“Contra Binder on far-UVC and filtration” by jefftk

Damon Binder recently wrote up an argument for prioritizing air filtration over far-UVC for pathogen control: UVC and filtration are close substitutes—both deliver effective air changes per hour, both reduce airborne pathogen concentrations by the same amount per eACH—and on current pricing, filtration is cheaper. There's a lot of good stuff in his analysis, but I see [1] three considerations that really change the bottom line: Cost is actually much lower. Noise is a serious issue. Performance is dramatically higher in larger rooms. Cost is straightforward. Binder priced far-UVC based on the high-quality Care222 lamp with the Krypton-11 at $2,500, but there's a much cheaper option, the Aerolamp at $500. It's also moderately higher output. Binder analyzes a 30m2 room with a 2.5m ceiling. I'll assume this means 6x5x2.5. If I configure Illuminate with an Aerolamp in one corner pointed 0.5m above the far corner the installation is within TLVs and I get a median effective number of hourly air changes (eACH) of 11.6. The lamp degrades approximately linearly over Binder's 11,000 hour evaluation period down to 70% capacity, so we're averaging an eACH of [...] --- First published: April 27th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wkeXF6xEL7bLnwpWG/contra-binder-on-far-uvc-and-filtration --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.