David Shiller

  Rural Energy for America is a new program of the US Department of Agriculture. The program provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses, for renewable energy systems or to make energy efficiency improvements. Agricultural producers may also apply for new energy efficient equipment and new system loans [...]

  LightNOW has recently covered advances in green aluminum, copper, and textiles. There has now been a large advancement in creating more environmentally friendly glass. Researchers at Penn State University have created what they’re calling LionGlass, a new type of glass that cuts the carbon footprint in half and increases the strength by ten fold. [...]

  Two weeks ago, I wrote about the coming lighting-HVAC control integration tsunami, here. The following are 10 trends in lighting-HVAC control integration: IoT Integration: The Internet of Things (IoT) has played a significant role in the integration of lighting and HVAC systems. This involves using sensors and smart devices to collect data and control [...]

The Nobel Prizes awarded, this month, in both Chemistry and Physics had some things in common. Both involved scientific breakthroughs involving light, as well as distance scales so small that quantum mechanical behavior is essential to understand the science. Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov were awarded the Nobel Prize in [...]

  I’m pleased to share my first article published in the October issue of Lighting Design + Application (LD+A), the magazine of the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES). Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, the only dedicated children’s hospital in Nebraska, had outgrown its facility in Omaha and was on the verge of turning away patients in [...]

  Here is a quick summary of seven acquisitions in the third quarter of 2023: Signify acquires Douglas Lighting Controls assets. Details here. Bukas Lighting Group acquires iWorks. Details here. ADLT (Advanced Lighting Technologies, Venture, DimOnOff) acquires Cree Lighting. Details here. Charge Enterprises, Inc. acquires Greenspeed Energy Solutions, LLC. Details here. Nemo Lighting acquires majority [...]

  In a previous post, I’ve discussed sustainable aluminum as a path to further improve the sustainability of lighting. Another important metal to the lighting industry is copper. Copper is also critical for electrification, electric motors, electric vehicles, and many renewable energy technologies. The Copper Mark is a labeling program for copper producers to demonstrate [...]

  Some LightNOW readers are likely familiar with the existing white light laser approach of a blue laser diode (LD) pumping a phosphor to make safe, high intensity, white light. The challenges with blue LD + phosphor are: low CRI for phosphors that can withstand the intensity and heat, only high CCTs for these phosphors, [...]

  In the lighting world, we usually think of reducing carbon by increasing efficiency of energy use. However, there is a new push to reduce the carbon used to create construction materials, known as embodied carbon. This matters in the fight against climate change. Building materials and construction comprise about 11% of global energy carbon [...]