Average citizens cannot be trusted with economic decisions that
require balancing immediate costs and long-term benefits, according to
environmentalists.

[...]

•CFL manufacturers claim that a 13-watt CFL emits the same amount of
light as a 60-watt incandescent, but it doesn't seem to work that way
in the real world. I've been in CFL-lit hotel rooms where I need a
flashlight to read my dog-eared copy of The Road to Serfdom.

60-watt incandescent don't put out a lit of light either.

The good thing about CF is you can use more or brighter bulbs for more
light and still use less electricity.

•Warm-up time: it takes up to 5 minutes for a CFL to reach full
strength,

Exactly what you want in the middle of the night.

which may be related to the point above (why CFLs seem less
bright). My friend has installed them in a hallway where illumination
is needed only for the thirty seconds it takes to navigate the
staircase. Not ideal when Grandma visits and can't see the skateboard
on the stairs.

•Few CFLs last for their advertised lifetimes of five years or more.

They are getting better.

Many people report replacing them after one year, making those return
on investment numbers a bit less rosy. Using them in ceiling fixtures,
on dimmers or timers, and for less than fifteen minutes per use reduce
their life.

•CFLs contain mercury and should be returned to a hazardous waste
center for disposal. Studies assume a 25% recycling rate, with the
rest going into landfills. (The Westinghouse website recommends
recycling only when disposing of "a large quantity" of fluorescent
tubes and doesn't mention how to dispose of their CFLs.) According to
a 2008 Yale study, burning coal to supply electricity to incandescent
bulbs emits more mercury per bulb than a CFL contains, but regions
that rely on cleaner fuels like natural gas experience greater mercury
contamination with the introduction of CFLs. Why would
environmentalists advocate to bring a toxic product into every home?

•Cleaning up a broken CFL doesn't require a haz-mat team, but you have
to take significant precautions to avoid mercury contamination of
living areas.

•Manufacturing CFLs is labor-intensive. No CFLs are made with
expensive U.S. labor; most are made in China, where hundreds of
factory workers in CFL plants have been hospitalized for mercury
poisoning. The last major light bulb factory in the U.S., a GE plant
in Winchester, VA, closed earlier this month.

•CFLs require six times as much energy to manufacture as incandescent
bulbs, not to mention -- if you're concerned about such things -- the
carbon footprint of shipping them from China.

•CFLs appear to cause migraines and epileptic seizures in a small
number of people. Other health risks are being studied.

•CFLs work poorly in cold temperatures -- as a wintertime front porch
light, for example. In cold climates, the heat of incandescent bulbs
is a useful -- if inefficient -- byproduct.

•CFLs degrade the quality of the electric current (so-called "dirty
electricity" with uneven sine waves) on a circuit into which they are
plugged, causing problems for other electronic devices and possible
health hazards to humans.

[...]

(complete story with references)http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/...ent_light_bulb...