The incandescent light bulb probably dates back to 1801. While the conversion of electrical energy to light is attributed to Sir Humphry Davy, a lot of inventors contributed to perfect the bulb.

More than 200 years later, the light bulb will finally become obsolete, or at least it will be in Australia. Federal Environment Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced the other day that the light bulb will be phased out in three years.

To fully enforce the phase out, Turnbull said that new energy standards will be put up. Turnbull explained,

It'll be illegal to sell a product that doesn't meet the energy standard so that'll happen by 2009, 2010, and so by that stage you simply won't be able to buy incandescent light bulbs because they won't meet the energy standard.

If the rest of the world supports us, does what we've been doing here, follows our lead, this will reduce an amount of energy, in effect make the world more energy efficient to the tune of five times as much energy as Australia consumes, so this is a little thing but it's a massive change.