The rising cost of energy is going to have strange side effects, like a black market in light bulbs. Australia has just announced that the country will force light bulb users to switch to fluorescent bulbs in a gradual switch over three years. Just as the U.S. requirement to use more efficient toilets led to bootlegging "old" toilets from Canada, Australians may end up resorting to smuggling light bulbs into the country--conjuring up images of rubber rafts coming ashore in the dead of night piled high with no-name three-ways and the always popular GE 'Reveal' 100 watt incandescent.
The problem is that the replacement fluorescents are still mediocre at best, and at worst provide light that makes everyone in the room look like an extra from Night of the Living Dead. And the still too-expensive LED lights, which are really low power, are not much better, with a stark white light that is okay for desk work but also casts a kind of hospital operating room pall in larger spaces.
The savings are enormous; incandescent bulbs waste more than 90% of the energy used as heat, not light, making them spectacularly inefficient. But the Australian experiment raises the stakes for light bulb manufacturers, who now have more incentive to develop a low power bulb with the nice yellow light that we all prefer. The first one that does is going to make a lot of money.
For economic developers: Have you inventoried your local and regional businesses lately? Companies that design and manufacture energy efficient devices have huge market potential, and if you have firms working in that area, you may want to make sure they have all the resources they need to leverage their core capabilities.