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Washington - A coalition of industrialists, environmentalists and energy specialists is banding together to try to eliminate the incandescent light bulb in about 10 years.

The coalition members, including Philips Lighting, the largest manufacturer; the Natural Resources Defense Council; and two efficiency organizations, are pledging to press for efficiency standards at the local, state and federal levels.

The standards would phase out the ordinary screw-in bulb, technology that arose around the time of the telegraph and the steam locomotive, and replace it with compact fluorescents, light-emitting diodes, halogen devices and other technologies that may emerge.

Compact fluorescents are three times as efficient as old-fashioned bulbs, and light-emitting diodes six times as efficient. These also last much longer. But while they cost much less to run, they are more expensive to purchase, and getting home users to change the bulbs in the estimated 4 billion sockets in the United States would probably require eliminating the choice.

James E. Rogers, chief executive of Duke Energy and the co-chairman of one of the efficiency organizations in the coalition, the Alliance to Save Energy, said in a statement, "Encouraging our customers to use advanced compact fluorescent light bulbs and other energy-efficient lighting is fundamental to our plans to meet growing demand for electricity as economically as possible."

The agreement is a compromise among the participants. Some favored an outright ban on incandescent bulbs, like the one that Australia said last month it would seek by 2009 or 2010. Philips, a unit of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands, has pledged with others doing business in Europe to seek a shift to more efficient lighting there, too.

The announcement would commit coalition members to seek "a market phase-out" by 2016.

General Electric, the largest American manufacturer of lighting, has recently been campaigning against the elimination of incandescent bulbs, and promising instead to bring out a new model that is twice as efficient as its current bulbs. The company is not part of the new coalition. But it has allied itself with the Natural Resources Defense Council in another group called the U.S. Carbon Action Program, which seeks to control emissions of greenhouse gases through energy conservation.

Noah Horowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said his group favored a performance standard, like the ones already in place for appliances like refrigerators, that would effectively require manufacturers to give up the traditional bulb.

"We've given up a sound bite, 'ban the incandescent,' as opposed to a phase-out of the incandescent and a move to more efficient lighting," Horowitz said, adding that the reason was to avoid angering consumers.

Replacing incandescent lamps could slow the growth in greenhouse-gas emissions, but not radically.

About 22 percent of electricity is used for lighting, and about 42 percent of that is now generated by incandescent bulbs, according to the organizers. That means that a little over 9 percent of all electricity is used in incandescent bulbs.

If that figure were cut by half, it would be equivalent to two or three years of growth in electric demand. Replacing older fluorescent lamps with newer, more efficient ones would be a big help, too.

The participants say that a complete phase-out would save $18 billion a year in electricity, and save the amount of power that would be produced by 30 nuclear reactors or as many as 80 coal plants. It would also eliminate substantial mercury emissions from the coal plants, they said.

The Australian government said on Feb. 20 that it would seek to ban incandescent bulbs and replace them with compact fluorescents.

Shortly thereafter, the environment minister of Ontario, Laurel Broten, said her province was considering a similar step, and a California assemblyman, Lloyd Levine, introduced a bill to do the same.

"Incandescent light bulbs were first developed almost 125 years ago," Levine said, "and since that time they have undergone no major modifications."

The incandescent light bulb was first developed almost 125 years ago.

It is one product on the market that has seen no major modifications since Edison pulled the first switch, ultimately a move that gave our world light.

But Edison's invention is now coming under fire. It turns out the old tungsten bulb is an inefficient way to produce light, converting only about 5 percent of the energy it receives into light.

Many home and business consumers are now turning to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). CFLs use about 25 percent of the energy of conventional light bulbs. A 20-watt CFL gives as much light as a 75-watt conventional bulb, and lasts 13 times longer, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute.

CFLs have been around since 1980 and over 100 million CFLs have been sold in the United States, or about 5 percent of the $2 billion light bulb market, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The CFLs are beginning to pop up even in the Tall City. They are easily recognized because of their spiral shape. Many businesses are using CFLs. They cost more than average light bulbs, but use less energy, saving on the electricity bill. They are also said to have a longer life span than the incandescent bulbs.

The CFL is also becoming a "green" platform as a major initiative to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. In fact, California legislators are investigating the possibility of making the state the first to ban incandescent light bulbs.

California is the most populous state in the U.S. and is the first state to mandate cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, targeting a 25 percent reduction in emissions by 2020.

The CFL explosion is expected to receive a big boost in sales this year. The Associated Press reports Wal-Mart Stores Inc. alone wants to sell 100 million CFLs at its stores by the end of 2007. And that's just one retailer, albeit the world's biggest retailer. Wal-Mart alone could double the sales of all CFLs sold since 1980.

The California Energy Commission predicts an average home in California will save $40 to $50 per year if CFLs replace all incandescent bulbs.

It remains to be seen if the corkscrew bulb will become the wave of the future, but it certainly is making waves across the country. For the new bulb to really take off, however, the in-store cost will have to come down. Consumers may save money in the end by using the CFL, but the initial price tag makes a lot of customers stay with Edison.

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A medium screw-based incandescent, in layman's terms, is the everyday light bulb invented by Thomas Edison and used by most people in table lamps and ...