Sad fact is that any Florecent bulbs use vaporized Mercury to make light under high voltage (10,000 volts approx, using a ballast xformer). They are actually Hazardous Materials and need to be handled and disposed of as such. Buisnesses have had to dispose of thier Florecent bulbs as Haz Mat Waste for Decades. It's sad that we are pouring these in to the market now with little or no control over disposal, and I imagine in a few years we will start hearing about mercury problems in our Landfills, and groundwater. Lets hope not.
LED technology is very new and very expensive. It does however seem to be a much better alternative to CF bulbs. Once the prices come down I might try them out in mass use. My experience with LED flashlights is they are bright up close but at distance they suck compared to Incandecent bulbs, so I hope the bulbs for lighting will be improved. (I bought 3 for tracklighting for a Guitar rack display, but I havn't installed it yet).
The other cruddy thing about LEDs or CF is the lack of use of dimmers for them. You need to buy a special Dimmer and Special bulbs to be able to dim them.
If you are looking to save money to pay off your other bills, the Best solution until prices come down is just conserve energy by turning off your incandecent bulbs when not in use. That will save energy and costs and is a simple and easy to use method
This post was edited by FullArcFG on Jun 8 2011 06:05am