Buh-Bye Bulb :o)

From the 1/2/08 Wall Street Journal:  Just like that -- like flipping a switch -- Congress and the president banned incandescent light bulbs last month. OK, they did not exactly ban them. But the energy bill passed by Congress and signed by President Bush sets energy-efficiency standards for light bulbs that traditional incandescent bulbs cannot meet. 

The new rules phase in starting in 2012 [for 100-watt bulbs], but don´t be lulled by that five-year delay. Whether it´s next week or next decade, you will one day walk into a hardware store looking for a 100-watt bulb -- and there won´t be any. By 2014, the new efficiency standards will apply to 75-watt, 60-watt and 40-watt bulbs too.

So if you´re GE or Philips or Sylvania, the demise of the plain vanilla lightbulb is less a threat than an opportunity -- an opportunity, in particular, to replace a product that you can sell for 50 cents with one that sells for $3 or more.  Yes, the $3 bulb lasts longer. Yes, it cuts your electricity bill. When every one of the four billion light sockets in our country has an energy-saving bulb in it, we will be saving $18 billion a year on our electric bill. That´s $4.50 per bulb -- and the bulb makers are standing by to make sure a substantial portion of those "savings" get transformed into profits for them.

What´s remarkable about this bit of market interference is that there is, basically, nothing wrong with the present-day, Edison-style lightbulb. It´s not a lawn dart or a lead-painted toy or a magnet that will perforate your kid´s intestines if he swallows it. It is what it is, and for most people in most applications, it was good enough. So the lightbulb makers and the environmentalists convinced Congress to ban them for no better reason than they believed everyone would bebetter off with something else.

Don´t fault the bulb makers for this. If Microsoft could get a law passed requiring users to upgrade Windows, they´d probably go for it, too. Same with Detroit -- "Buy a hybrid, or else!" would probably suit them fine. But do remember this the next time a company goes to Washington to save the world: They´ll end up doing it at your expense.

Tags: Compact Flourescent, Philips, GE, Sylvania