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There is nothing good about those CFLs at all...I'm also skeptical of today's popular compact fluorescent light bulbs and the mercury they contain.
Like with the low-fat craze, I wonder if 20 years from now we'll regret all the mercury from the bulbs.
There is nothing good about those CFLs at all...
Aside from the fact that the "energy ratings" on them are adjusted in their favor, they contain fluorine gas as well as mercury vapor (the total mercury content being about 5mg), so the glass is "permeated" and can never be reclaimed. They contain circuitry (ballast) that qualifies as hazardous e-waste and the plastic housing has a non-recyclable content due to it's fire-proof rating. However, they have been known to catch on fire for various reasons, at a rate that is actually a little alarming.
Standard incandescent bulbs pose zero threat to the direct environment and common sense would say that if the socket is rated at 75 watts, use a 60 watt bulb to reduce consumption and turn the light out when you leave the room.
LED bulbs can reduce consumption by a tremendous amount, but most people balk at the price. However, an LED bulb has a life of roughly 50,000+ hours (the best CFL is less than 1,000) and cost less than a few dollars a year to operate. Add to that, the LED has virtually no hazardous material content, making them safe for the direct environment after they have been discarded.
Michael, the company I worked for (before my wreck) was very involved in LED lighting, especially in Public Safety: Law Enforcement, Fire and EMS...aside from the emergency lighting, we worked with interior and compartment lighting solutions as well as scene lighting. When an application was unconventional (other than lightbars and such from Federal Signal or Whelen), we'd use Super Britght LED https://www.superbrightleds.com/ or Bird Dog Distributing Unleash The Beauty Of Lighting | Birddog Distributing, Inc. for our 12V or 110/220V LED light sources. In there, you will find a wide range of LED lights, including dimmable, color range adjustable and so on.I have come to love standard base warm white LED bulbs and accept their cost knowing this will fall rapidly .. but my major complaint about most LED bulbs available today for the 110/220 market is that they are not DIMABLE ... which is just cheap cost-saving measures by the manufacturer but short-sighted IMHO
Not wanting to hijack MM's thread, I will say briefly that the CEO of Walmart struck a deal with the main Chinese CFL manufacturers to export through Walmart's import holding company and wrapped up a deal with a friend of his, who is a California senator. This senator was the author of the CFL law in California that made the incadesecnt bulb ban into law.Spot-on. The big CFL push (here in the US anyway) is/was a big waste - would have been better off waiting for LED's to take over.
Perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel for incandescents was becoming visible, but it's a LED light, not a CFL.