With the incandescent light bulb now effectively a dinosaur and all eyes on emergent LED technology as an environmental panacea, the next evolutionary phase of lighting is all about efficiency and legislation. According to light bulb manufacturer Philips, today lighting accounts for 19 per cent of the world's electricity consumption globally Given that incandescent light bulbs effectively waste as much as 95 per cent of their energy producing heat rather than light, there is massive potential for energy-saving in a world where alleviating demand on resources is increasingly legislated. Looking at the US light bulb market in 2010 - around the time when phase-out legislation of incandescents was drafted around the world - there were eight billion lamps sold, of which half were incandescents, with barely 10 per cent LEDs.
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