Once I would have said all the bad things you could want about fluorescent replacements for "regular" light bulbs. We tried one many years ago, and it did come on slowly (almost useless for the garage where it was -- I was in and out before it was fully on), and the light looked funny. What's more, last year's to Europe, where they are more common, did nothing to change that impression.

Recently, however, I replaced a ceiling fixture with one of the new fluorescent bulbs. (I didn't see any warning about not using it upside down; guess I'd better check that out.) Much to my surprise, it came on immediately, and the light actually looks better than the incandescent light in the next room. My only complaint is that the promised 60W equivalence doesn't look as bright as 60W should be.

That and the disposal problem, of course. Around here, fluorescent bulbs cannot go in with household trash, but must be taken to a hazardous waste facility. I foresee a huge compliance problem here, with resultant further degradation of our groundwater.

I still think banning incandescent bulbs is a dangerous and stupid idea. But the new fluorescents don't seem to be nearly as bad as I had thought.

Any take on using some of the bright white LED lights being offered for home lighting?

I know that heat seriously degrades the life of such bulbs, but is there any other issue?

Thanks so much for the link, Michael (It tries to attach itself to Tim's url for some reason, but I saw it was pointing to www.cree.com, for anyone else who wants to follow it)

I'd be happy to be an early adopter and give my encouragement to a valuable industry. I don't know if that's the same as 'making a political statement.' Maybe an economic statement? And yes, I do use the same excuse for buying expensive new computer equipment. ;-)

I bought the fluorescents not for any altruistic reason such as saving the earth but because I wanted to save money on my electricity bill. But I've gone back to incandescent bulbs since the other ones don't seem to last.

Excellent point here: Pollution is just a form of waste, which costs more economically. After the initial leap forward to a new technology (say, the industrial revolution) without any further governmental intervention, people, businesses, and whole societies usually automatically get "greener" over time because the economics always draw us to waste less money = waste less material and energy.

I use rechargeable batteries, like "rara", not because I deeply care about the environment (though if you asked me, like everyone else I'd prefer less pollution) but because I hate buying regular batteries -- the cost, and the trips to the store, etc. (They estimate on rechargeable replaces several hundred disposable batteries.)

Rara's switch back was just as valuable: her experience showed her that the bulbs DIDN'T really save over incandescent (hope you don't mind my using you as an example this way, "rara"): She noticed that the cost and smaller lifespan didn't result in the desired money savings.

But in "green" terms, what this mean was that the added cost of material and burned fuel to make the CFLs (which she perceived as cost of the product) and disposal (represented by the cost of the landfill trip and fees) wasn't paid for. I suspect her experience reflects a larger truth that we haven't yet verified: that CFLs actually will work out to be more costly to the environment, at least in the present, than incandescent bulbs.

(Sort of the way a Hummer turns out to use a lot less energy, over it's lifespan, than a hybrid.)

Aesthetics is another matter, of course. :-)

The link didn't work because it didn't begin with an "http:", so your browser thinks it's a relative URI.

... Continuing: The problem, then, is that misguided government incentives can distort the true costs of various things -- and thus lead people to do thing which harm the environment more than other options.

It seems the whole "keep CFLs on for energy savings" may be a myth. (though I don't know enough about waveforms, as Tim mentioned, to know how that factors into the equation.

In other words, its almost always best to turn the bulb off.

While the mercury in the bulbs is certainly prohibitive, the mercury released by coal fired powerplants is possibly off-setting...

I'd *love* to know the answer to that question.

After all, Tim, would you prefer government funded research or private sector research? If CFLs or LEDs have potential in the long term, this is one way to fund them, conveniently and with minimal risk for fraud...

Er, what I'd really like is for the government to get out of this entirely. Yes, private research is less-bad than direct government funding, but that's being said in the larger context of a government which picks "winners" and "losers" in the marketplace.

Markets are a lot smarter about what people need than bureaucrats. Okay, so you've mandated CFLs and their kin — and a lot of research suddenly starts going into that. (To a not-yet-known end result.) But is that what people really need? A lame alternative light standard which becomes, perhaps, a bit less lame? That money is coming from something else people needed or wanted more — perhaps a life-saving drug, or perhaps merely another trip to the movie theater. (Ugh.) Or perhaps just dinner, in this economy. Either way, who are we to judge?

Ah yes: we are the elite, the smart, the Planners, and we know a Crisis when we see one, and so, of course, we must create an artificial crisis in the market to plan for the Big Crisis which we all know is coming.

Except that the crisis turned to be... an EMP.

Or a plague.

Or perhaps a global dictatorship, or another form of mass-death-by-government.

Whoops. But we have these neat CFLs which suck slightly less than when they were introduced!

These are, after all, the same people who "solved" the "problem" of "affordable housing." That went really well, didn't it?

I'd *love* to know the answer to that question.

I thought I posted that it was estimated at about 10mg/year over the life of a normal CFL. So assuming that everyone improperly disposes of their bulb and that some break before the end of their normal life, that's still roughly a 50% reduction in environmental mercury. (Downside, a broken bulb concentrates the stuff in your house.) I don't know if that calculation accounted for disruption of waveforms, etc. To be honest, I haven't yet made the push to educate myself on that issue. If others haven't as well, maybe that cited calculation is off.

but that's being said in the larger context of a government which picks "winners" and "losers" in the marketplace.

I agree, that's a fair argument. I'm certainly not supporting mandated elimination of incandescents, if that was the purpose of the OP.

Markets are a lot smarter about what people need than bureaucrats.

Typically. I'd certainly prefer most choices made at the individual level as well. But is this an assumption or a falsifiable belief? Is it possible to calculate "in 20% of cases, the bureaucrats actually made the better selection, while in 80% of cases, the choice was better left to the market?"

Mostly, I'm talking about what a person should do personally and the results of their actions. It's noteworthy that while some people are still sensitive to CFL lights, most of the complaints in the original post are no longer problems.

"These are, after all, the same people who "solved" the "problem" of "affordable housing." That went really well, didn't it? "

Compared to what? Lending in the 1910s had its own problems. If the argument is that politicians shouldn't have pushed universal home ownership with a degradation in lending standards and bailout afterwards, I agree. If the argument is that Fannie Mae did more harm than good over the course of its existence, that's a separate question and one not so easily settled.

And as mentioned previously in other threads, the housing bubble wasn't isolated to the United States.