20 February, 2007

See the light

According to the BBC, the Australian government intends to ban 'traditional' incandescent lightbulbs in favour of energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) bulbs.

It's a compelling idea, with few apparent disadvantages. A related BBC article reports that swapping each standard bulb for the fluorescent equivalent (much lower wattage, and wasting far less energy as heat) would feed through to emission of 70% less carbon dioxide. On a national scale, this could reduce Australia's emissions of the greenhouse gas by 4 million tonnes by 2012.

As usual, the main barrier is people's perception of the initial cost, but even on a merely economic level, that's false economy; CFLs use less electricity and can be expected to last far longer, so the per-usage cost is typically about £7 less ($12) per year (per household, I presume). The perceived cost dispariety could be reduced in the UK, and actual saving increased further, if CFLs were re-rated as 'essential' staples, subject to a reduced VAT rate of 5% rather than 'luxury' goods subject to the full 17.5%.

Personally, I switched to CFLs four years ago when I bought my own house. All the overhead lights use CFLs, but I have to use incandescents in two desk lamps, as they're incompatible with the physically larger CFLs. That's the only disadvantage I can think of at present: some lights might be rendered unusable if incandescent bulbs were banned. I believe Ikea sell small-profile CFLs, but I haven't seen them myself.

Oh; go on, then.... I wasn't going to link to the Ban The Bulb campaign website, as it links on to other Green propaganda/hippie-sh*t, but if you're able to ignore that... stuff, there is some useful content.