Mondo Knows Facts

Incandescent lightbulbs emit mostly heat rather than visible light

Over ninety per cent of electricity consumed by glowing tungsten filaments becomes heat

Traditional incandescent lightbulbs pass electrical current through a thin tungsten filament until it glows white hot inside a vacuum or inert gas bulb. More than ninety per cent of consumed energy radiates away as infrared heat rather than visible illumination, which led to modern LED bulb adoption.

Lightbulbs photograph
Mark jurrens ยท CC BY-SA 4.0 ยท licence ยท source

Where this comes from

NIST

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Tags: lighting, electricity, energy

Incandescent lightbulbs emit mostly heat rather than visible light: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?
Over ninety per cent of electricity consumed by glowing tungsten filaments becomes heat. The figure is taken from NIST, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
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