Australia's Bright Idea

New and improved lighting is afoot down under, with Australian Environment Minister's announcement yesterday that the country will ban all incandescent light bulbs over the next three years. These 125 year old, archaic lightbulbs use only 5% of the energy they consume to produce actual light, compared to compact fluorescent lightbulbs which produce the same amount of light, but with 80% less energy. As of now, lighting is the culprit for 12% of Australian household greenhouse gas emissions, and 25% of emissions from businesses and public lighting (streetlights, etc). Worldwide, lighting uses around 20% of total electricity, and produces about 3/4th the amount of carbon emiited by all the cars on the earth.

The Australian government projects an 800,000 ton/year reduction in emissions for 2008-2012-- not too shabby. Although energy efficient bulbs sell for around eight times the cost of incandescent bulbs, Mal-colm Turnbull (Australian Environment Minister) says that compact fluorescent lights will pay for themselves within a year, last up to 10 times longer than conventional bulbs and save more than 66% in lighting costs.

The down side to compact fluorescent bulbs is the potential for toxic danger. The bulbs operate by igniting a gas inside the globe, which requires a small amount of mercury. On top of that, the gas emits ultra-violet rays, another potential problem. However, incandescent lightbulbs are also indirectly at fault, as the coal that is burn ed for electricity produces five times the amount of mercury. Fluorescent lights seem to be the lesser of two evils. And with a new technology that uses plasma to turn all forms of trash (even toxic!) into energy, we shouldn't have to worry about the Mercury problem in a few years. (I'll talk about the Plasma Converter system in depth sometime soon).

California is ready to join the lightbulb revolution, with the "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act," which would prohibit the sale of incandescent lightbulbs in the state by 2012. The rest of the world shouldn't be far behind, considering the wasted energy and our urgency for greenhouse gas solutions.