[svenrufus]

It's a bit disappointing to see some of the negative comments here about the idea of legislating for low energy light bulbs. Surely the fact that moving to this form of lighting will save the UK from producing about 2.3 million tonnes of CO2 a year is a reason significant enough to make the small sacrifices of convenience that people seem to fret so much about. It has been estimated that if every household switched just one light bulb to a low enegy version, it would require the UK to run one less power station. I live in a flat that has 7 light bulbs (all now low energy), many houses must have at least twice this amount. How many power stations would this add up to (or rather, subtract)?

Some of the arguments against them are outdated, some are wrong, some are incomplete. For example, there are low energy light bulbs that are dimmer compatible, they just haven't penetrated the UK market, as there are so few people wanting them that it is not profitable to sell them here. Once the market removes incandescent bulbs, the market demand will peak, and they will become available. Another outdated argument is that they are slow to start - that was true in the early years, but now they are instant, no discernble difference.

Tormentil comments that they contain mercury which is true, but the energy they save is so great that the coal that would have been burnt to power incandescent bulbs over the life of a low energy bulb runs would have released more mercury than the bulb contains, and in an uncontrolled way. It is true that there is no way of recycling them yet, but given the market, solutions will be provided. (Although my council won't accept conventional light bulbs for recycling, so I may be wrong on that - something else to lobby for!) The extra energy required in their manufacture is more than compensated for by the energy saved, and the differential would be greater with economies of scale in manufacture if more were made and bought.

As far as the other specialist requirements of bulbs that have been referred to, I can't answer to the current market, but in most things in human endeavour, when the demand exist, the demand is met. I can only suggest that if there is no 'natural light' equivalent in low energy bulbs, such a thing will probably develop soon. In fact, even more energy efficient bulbs are coming onstream in the form of LED lights, which have whole ranks of LED's using virtually no electricity. As LED's come in a few different colours, they are combined to give a range of different tones to lights, so there may already be natural light options. Again, I say that the market will drive the availability of this sort of option.

LED lights are being produced at the moment as replacements for halogen lights, but they are not quite there yet. Ultimately they may replace the Compact flourescent. They have no flicker, are smaller, and more versatile.

Gaina comes closest in what has been contributed so far to making fair criticism. It is true that there are so many other things that need to be addressed to make sense of the proportionality of this sort of measure, but that does not mean that this is a wrong step to take. We should expect better of our government, but let them know that this is the sort of measure that we demand, and that it needs to be followed up by more radical measures, rather than simply criticising with nothing more constructive to offer.

This has been a bit of a rant, sorry about that, but I for one wholeheartedly welcome this move, it comes not a moment too soon. Having won this battle, we can now move on to the other issues we need to sort out. It may be too little - it may even be too late - but it is a step in the right direction, and no complacent self interested inertia arising from our habits and customary practices should be allowed to take away from that progress.