Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., compared the $50 lightbulb developed with the support of Department of Energy subsidies to the first computers that ultimately led to the spread of laptops, and suggested that people who protest the cost of the lightbulb are being “disingenuous.”
“When I hear about the $50 light bulbs and the award given for that technology, I think of what laptops were when the first laptop came out,” Franken told Energy Secretary Steven Chu during a congressional hearing today. “I mean, essentially we’re talking about mainframes — what the cost of a main frame — between now everybody who can get a laptop gets a laptop.”
Franken then criticized the sincerity of another senator’s earlier question. “That $50 lightbulb [question], ‘oh, are you expecting every American to spend $2000 a year on lightbulbs?’ or whatever that question was, strikes me as just disingenuous, or — either that or not understanding what the purpose of developing that kind of technology is.”
The Department of Energy (DOE) gave the appliance company Philips a $10 million grant, which the company used to research and develop a lightbulb that lasts 30,000 hours, but costs $50.
