It takes a new law to change a lightbulb

[ckramer]

A California legislator wants to make his state the first to ban incandescent light bulbs as part of California's initiatives to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb Act would ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012 in favour of energy-saving compact fluorescent bulbs, which use about 25 percent of the energy.

"Incandescent light bulbs were developed almost 125 years ago and... have undergone no major modifications," assemblyman Lloyd Levine said on Tuesday.

"Meanwhile, they remain incredibly inefficient, converting only about five percent of the energy they receive into light."

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=vn20070201064423488C683583

[physioex]

1. Yea...This has been in the news for awhile.

Just my 0.02 and I am a big environmentalist, but I dont like fluorescent bulbs. This may not make sense but they just don't have a warm feeling. The most pleasing (and most expensive) light in my opinion is halogen. For some reason it just makes a room more inviting and gives a warm feeling.

[skids]

2. About time.

Boxer wants to know "How would I stop Global Warming?" For legislators, Step 1 would be to tax incandescents out of existence. (Except for specialty applications like hot bulbs and oven bulbs, of course.) Easing off the use of electricity in such a way would give renewable grid resources more time to catch up.

This was an interesting article I read today -- finally the solar gadget people are emerging from the days of NiCad, non-switched resistively biased current follower circuits (when top notch LED controller chips are available for pennies), and bottom-of-the-barrel components.

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner/story?id=47299