Strewth!!!

This morning's announcement by the Australian government that they will be banning the sale of incandescent lightbulbs by 2010 is an interesting development.

Commentators have been suggesting for a while now that the incandescent bulb will be extinct within ten years. And regular readers will recall that when I changed every lightbulb in the house to a low enegy type the household electricity consumption dropped by a staggering 30% and an article in today's Independent suggests that this is typical.

But the Australian conversion is interesting because Australia is on of the few developed countries other than the United States to have refused to sign up to Kyoto on the grounds that it would damage their coal based electricity industry too much. Strange that, when you consider that Australia is one of the sunniest countries in the world and that the scope for solar power generation using CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) technology must be huge.

So is it too much to hope that the recently awakened Australian government will follow their lead in becoming the first major economy to outlaw incandescent bulbs by phasing out their coal fired power stations in favour of cheap, clean, plentiful, everlasting power from the sun?

Now the light is really starting to go on.... Strewth Bruce!!