A dimly lit field experiment on managing a privately owned depletable resource

From the Columbus Dispatch:

Here's a twist: How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?

For Ulf Erdmann Ziegler, the answer is 3,000. That's how many bulbs are squirreled away in his modest apartment, the number that turned an otherwise ordinary guy into a hoarder and made him the object of his neighbors' pity.

His enormous stockpile is the fruit of a summer shopping spree. For weeks, he spent many of his waking hours on the phone and online tracking down vendors and snapping up enough incandescent bulbs to last him the rest of his life.

The buying binge was necessary, he said, to beat a ban by the European Union. As of Sept. 1, the manufacturing and importing of 100-watt incandescent bulbs was outlawed within the EU, to be followed by their dimmer brethren in coming years. Once current stocks are gone, such bulbs will join Thomas Edison in the history books.

"It will run out," Ziegler warned of the limited supply, "and everyone will be sorry."

The ban is part of the EU's effort to slow global warming. The object is to encourage people to switch from traditional, energy-wasting incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent lamps, which last longer and are up to 75 percent more efficient.