Staring down the barrel of a federal ban on light bulbs as we know them, a local genius has taken a page from his family’s old friend, Thomas Edison.
“You, I and just about everybody you know are somewhat addicted to incandescent light,” said Larry Birnbaum, founder and owner of Epic Light Bulb, in South Hackensack, NJ, a third-generation wholesale and retail electrical supply manufacturer, and the brains behind the Newcandescent bulb.
“We’re used to it. We grew up with its soft, warm glow that’s a very soothing, very calming color of light.”
His new bulb, which gives off the same warm glow, is already approved by the Department of Energy and will offer consumers an alternative when the government shuts production of regular bulbs starting Jan. 1.
Under the Bush-era ban, companies here will no longer be allowed to make the old bulbs or import them.
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires all general-purpose bulbs to be 30 percent more energy-efficient than regular incandescent bulbs.
In creating his Newcandescent, Birnbaum, 63, employed an electrical talent that has run in his family for generations.
His grandpa, master electrician Samuel Birnbaum, became friendly with Edison in 1914, when the inventor turned up at Birnbaum’s lower-Manhattan electrical-supply store to present him with a sales award from General Electric.
The award, a working replica of the world’s first light bulb, was hand-crafted by Edison. It still works, and Birnbaum says it is even more rare than the originals Edison made in 1879.
The pair would talk frequently for the next 17 years, until Edison’s death.
“They loved to bounce things off of each other,” Birnbaum said.
The federal ban starts next month with 100-watt bulbs and will regulate nearly all general-purpose light bulbs by 2014.
While most light-bulb manufacturers have ramped up production on compact fluorescents, consumers have yet to embrace the trade-offs that come with the new bulbs’ energy efficiency — especially their cold, unnaturally dull light.
The Newcandescent is different and slips through a loophole in the law that allows for the manufacture of “rough purpose” incandescent bulbs that could survive, for example, the rattling of a subway train or construction equipment.
The bulbs are cheaper, made in the USA, and just as efficient and long-lasting as their fluorescent rivals.