Australian news reported that Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced on February 20th that standard incandescent bulbs would be phased out within three years. Details of the plan, including costs, will be made available later. It is felt the change could cut greenhouse gases by 800,000 tons a year by 2012.

In Canada, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick considered banning the incandescent light bulb, following Australia’s lead. After all, one part of the former British Empire can’t be more progressive than another.

And the United States doesn’t want to think Canada could be more progressive than it…so CBS news reports, California may also ban the light bulbs. Most light bulb manufacturers support the phasing out of the bulbs, but at their pace, feeling that it is unnecessary to ban older bulbs to force the issue.

We ourselves are fond of the bulbs, although we do have a few halogens in certain places for which there are not yet better replacements. We’ve been experimenting with dimmable fluorescents of various brands and the technology there continues to improve.

For those of you following, our new favorite place to buy bulbs is now 1000bulbs.com, which may have had our dimmable bulbs backordered, but provided excellent customer service and reasonable pricing on all our needs.