have atleast some kind of mechanism to detect abnormal operation and shutdown the fixture.

Btw. It funny thing that there was such big fuss over incandescent lamp ban in Finland and now years afterward hardware stores are still trying to get rid of their stock of lamps. Local store has Orma light lamps for sale, 10 pcs of 60w lamps for 3,90 euro and when I last time checked there was still plenty left as apparently, nobody wants them anymore.

The stupid lamp bans should be REPEALED-Lets have FREEDOM of choice!!!!The bans really don't serve a useful purpose.Since YOU are paying the utility bill you should be able to use whatever lighting equipment you want to use!

They won't be.  Life sucks sometimes, but either you just go on with it or give up on life. 

LED's are fine with me at this point...as they seem to be a step in a better direction than CFL's, which, as in a society I reside, are problematic in that they are more prone to end up in landfills; and mass production was/is still making a lot of short-lived CFL's that get tossed quickly.

But my disorganized mind has other random questions...

Amidst the typical and especially polarized political landscape these days, would LEDs be where they are now without the regulations putting a burden on conventional lighting tech up to a certain point? Back in the early-mid 90's here in the US, as I recall, It began with fluorescent lamps in 40w and 75w, Cool White (60CRI) starting to be discontinued as per new regulations. Up to that point, besides the energy crisis of the 70's, innovation went at a pace of what seemed like natural discovery and improvement. But the 90's brought new governmental intervention that changed the playing field.

Would all of this still have come about on its own? (honest question... as I don't have any particular political ideology that I get hung up on...I'm all over the map, lol)

While part of me is cautious of government intervention into markets because there is usually a self-serving element for 'special interest', in this case, I do have to consider the increasing demand the human population has on our planetary resources. I tend to think that resources, as we currently use, are finite. Any technology to keep this rising demand in check does seem like a good idea. But, at the same time, I am turned off by authoritarian or draconian measures of which can easily be abused by cultures or special interests in our governments and institutions. Hence, one of the big political struggles right now in the world which effects all of us somehow. Just on this lighting site, we see the struggle without being political.

But evolution and change are indeed inevitable and things do get bumpy.


I will continue to enjoy the tech and innovations that went on from the late 19th through the 20th century in lighting....as it has many time stamps of what the technology world was like at that time. And while some of us will keep that spirit alive, new stuff like LED and whatever else will come about to hopefully help stabilize the world's demand for energy in the future.

I think the LED's have very high chance to push away the other light sources from really most applications, mainly those occupied by the incandescents.

Initially in many applications the running cost of the LED's will push the incandescents away. That will reduce the demand for the incandescents, which will make them becoming more expensive to make. This will cause many incandescent production facilities to close down. Once the incandescent prices will rise, even more applications will switch over to LED's, making the incandescent demand even lower, yielding even higher cost and more closed facilities.
Till we get into a situation, when a single incandescent will be more expensive to buy than a single LED (just the purchase price alone). Then even most of the remaining applications (when the purchase cost is the largest TCO contributor - because of very sparse use) will be equipped using LEDs. So the incandescents will remain just as very expensive specialty (decoration,...), about 10..100x more expensive to buy and way lower quality than a LED with the same output...
The thing is, products like incandescents could be made cheap and with reasonable quality only when you are able to sell really huge quantity of them. And there just won't be market for such huge quantities anynmore...

Medved, what you are saying sounds exactly like what happened to the vacuum tube after the transistor was invented. However, I think LEDs will eliminate HID and fluorescent before they eliminate incandescent.