light bulbs

[Don_Papenburg]

I was about to give up on them . The old Utube type CFLs were very slow and not very bright .  I still have two that I should /might take a 2x too  ;D   I had not planned on getting any more , but then I was tired of replacing the regular bulbs every month. Some would not last a week  >:(  I bought my first spiral tube CFL and have not gone back .     I just hope the wizzards that get the LEDs developed have enough brains to make them screw into standard sockets.

[Homer]

RE led's. White leds don' last like the red or blue. white is not perfected

[Deadwood]

I agree that CFL's are not the end-all, be all, but ultimately I think by using LED, halogen and CFL's we will spend far less on electricity and all be better for it. Unfortunately the grid needs some serious revamping. I would love to see a few nuke plants built myself, but adding power to an aging power supply system is not going to help. Its like putting in a 200 amp service into your house. Unless you increase the size of the wire going to your shop, you can not get any more out of your new amperage. As Americans we need to realize that the grid system is aging, its running at full capacity and we need to add more transmission lines.

I don't see that happening soon. People don't want to spend money on poles and wires when they drive on pavement and never really "see" electricity to begin with. Besides adding transmission lines means cutting trees and all matter of "bad" things, and no one wants a big powerline "in their backyard". People just expect power to be there when they flip the switch. That is why I am a big proponent of conservation. If I can maintain my lifestyle and yet save kws, I think its good.

As for tossing the CFLs out, where is the rest of the country? Maine has had a CFL, halogen, incandescent lightbulb recycling program for years. I can set out my lightbulbs at the end of my driveway for recycling at the first Wednesday of every month...and I live out in the sticks even in Maine standards. Even if I was not able to do this, I could call the Efficiency Maine number and they would tell me where I could recycle them.

[PineNut]

I will probably do the same with the CFLs that I do with other mandated savers. I usually turn the lights on when I enter a room and turn them off when I leave. But when it takes so much time for the light output to some up to specs, I will just leave them on all the time. Is that energy saving?

[rebocardo]

> we will spend far less on electricity and all be better for it

That is what started it for me a few years ago when the bulbs were $8 each. I might not recoup my costs for three years on the 1st single bulb, but, when I started replacing burnt out ones one at a time, it did add up month after month. I dropped about $10 a month eventually.