As icons of technology go, they don’t come much bigger or more enduring than the classic incandescent tungsten filament bulb. It is one of the few technologies still in use more than a century after it was pioneered by inventors including Thomas Edison and Joseph Swan.
Now western governments are gunning for the humble light bulb because it wastes huge amounts of energy. First to propose calling time was the state of California: on 31 January it unveiled the “How Many Legislators Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb Act”, which, if passed, will ban the bulbs by 2012.…
