[MrB]

Dumb headline.
If the LED bulbs consumed 100 watts, there’d be no reason to replace 100 watt incandescents.

But... we’ve grown so used to measuring the light output in watts instead of lumens that they had to make the comparison this way.

[Red Badger]

The LEDs don’t consume 100 watts of energy, they emit the equivalent amount of light at less power....................

[dayglored]

> Dumb headline. If the LED bulbs consumed 100 watts, there’d be no reason to replace 100 watt incandescents. But... we’ve grown so used to measuring the light output in watts instead of lumens that they had to make the comparison this way.

Agreed.

The real problem is that most people don't know what a "watt" is, and wouldn't know one from a hole in the ground -- it's just a word to them. All they know is: "It's as bright as a 100-watt incandescent bulb would be".

Ignorance is really annoying (to me as an engineer), but comprehensible in this circumstance. After all, how many people who compare engines' displacement (in cubic inches or cubic centimeters or liters) actually know how big that volume is, or even what "displacement" is, for that matter? If you tell them, "Well it's the square of the bore, times the stroke length, times the number of cylinders, times pi over 4", they glaze over. Instead you say, "It's about like that 351 engine that Joe has in his pickup", they understand that, even though they have no idea what 351cu-in looks like.

*sigh*