The Phoebus Cartel Was Never Really Evil

Debunking the myths around the 120-year lightbulb, shining a more positive light on the Phoebus cartel, and getting the facts right around LED lights.

Photo by Jana Leu on Unsplash

There are very few things in terms of technology as ubiquitous as the humble lightbulb, and for good reasons. “Let there be light” changes everything. It helps us see things, see each other, transmit information, enables screens for us to stare at, and I could go on and on. Light produced through the use of electricity is everywhere and without it, our civilisation would crumble. If you thought lockdowns during the pandemic or climate change were bad, imagine turning off the lights forever. “Oh God, we’re all doomed!” would be a very optimistic reaction compared to what would actually unfold within minutes, and it wouldn’t even have to happen in the middle of the night.

My fascination with light and lightbulbs started at the age of around 7, right after the death of my grandad. As an “inheritance” I received a big bag full of plastic building blocks. They weren’t quite LEGO, but worked quite similarly. The piece variations were quite limited, though, as you were meant to build mostly houses out of them. Doors, windows, bricks, roof slopes and that was about it. Building houses got boring pretty quickly, so I decided it needed something extra — it needed lighting.

For a 7-year-old, I came up with a pretty ingenious idea. Another thing I “inherited” from my grandad was an old torch (flashlight). It ran on a single 4.5 volt rectangular battery (a battery pack of three 1.5 volt batteries, really). This made the torch fairly compact, unlike the tubular one my parents had, so it fit right into the “attic” of my toy house, with the reflector bit facing the inside of the building. Flip the switch on, and voilà, there was light. I was pretty pleased with myself.

Illustration by the author of a battery connected with wires to a bulb.

My dad, inspired by my idea, decided to teach me something, namely, how to take the torch apart. I ended up with a small lightbulb, and a 4.5 Volt battery. To make light happen, all I needed was to touch the two…