The Banning of Incandescent Light Bulbs...

The reason for New Zealanders having to cut down on power use is due to the lack of rainfall over the summer. It has not been sufficient to fill up the hydro lakes which supply us with the making of electricity. As New Zealand grows and demand for electricity rises, the lack of additional power stations means that that demand will not be able to be met. We have to reduce power use so that there is more to go around.

New Zealanders are being encouraged to save power and if they don't we will be faced with power cuts. Auckland City is the number one power consuming city in the whole of New Zealand. Studies and observations have shown that The Sky Tower uses and average household's power bill per month every single night.

At the end of 2009, the government is banning the sales of incandescent light bulbs. New Zealanders will be forced to buy Compact Fluorescent Lamps more commonly known as EcoBulbs. EcoBulbs use about 1/5 of the power that incandescent bulbs (the light bulbs most people use now) use. New Zealand will also save $500 million by 2020 and will also cut lighting energy consumption by 20% in about 7 years.

Although these EcoBulbs sound like a good idea to use, there are also many negative aspects. Firstly even though EcoBulbs are supposed to benefit the environment, after they have been used they become toxic waste. This will end up costing New Zealand millions of dollars to dispose of these lightbulbs in the correct way.
The EcoBulbs, rather than heating up instantly like the incandescent bulbs, take 3 minutes to heat up. This means that when you go to turn the light on, instead of it being instantly bright, it is dull for about 3 minutes until it is heated up.

Another negative aspect is that the EcoBulbs are designed to face upwards. An extremely high percentage of New Zealander's house hold lights face downwards. Money again will have to be spent replace light fittings which will hold these bulbs.

So the real question is, will it benefit New Zealand by changing to EcoBulbs?
In my opinion, it probably will benefit New Zealand in the long term but it is still debateable. I think that they should not ban the sales of incandescent lightbulbs. It is not definate that the EcoBulbs will benefit New Zealand so I think that there isn't much point in going through the hassle of changing light fittings and finding ways to dispose of toxic waste if there isn't even a 100% chance of the EcoBulbs helping New Zealand.

This is the EcoBulb or Compact Fluorescent Lamp which will be used from the end of 2009.

This is the incandescent light bulb which most New Zealanders use now. They will become illegal to import at the end of 2009.

After the election this year, Labour (Helen Clark) may not still be in power. There is a chance that National (John Key) will win. The banning of incandescent ligh bulbs bill will still go through but could be changed if National is in power.