I won't use the. They give me migraine headaches.

Leave it to these numbskulls, they worry sick over lead in paint, but mercury poison is just as dangerous, the big green lie is going to kill people, or maybe thats what they want.

I agree, those CFL bulbs are truly hated!

However, one alternative type of light has become truly great as of late. I'm talking about LED lights.

LED lights are still a bit expensive, but they last at least 10 years -- some would last more than your lifetime. They require a lot less electricity, and run a lot cooler. So not only do they last a long time, but they cost far less to operate.

Also, one of the main drawbacks of alternative lighting -- the color and quality of the light -- has been largely solved. LED lights these days can be made to look exactly like the color of an incandescent light.

Another benefit is that dimmable LEDs are much better than dimming incandescents because they don't produce a high-pitched noise like incandescents often do.

LEDs are also great in flashlights -- particularly in Mag Lights.

10/4 on the LEDS, only time will tell, dimmers have gotten a lot better, it is all in the quality of the circuity in the dimmer. What happens to cause the high pitched noise are the components of the dimmer degrade and typically these component degradation are SCR's (silicon controlled rectifiers) to reduce and shape the AC going to the incandescent bulb, you see, if they use only discreet components in dimmer controls they would have to use heavy transformers which would make them bulky and inefficient etc..

I haven't looked into the design of the large LED light but I assume there must be some sort of rectification going on to energize the LED since light emitting diodes use DC voltage to energize. But I imagine and hope it is highly reliable, LEDs are usually Galium arsenide or silicon based these elements and compounds are fairly safe I assume the LED is silicon as it is for higher currents/voltages.

CFL have the ballasts built into the base of the bulbs that is why they have that disc puck on the bottom of them, a lot of those that fail are because of the ballast failing getting to hot.

I have CFL bulbs in every socket i have in the home haven't changed a bulb in many years now.

44me,
Somehow, I would have known that, lol.