Here is a bright idea, a low-energy light-bulb with a twist. It's designed to be astatically pleasing. It's called the Plumen 001 and it's the creation of Hulger, a small London start-up co-founded by Nicolas Roop.

The inspiration is really that, we know we should be using low-energy light-bulbs, but, they are horrible, so we thought we fix up by making a nice one, that's really simple.

For this new design to take off it must take on the design classic. Incandescent bulbs have changed very little since Thomas Edison first made them commercially available in 1879. There have been efficiency improvements, but they reached the limit about half century ago.

Increasingly governments have been moving to phase out the traditional energy hungry designs in favor of low-energy alternatives. Public enthusiasm for the shift however has been not what you characterized as glowing.

People won't exchange what they already have for something that is sustainable, it is ugly or the design quality isn't the same.

Duncan Richards is the consultant for the London design store SCP, one of the first retailers to stock the new compact fluorescent light.

It's an environmentally sound product, and it's the sort of the product that's sustainable for living idea. I think it lasts 8 times longer than normal bulb, and use that time less-energy, or something like that. But at the same time, it's gonna to cite a mistake about it, it's an interesting product visually.

To begin with, the Plumen will only be available in Europe. In the UK its retailing for 20 pounds which is about 31 dollars, and a great deal more expensive than what consumers are custom to spending on a light-bulb.

Light-bulbs have always been a low-value item, you know, people pay 50 pound for them.

Michael George Hymas is the director at Hulger and says he believes the high price for the low-energy bulb needs to be seen in context.

Because we can charge a bit more, we can use a better grid of forestall which is what pad used to call the tubes. We can use slightly better electronics which means we get a longer lifetime. It starts up much quicker, and almost instantly, and we get a...to me is very important and nice warm white light.

Hulger already has one design success in its past, an array of retrofitted handsets designed for use with the internet-calling tool—Skype, and more recently the iPad. But this new light represents an even more daring attempt to rework a familiar item to bring it in line with the needs of the modern day. The payoff too, stands to be much greater.

Mike K, Reuters.