SAN FRANCISCO (NEWSnet/AP) — Get ready to say goodbye to the once ubiquitous incandescent light bulb, pioneered by Thomas Edison more than a century ago.

New federal energy efficiency regulations that went into full effect Tuesday bans the manufacture and sale of bulbs that don't meet the new requirements. Practical incandescent bulbs, which trace their origin to an 1880 Edison patent, can't meet those standards. Neither can halogen bulbs. The rules also ban imports of less efficient bulbs.

The Energy Department rules, which date back to the Obama administration, have been whipsawed in the political process for years. Under former President Donald Trump, the Energy Department scrapped them in 2019; the Biden administration subsequently revived them.

Yet by the time the Aug. 1 deadline arrived, critics had gone quiet, possibly because companies and consumers have already started selecting better lighting efficiency options.

For example, between 2015 and 2020, the percentage of American households that reported using LED bulbs for most or all of their lighting jumped more than tenfold — from 4% to 47%, according to the Energy Information Administration, an independent federal statistics agency.

Consumers do not need to discard or immediately replace older bulbs that are still in use. Some special purpose incandescents such as those used inside ovens also are still available.

But when you replace the older bulbs with the newer LED technology, you could save money on electricity use.

The light-emitting components in LED bulbs are extremely efficient as compared to incandescents. They require up to 90% less energy than incandescent bulb while lasting up to 25 times longer, according to the Energy Department.

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