The U.S. Air Force is the force behind a new energy-efficient, high performance lighting system that also sets a high bar for its focus on lifecycle sustainability, from raw materials to recycling and disposal. If that all sounds a bit touchy-feely, consider the military logistics of supplying and disposing light bulbs over all five branches of the armed services, from fighting equipment to office lighting, and you can see the incentive for trimming things down to a more manageable – and less expensive – level.
Air Force Funding for Energy Efficient Lighting
The new research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research in partnership with researchers based at the University of Illinois, which resulted in the formation of a company called Eden Park Illumination, Inc. Its signature line of research is a microplasma lighting system that is a far cry from the anything on the market today. There is nothing round, curved, or bulby-looking about it. Instead, it comes in the form of a thin, flat wafer punctuated with arrays of tiny holes.
cleantechnica
