I think CFLs are worth it overall. (I haven't had any bad experiences with shorter-than-advertised lifetimes). To the poster who asked about exterior enclosed lights and bathroom ceiling lights -- don't know about yours but behind the removable glass bowls/covers all of my lights in those areas have normal sockets and bulbs. I changed them all for CFLs
where appropriate. That is, I wouldn't dream of ever putting a CFL in a bathroom -- my guests don't want to fumble around in the half-dark for the half minute or so it takes them to brighten acceptably. I'll change them the minute someone invents the "instantly on" CFL (and I certainly won't thank any politician who makes me do it
before then).
In hallways, porches etc. I have switched completely to CFLs. I don't care how long they take to come on -- I just leave them on most of the time. Yes, bit of a waste, but the cost of electricity for lighting just isn't that much ... now I can have them on for 20hrs a day (and I do) for the cost of 4 hrs! Bottom line is that domestic electric lighting is just not that big a user of power.
Yes, we've all heard those stories about how the energy saved from CFLs could light thousands of homes for a year, just like switching off your standby devices. Quite apart from the "for a year" bit makes no sense because you are then comparing power with energy, it just goes to show how utterly tiny a few thousand homes is compared to our overall energy consumption. The latest I see is Sky claiming (on the "Welcome to Sky channel") that the new auto-standby feature on their boxes will save enough power to light Birmingham. Woo hoo! ... more utterly devious meaningless numbers.
My other favourite is "
Black Google" ... the "
about" text claims a potential global saving of "750 Megawatt hours per year". Woo hoo x 10!!! So let's convert that from perverse power units (MWh/year !) into more normal ones: it's 85 kilowatts... in other words if only every last person on the planet could be persuaded to use this software application (and its assumption about computer display technology are correct) we could save enough to power, oh, maybe forty energy-conscious households. That's a whopping 0.000004% of global electricity demand. On the other hand, since 99% of people will never hear of Black Google, it's grossly over-generous.
Call me cynical.
