Should we ban these bulbs?

Australia is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases in the world. But this week it announced a ban on incandescent lightbulbs to help cut its emissions. So why doesn't the government here do the same? Leo Hickman reports
The humble tungsten filament: should it be banned in Britain? Public domain
As bright ideas go, it doesn't seem to get much more obvious than banning the incandescent bulb. The humble tungsten filament bulb has done a grand job lighting up the world for more than a century with little need for a change in design, but with more energy-efficient alternatives now widely available, many are asking why we still cling to this wasteful and outdated technology.

This week, the Australian environment minister, Malcolm Turnbull, announced that his country - one that still refuses to sign up to the Kyoto protocol - would be banning incandescent lightbulbs within three years. The government, he said, would negotiate with manufacturers to phase out the bulbs, which convert only about 5% of the energy they use into light, and replace them with compact fluorescent lightbulbs. This switch in technology would help Australia reduce its annual carbon dioxide emissions by 800,000 tonnes by 2012. Impressive stuff - but isn't it rather embarrassing that a country as ungreen as Australia is showing up Britain?

Australia isn't even the first country to take a state-driven approach to bulb-changing: Cuba and Venezuela have already launched their own bulb-swap initiatives. And just last month, legislators in Arnold Schwarzenegger's fast-greening California proposed a "How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb Act" that would see incandescent bulbs phased out by 2012.

Many governments around the world are now aware that getting rid of these bulbs is one of the easiest ways to significantly reduce emissions without causing too much pain for their electorate. And bulb-switching isn't a matter of tinkering with the candles while Rome burns: there's a serious amount of energy to be saved here. Fluorescent bulbs are typically five times more energy-efficient than incandescents and lighting consumes a considerable amount of the world's electricity production - almost a fifth, according to a report published by the International Energy Agency last year.

So what about the UK? Why can't we outlaw these bulbs, too? Dr Matt Prescott, who founded the Ban the Bulb campaign ( two years ago, says that there is little in practice to stop a ban on the basic screw and bayonet 60W-100W bulbs, which account for the lion's share of domestic lighting in this country. "A ban would be a good thing," says Prescott, who has been campaigning for tax breaks on fluorescent bulbs, which would mean manufacturers could make them cheaper for consumers. To date, the government has rejected the tax-break option, citing European Union rules that forbid single states from altering VAT rates without the consensus of all member states. "Tony Blair said last year he would ask the EU to ban the bulb, but in my view that was easy talk as it makes him look as if he's doing something, whereas the decision-making then has to be made by someone else," says Prescott. "How are you going to get consensus from 20-odd countries on this? If relying on the EU means this issue is delayed, then we should just take a stand as a country. We take them on over much harder issues than this. It's great to see Australia has a can-do approach to banning incandescent lightbulbs and it has received massive praise for it. In the UK, we seem to have a can't-do approach that means you have to solve every conceivable problem or petty quibble before committing to action."

Prescott says that if a complete ban were to occur in the UK then the UK's annual CO2 emissions would be reduced by 2-3m tonnes (equivalent to about six months of emissions produced by Didcot A coal-fired power station). But he says that, in addition to fighting for a ban, much more needs to be done to convince us all that fluorescents are by far the best option for the majority of our lighting needs - the main sticking point being that they're more expensive to buy. "Lighting accounts for about 15% of the average home's electricity bill," says Prescott. "Each fluorescent bulb saves you about £9 a year, or up to £150 over its lifetime. If they stuck £150 in cash on the packet of a £5 fluorescent bulb then there would be hardly any quibbles from consumers."

But fluorescents do have their critics - not in terms of energy consumption, but with regard to functionality. For example, they can't be used with dimmer switches (although a "dimmable" fluorescent that offers three levels of luminosity is available from the US), they can have a slow "run-up time" (time to reach full brightness), and many give off a "colder" light than incandescents. The issue of recycling is also often raised: fluorescents contain mercury and require careful disposal. But Prescott says that three times this amount of mercury is released into the atmosphere through the burning of coal to provide the extra electricity needed to power an incandescent. And at least the mercury in the bulb is contained, he says, as opposed to being pumped into the air.

Prescott does, however, accept that any ban would need to be thought through carefully. For example, would it mean we have to throw out all our smaller ornamental lamps that use candle bulbs, as well as wall lights? And what about halogen downlighters, which are extremely energy hungry? "What would need to be exempted from the ban? For example, I can't see football stadia at night being illuminated by fluorescents. And what about the poorer members of society who can't afford the initial outlay [for the new bulbs]? The main thing is that 99% of conventional bulbs are switched and the barriers to action are addressed sensibly and pragmatically. I suspect that building regulations will need to be used to limit the future installation of halogens."

Douglas Strickland, secretary general of the European Lamp Companies Federation, broadly agrees that there a number of caveats that would complicate any outright ban. "A ban might make sense if there were energy-efficient alternatives to all lighting needs, but there just aren't," he says. "For the energy guzzlers such as 60W-100W bulbs it would be simple, but personally I think an EU ban within three years, as they are proposing in Australia, will not happen." But, he adds, there are encouraging signs from the industry: Philips (the world's biggest lighting manufacturer) announced in December that it supported the phasing out of incandescents within 10 years.

Will the manufacturers voluntarily illuminate the way forward without the need for the legislator's heavy hand? Prescott believes that the lighting companies are now realising that they just can't compete with the cheap incandescents being produced by Chinese firms. However, they do hold the patents to compact fluorescents, which are far more complicated to imitate, and could therefore cement their competitive edge in the marketplace by promoting a mass switchover.

This won't be good enough for many campaigners: government action would be far, far quicker than us waiting around for manufacturers to act. But then we've got the government we voted for, and it's only just starting to learn the meaning of going green.

And some other things that politicians could do ...

Air-traffic control

The skies over Europe are currently managed by more than 30 different air-traffic control authorities. Each state looks after its own airspace and charges its own "overflight" fees. This has the effect of causing airlines to fly around certain countries to avoid expensive fees, thereby increasing their "fuel burn", and with it, increasing emissions. Eurocontrol, the European organisation for the safety of air navigation, estimates that instead of flying as the crow flies, as would be logical, airlines over Europe are currently operating with a 7% distance inefficiency. It says that a 6%-12% reduction in Europe's aviation emissions could be possible overnight if the continent switched to a "single skies" centralised air-navigation system. Best not to think, though, about just how powerful that computer would need to be to handle Europe's 9m flights a year.

Television standby

Haven't they sorted this one out yet? No, is the short answer. Since 1999, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has been pushing its One Watt Initiative, aimed at reducing standby power-use in all appliances to just one watt. The average home in the developed world has 20 appliances on standby, each using up to 10W - some giant plasma screen televisions use a whopping 150W when on standby. The IEA estimates that standby produces 1% of the world's CO2 emissions, but the manufacturers are still largely governed by voluntary codes on this issue. Surely, it's time to impose strict new standards?


It's one thing trying to convince a neighbour to share the driving when it comes to commuting to work, but why do we persist with the culture of the company car which, by its very nature, promotes single-occupancy car journeys? Why aren't there penalties, or at least much bigger economic incentives, to dissuade companies from encouraging employees to drive by themselves to work by gifting them their own car? Can't their employees receive perks in more thoughtful ways rather than granting them further licence to pollute?

Rented accommodation

There is a universal law - let's call it Rigby's Law - that says the less you pay for rented accommodation, the less insulated the building is likely to be. Landlords have all kinds of health and safety legislation to consider and implement before they can rent out their fleapits, so why aren't they also made to guarantee a high standard of thermal efficiency in their properties, too?