The secret to making LED prices come down is adoption — if people use them, manufacturers can build them at sufficiently high volumes to make the per-unit cost lower. We saw this when CFLs first came out (around when I wrote this post!), and then a few years to get them right. Then people started buying them and they started getting made in volume, and are now good. Unfortunately, the “Merchants of Greed” managed to find a way to scare people away from them.

Sigh.

Anntranette

The bulbs we handed out (more than a year ago) were in their retail packaging. The boys gave them to adults who wanted them, not children, and explained what they were. These were the same bulbs readily available on the market at the time.

It is true that as I spent more time investigating CFLs I learned that these bulbs, like almost all available at the time, were manufactured to lower standards than suitable. I have subsequently written a review of bulbs from GE that are much higher quality. Many thousands of people have seen the posts, and I hope learned what I did, which is that it’s worth paying for better quality.

If you wish to address concerns about marketing dangerous products, perhaps you should turn your attention to cigarette companies, coal mining and burning facilities, and auto makers, and the many other products sold that pose great present and future dangers to all of us.

Tom

The other option for spiral bulbs on lamps is to get one of those metal “harp” jobs that screw onto the light socket, and bend the metal spring clips up somehow.

Having been encouraged by our feat of engineering with the costume, I’ll see if I can figure out how to do that with one of our lamps and post some pictures.

Sally — it’s an interesting question about whether to wait for the incandescents to burn out before replacing them. The break-even point on “standard” CFLs vs. incandescents is probably something like 14 months (I calculated this on another post, just don’t remember the actual figure) and CFLs can last from 5 to 10 years. Depending on how long the bulbs you have now would last, I suppose you would have to calculate the residual value of the current bulb (< $0.40) and disposal costs compared to the rate of energy savings of the CFL. My gut says that with a small capital investment of a few dollars a bulb, you’ll break even well before the expected lifespan of the CFL. And since none of this accounts for actual energy costs (the unaccounted for external costs, such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions and the chance that we’ll have a marginally stable world economy), it’s a good bet that changing the bulbs now is a big win. So, waste not, want not :-)

Tom

So let’s all go door to door with a CFL in hand!