Many readers will have seen the reports on the news yesterday about the banning of good, old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs and their replacement with these new-fangled, all-the-mercury-you-can-eat low-energy ones.

But, as Philip Stott points out3 there’s more to it than that:

1. They can’t be used with all sorts of light fittings
2. There are all sorts of people who won’t be able to use them
3. Councils don’t know how to dispose of them1
4. In terms of life-cycle costs they may not even reduce energy consumption2
5. This all comes from the EU

Notes
1. So, how come they can deal with traditional fluorescent tubes then?
2. Mind you, if we go all-nuclear then this won’t be a problem.  But then, why ban incandescent bulbs at all?  Lobbying perhaps?
3. On Apple’s evil blogging system