cool, but the one BIG thing this article doesn't mention is price.

Ten years, you say? And it's just now coming to attention... I have a feeling this is going to be another of those technologies that stays in the lab.

10 years and we don't have these yet WHY?

Contrary to popular belief as stated in the previous comments, new technology does not jump to full scale production in a matter of months. Concepts have to be proven, viability determined, feasability of full scale production determined, estimation of production costs, etc, etc, etc. Then looking for funding, and playing all the games associated with that. Even if they have done all of that already, it will still take a few years to setup a mass-production facility. - Asking for a price now is a bit premature.

"Each one is made of three layers of a moldable polymer, blended with a small amount of multi-walled carbon nanotubes."
"Additionally, they don’t contain any fragile glass, and won’t release any harmful gases or other substances if broken"

"SMALL AMOUNT"-- Nano is truely a large amount in quantity
1. Double Walled CNT's and MWCNT's have been found to be toxic to animals; it causes cancer in humans.
2. There are no regulations that are universal or agreed upon for CNT's and the toxicity of the water table and enviroment in the US or foriegn country.
Sounds like a Great find and use of a polymor system that uses CNT's, but do we know about the long term affects of CNT's givin it's time of discovery and where it is today?

Backlight for all those LCD screens!

I have always wondered why we havent developed light panels earlier. Floro-tube attached to ceilings have always been less than attractive. Also the ease of putting up area lighting is much easier with light panels that traditional lamps. The public applications are far more varied in lighting dark areas, walkways, etc all at low energy use.

@aNTI-Onyx: Yes, a SMALL AMOUNT! Look at the figures. Best performance seems to be around 0.05% CNTs embedded in a film around 200 nm thick. That's a *really* small amount of possibly-toxic (unproven, to date) nano material, trapped inside a polymer film. Short of ripping the film out of a FIPEL source, grinding it into pollen-sized dust, and inhaling it, I don't think there's a lot to worry over. Consider also that CNTs are commonly produced in many smoky flames. Humans have been burning hydrocarbons for millennia, and for most of that time, casually breathing the effluent.

This might ge a good retrofit for T5 or T8 tubes. The hope would be less expensive that LED lights. The article doesn't mention the working temperature range, like can it handle -15F?

A couple of details, LED's are about the same eff as CFL's
And the color of LED's depends on which parts it's made of. Personally I like bright and blue white as it makes details easier to see.