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You can get good fluorescent. Ordinary cheap fluorescent uses crap phosphor and has very poor CRI (60-70) and sickening tint, but good fluorescent uses much better phosphors to yield damn good full spectrum light at 90+ CRI, albeit at a somewhat lower efficiency and higher cost.

So no, any good LED DOES NOT "kick the crap" out of GOOD fluorescent if we are talking about light quality.

Because the government isn't really mandating energy efficiency. When you get right down to it, CFLs are less efficient than incandescent bulbs. I sat down and did the math a couple of years ago and concluded that I would never break even.

First, you have the problem of power factor, which means that with fluorescent bulbs, you're often drawing a lot more power than you think, it just isn't getting metered that way. Second, you have the spectrum of light, which because it is balanced towards the blue end and because it isn't a continuous spectrum, isn't perceived as being of equal brightness. To get the same perceptual brightness, IIRC, you are drawing slightly more power with fluorescent bulbs than with modern incandescent (e.g. halogen) designs, and approaching that of plain jane incandescent bulbs.

LEDs are similarly useless. The amount of light output from the brightest ones I can buy are inadequate even for a small room.. Not to mention that they are LOUD if you use them in a dimmer circuit like the one in my bedside table lamp. I've just about concluded that all non-incandescent bulbs are unusable, and at best are a serious step down from incandescent bulbs.

And that's before you add in things like the increase in depression, suicides, and cancer linked with fluorescent lighting.

We're getting massively screwed.

BTW, the government isn't subsidizing energy significantly. Maybe a little, but certainly not a favor of two, much less five. All but my lowest tier of power costs more than it would cost me to use solar, without any subsidies or tax incentives factored in, assuming a grid-tie system (no storage costs). And that's buying PV cells at low-quantity prices. Nearly every other form of power production costs less than that. You're right that technically the government is holding down the cost of energy, but only by limiting the power of the monopolies that would otherwise gouge us for all we're worth. Energy is inherently not a free market and can never be a free market, making that argument moot.

They're not full spectrum like sunlight

There are full spectrum CFLs, they cost more but are available.

-All of today's CFLs are NOT created equally.

This is definitely true. I recently read a report about CFLs, and almost all the bad ones were made in China.

Falcon

Some examples of some common and competitive light sources color temperature and CRI values are:
# Candle: 1700k 100 CRI
# High Pressure Sodium: 2100k 25 CRI
# Incandescent: 2700k 100 CRI
# Tungsten Halogen: 3200k 95 CRI
# *Solux Bulb: 4100k 98 CRI
# Cool White: 4200k 62 CRI
# *Ott-Lite(TM) Pro: 5000k 82 CRI
# Clear Metal Halide: 5500k 60 CRI
# *Verilux® "Natural Spectrum®": 5500k 82 CRI (also called HappyEyes® and Trucolite Phosphor Technology(TM))
# Natural Sunlight: 5000-6000k 100 CRI
# *BlueMax(TM): 5900k 96 CRI
# Daylight Bulb: 6400k 80 CRI
# *Sharper Image Bright as Day(TM) Lamp: 6400k 80 CRI (also called "wide-spectrum","daylight spectrum","natural spectrum")
# *NextTen SunWhite® Lamp: 6400k 82 CRI
# *Bell&Howell Sunlight Lamp: 6500k 80-85 CRI
# *FirstStreet Balanced Spectrum®: 6500k 84 CRI

*=Marketed as a "full spectrum" or similar to sunlight source

The High Quality CFL's produced today have amalgam filling that prevents this. Also studies have found that a standard Incandescent bulb puts 10 times as much mercury into the environment because of coal power consumption.

Some people are *very* sensitive to the color and brightness of the light in their surroundings. My wife claims I'm solar powered and I'd have to agree. If I were to arrange a scale of light that I'd find pleasing, sunlight would be far and away the light source I'd prefer.

The *only* flourescent bulb that I've even remotely liked is my Blue Max desk lamp.

I can't imagine paying $28/bulb to light my house though. I know the Mrs. wants to use CF's in as many places as she can, but we'll have to negotiate a bit on which bulbs become CF's, how warm they are, and how much we're willing to pay.

Most lightbulbs put out a very narrow spectrum band of light. Full spectrum light is light that includes many more of the different wave-lengths, approaching that of the sun at noon-day.

It is also related to the color temperature, how close the temperature (in kelvin, not farenheit! This has to do with color not temperature) is to noon-day sun. See this chart.

See also this description.

I've long since wanted to get a Kill A Watt Meter to check the power consumption of the equipment I have. At $35 it's a bargain.

With electricity prices skyrocketing I'm noticing which lights are on the most and replacing them with full spectrum compact flourescents that have a really nice, white light but use about 1/5 the juice.

sometimes the simple things work best: just edit the source for that page full spectrum solutions and you can get your product at any price! - i wonder how long it would take before a human noticed the problem.. you never know, it might just work.

Dude! Interesting idea, however not entirely new. There are devices called "dawn simulators" that you can buy. Normally folks with SAD (Seasonal Anxiety Disorder - not enought sunlight in winter) get them, but I got one for the every reasons you state. I bought some blackout curtains, a dawn simulator and 4 tracklights. Mount the lights about the bed and Voila! I have never woken up so nicely in my life! The lights come up over 45 mintues and I just gradually wake up. No jarring beep/ring/buzz from alarmclocks. pure heaven. Here's where I got my dawn simulator: http://www.fullspectrumsolutions.com/dawnsimulator .htm If you have the spare LCDs and the time, your idea sounds pretty cool, but even at $200, this is a pretty cheap way to go.....

Actually, there are incandescent bulbs (i.e., normal screw-in bulbs with filaments) that purport to offer "Full Spectrum" lighting. I think the issue isn't whether they're fluorescent or not; it has to do with the wavelenghts of light given off.