Commercial users should perhaps be considering LED lighting instead of florescent, because LED lighting lasts up to 50 times longer. That is the high cost of LED lighting may be economic in certain commercial situations because people have to be paid to change florescent bulbs, and there is a cost of disposal. Here is an example of an LED fixture to replace an over-head florescent fixture: http://img.ledsmagazine.com/objects/news/3/6/16/LynkSnap1.jpg

Another commercial application is LED lighting in refrigeration because florescent bulbs don't work well in the cold. The key has been to generate LED white light directly from AC power, without power-consuming AC-to-DC conversion. There is a lot of research and development going on, however it's estimated to take at least 5 years before LED lighting is economic for residential use.

LED lighting also creates more of an emphasis on strip lighting instead of pear-shaped light bulbs which are not efficient as LED lighting. Here is what a LED light looks like with electronics exposed - the light may be generated in any color:
http://img.ledsmagazine.com/objects/news/3/6/16/LynkAmBright2.jpg

You forgot to mention that, according to Senator Barbara Boxer, if every American household replaced a single incandescent bulb with one of these new fangled ones, it would be the same as taking 6 million cars off the road. With 100 million households and 100 million light bulbs, that means that 17 incandescent light bulbs pollutes as much as the average car in America.

Wow! Who knew?

A few weeks ago the PPH printed an editorial arguing that banning incandescent light bulbs was not a good idea. This position may be defended but the high external costs of continued use of the now outrageously inefficient incandescent bulbs is no longer in question. Society may well have standing to say "Enough of this 19th century technology" - at least if we continue to power such lamps with coal. If by using CFLs, society has an opportunity to reduce some lighting-related mountain top mining by nearly 400 percent I say we give a more thorough, more accurate look at CFLs than what was presented in the PPH editorial.

If memory serves me well, while admiting to the energy efficient aspects of CFLs,the writers claimed that CFLs were not available for three-way applications, not dimmable, produced weaker or an inferior color of light, and stated that CFLs were dangerous because they contained mercury. I wrote a reply LTE that I believe was not printed and am writing today to ask that the PPH (and Sunday Telegram?) print a formal "correction notice":

CFLs are widely available for three way applications.

Dimmable CFLs have been available for years. I have some in my office

CFLs are available in at least four different "colors of white" (warm white, cool white, "full-spectrum" etc) "Quality of light" is largely a matter of personal preference, but I will note that grocery stores have used fluorescent lighting to show and sell meat and most other products "in their best light" for many years.

The mercury in a CFL can and will be recycled if the CFL is properly recycled at the end of its service life. The 3-4 mgs of mercury they contain is only about one third of the amount of mercury that is released into the atmosphere when coal is burned to power the alternative incandescent lamp for the same # of hours of light! Total light-related emissions of mercury to the environment are much less if folks use CFLs properly rather than incandescant bulbs. Even if people throw CFLs away, which they shouldn't be doing, less mercury will enter the environment unless they are breaking CFLs at a great rate.

CFL's are widely available in a full range of "brightnesses" - if the editorial writer needs to shed more light on a subject, I suggest they purchase a brighter, cleaner, more efficient CFL. They might use this light to write the correction notice.

CFLs do have mercury but it's so small it's not to be worried about. Like the mercury in your dental fillings... that red flag was waved a few years ago but again, the amount is just so tiny the controversy evaporated. The incident of the woman in Maine was caused more by ignorant officials who way overreacted, than anything else.

I only hope that the manufacturing process for LED lights will be energy-low and pollution-free. It won't make any sense to buy mass quantities of LEDs if manufacturing them only makes things worse. (Like how making ethanol currently requires more energy than it produces.)

Dick's (another comment) on the right track: the numbers don't show the entire picture. It's about polluting less and using less resources, which personal dollar figures don't show. There are 750,000 new homes that are Energy Star certified, together saving a total of over $180 million and billion of tons of GHG. If you do this math, this comes out to only $240 savings per house, the price of a few family dinner out. But personal profit is not the point.

For over 5 years I have used these bulbs in my home - and you know - I STILL have not had to replace, even 1!! They do help with the electric bill. It may not be a huge difference, but there is a difference.

These technologies will improve over time and hopefully they can eliminate the mercury used in the bulbs - or come out with a totally safe bulb. Even so I think you have to be fairly rough to be able to break them. Let's all resolve the best way to recycle them?

I know that Maine's Rep. Strimling is engaged in working with all technologies that will help save the environment, including use of these bulbs. We have to migrate our use away from wasteful technologies on all fronts. In some cases we may have to change not only our habits, but our lifestyles to adapt - but we are Americans - we must adopt a 'can do' attitude.