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So, I actually own an LED lighting company, and I found the article quite fair. This has been bugging me for a while with the new LED bulbs, there's frankly no

So, I actually own an LED lighting company, and I found the article quite fair. This has been bugging me for a while with the new LED bulbs, there's frankly no reason to get them to replace a CFL except for mercury, and the build quality is garbage. The heat sinking stuff is absolutely critical, and while yours may be fine, a lot of these bulbs (and more every year that new players get into making them) are simply not amenable to being used as direct replacements without some extremely clever design that's not being done. Not to mention that the incremental efficiency gain is negligible. Incandescent to CFL is a huge efficiency gain, so you can actually pay back the increased cost in electricity usage in a short while. A 60W equivalent CFL might consume ~13W. A similar LED bulb will be around ~9W. That extra 4W is such a marginal improvement that it would take decades to make it back in energy cost. So the only selling point is lifetime, and I've seen no indication that there is a big difference between the two -- both have similar types of failures, usually control electronics or power supply passives due to poor quality manufacturing.

jotm 13y ago
I love my 35 watt CFLs, and still can't find any LED equivalents at an affordable price :-)
maratd 13y ago
> there's frankly no reason to get them to replace a CFL except for mercury Isn't that enough? I try to keep things that can kill me to a minimum.
- tocomment 13y ago
  I actually have a room of my house I don't go in because a cfl broke there a year ago. When I read how to clean it up it sounded so scary I now stear clear of the whole room :-(
  - cnvogel 13y ago
    Even if you'd have spilled all of the mercury on the carpet (and most of it will possibly have stuck on the inside of the bulb and been disposed of with the shards), it will have evaporated (and hence, left the room in gaseous phase) a long time ago. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/research/mercury-bulbs.pdf http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/research/mercury-bulbs.pdf
- neltnerb 13y ago
  In my observation, it is not enough for most people. They need an economic reason as well. Besides, the amount of mercury in a modern CFL is not all that bad as long as you don't try to vacuum it up and. Disclaimer: I'm sort of a chemist, so let's just say I've been around far, far worse than a few milligrams of mercury. I do have a healthy respect for safety hazards, and am very cautious, but I don't have a strong immediate inclination to avoid small amount of mercury (or DMF, or THF, or paint thinner, or...) outright as too risky.

jotm 13y ago

I love my 35 watt CFLs, and still can't find any LED equivalents at an affordable price :-)

maratd 13y ago

> there's frankly no reason to get them to replace a CFL except for mercury Isn't that enough? I try to keep things that can kill me to a minimum.

tocomment 13y ago
I actually have a room of my house I don't go in because a cfl broke there a year ago. When I read how to clean it up it sounded so scary I now stear clear of the whole room :-(
- cnvogel 13y ago
  Even if you'd have spilled all of the mercury on the carpet (and most of it will possibly have stuck on the inside of the bulb and been disposed of with the shards), it will have evaporated (and hence, left the room in gaseous phase) a long time ago. http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/research/mercury-bulbs.pdf http://www.state.nj.us/dep/dsr/research/mercury-bulbs.pdf
neltnerb 13y ago
In my observation, it is not enough for most people. They need an economic reason as well. Besides, the amount of mercury in a modern CFL is not all that bad as long as you don't try to vacuum it up and. Disclaimer: I'm sort of a chemist, so let's just say I've been around far, far worse than a few milligrams of mercury. I do have a healthy respect for safety hazards, and am very cautious, but I don't have a strong immediate inclination to avoid small amount of mercury (or DMF, or THF, or paint thinner, or...) outright as too risky.