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Why LEDs Don't Beat CFLs Even Though They Should
TaeKwonDood writes "LEDs don't beat CFLs in the home yet, but it's not simply because PG&E is getting rich making people feel like they are helping the environment buying CFLs made in China that are shipped to the US using a lot more fossil fuels than they save. It's a problem of indication versus illumination. However, some new discoveries are going to change all that."
LEDs are not traditionally used for illumination not only because of the costs of LEDs, but because of the complex optics required to distribute the light. it's rare to see LEDs used for illumination, though it is making an entrance for some applications, like flashlights and even headlamps. As LED prices continue to come down and LED optics technology improves and cost stabilize, conventional LED lamp retrofits will become commonplace. Take a look at LEDtronics for some examples.
CFLs made in China that are shipped to the US [use] a lot more fossil fuels than they save.
'Cause incandescents are all made in the US and don't share nearly the same shipping costs.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I have access to all kinds of LEDs, straight from a fairly large distributor, lots of high-end stuff and what not.
I work in electronics, so I'm more than able to design and build whatever circuit to power them in any way I please.
The only problem here is LEDs emit directional light. And there are no easy ways to "diffuse" the light...
Errr... could we have some actual numbers for that? Are we seriously asked to believe that the energy saved by a metric ton of CFLs over their lifetime is less than the cost of a one-trip transport on a freighter? Or is that just another bitter remark aimed at those silly little hippies who want to save their pwecious planet and their breathable atmosphere and their clean water?
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
You're seriously trying to claim that the savings of CFLs are offset by shipment? Really?
I would go into the obvious math or the economics, but honestly this is just simply too stupid to even deserve further comment, except that it is a completely asinine, baseless statement that I'm sure will be picked up and repeated by a lot of ignorant contrarians.
just my wallet. I got a set of LED GU10 bulbs for the flat because when we got in there were two fittings of 4x50W bulbs each, and with the energy saving from some LED replacements (~£10 for 4 at ~2W ea, normally ~£5ea but i found a deal) easily paid the difference, especially since i was having trouble finding CFL replacemetns. However they definately give off significantly less light than the 50W halogens, which is fine most of the time as i prefer a dimmer light usually, but can be a little frustrating if i find myself needing a little extra to look for something, The light is alot 'whiter' which took a couple of days to get used to but is fine now. They are also very directional, they light up one area very well, but are quite poor outside that area, so fine if you are after light in a particular area (they are often advertised as for lighting up some piece of art you want attention drawn to) but not so good if you want to illuminate a room.
an directionality. It's hard to beat CFLs and moreso some good quality fluorescent tubes get slightly more lumens per watt (although I saved 100 watts per hour in the kitchen - 200 instead of 300- by going with directed CFLs that shine line exactly where needed vs previous central flourescent tubes that were lighting from the center trying to sloppily spill light everywhere).
Since every Home Depot now takes any CFLs, the disposal is actually better than fluorescent tubes. Considering most electricity comes from coal, you prevent mercury release in the air vs incandescents. And no, you don't need a specialized clean up crew if a CFL breaks: http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/cfl.asp
Except for the oven, fridge, and flashing lights - CFLs are appropriate for most applications.
I would love to have LEDs. But they need to raise their efficiency. They don't generate heat as such, but AC->DC conversion does, index of refraction of the casing material presents a problem, as well that leds don't generate white light by themselves (they use phosphor?) and all that reduces the light given off.
It would be cool if those were solved one day, where they got near 90% theoretical max lumens/wax (683 lm/wt), where a 3 watt LED would give off the same light as a ~100 watt incandescent or ~23 watt CFL. Even 150 or 200 lm/wt would be a revolution. But it will take 5-10 years I suppose.
Wow. Way to sneak in that lie under the radar. Politically motivated, or just simple ignorance?
In any case, no, the manufacturing and transport of CFL bulbs absolutely does not generate more CO2 than that saved by using them (assuming coal/natural gas powered, the only logical comparison in this case). Let's run some simple numbers.
Assuming an average 60-watt equivalent (12 watt nominal) CFL bulb with a lifespan of 10,000 hours, it will draw 120kWh over the course of its life. The 60-watt incandescent, if it lasted as long, would draw 600kWh. Of course, it doesn't last as long, but rather an average of 1/5 as long.
So the savings are roughly 480kWh for an 800lm fixture. That's the equivalent of over 400 liters of gasoline burned in an internal combustion engine, and that doesn't include the fuel used building, shipping and shopping for replacement incandencents, which as mentioned burn out far more frequently.
Now for some logic. How is it that a bulb which apparently requires >480kWh of energy to build/ship ($48 at $0.10/kWh) sells for a few dollars? Hint: it doesn't require >480kWh of energy to build/ship, or anywhere near that.
CFLs offer a massive net efficiency gain, and by extension, a net reduction in CO2 emissions. Even factoring in disposal costs at 5 times the manufacturing cost (silly), CFLs are a net win. So please don't spread that tripe!
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
If a 25W CFL replaces a 100W incandescent bulb, and the CFL lasts 8000 hours, it will save 600 KWHrs of energy. .11 gallons of diesel for the journey. That is about 6 KWHrs of energy.
If a shipping vessel can hold 35,000 tons of cargo and the shipping weight of a CFL is 1/2 pound, the vessel can hold 140 million bulbs. Of course there is not enough space for them all, but they can ship with heavier items, and I am assuming costs are allocated by weight.
If a 7,000 mile journey burns 875 tons of fuel, or 15.75 million gallons, then each bulb is allocated
Therefore, the shipping costs don't even come close to negating the energy savings.
led's would be great if they weren't so direct and cold, and they didn't cost $30 a pop.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The vast majority of light bulbs are imported from China. Incandescent, halogen, fluorescent, CFL, you name it, it's likely made in China. I own a hardware store and have watched over the years as production of GE bulbs has shifted from the US to Mexico to China. It was interesting to note that some of the specialty bulbs (for example, a bulb called Lumiline) had very high defective return rates when produced in Mexico, so GE moved manufacturing back to the US for a while until the bugs were worked out.
Anyway, this transportation cost objection is bogus IMHO. Incandescents weigh slightly less than CFL's, but they take as much "cube" space in container loads so the cost to transport is probably similar to CFL's.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
what start up delay?
I have currently have 6 CFLs running in my studio. all but 1 start up instantly, the other one, being 5 years old, takes a second or so. the larger ones (2 40-watt bulbs) may take a few seconds to reach full brightness, but enough light is there the second I hit the switch. the 25 watt bulbs all start up instantly.
i have never had a CFL overheat or burn out. if you are running into all of these problems, i would suggest trying out higher quality bulbs. Sometimes, there is a reason for the difference in price between to brands.
I pay about $3.50 for each 25 watt bulb, and $10 for the 40 watt bulbs, and they work much better than the cheaper ones you find in dollar stores.
-I only code in BASIC.-
Actually, I have never found a LED bulb nor any CFLs that with a confortable color spectrum.
Also, most inexpensive CFLs lose their brightness very quickly and need to be replaced far sooner than what the manufacturer would have you believe.
No sig for the moment.
>Or until government regulates incandescent out of existence.
Which many of us hope will not happen. There is no suitable replacement for incandescent in MANY applications. My house has many such.
Flor is generally not dimable. Even those that claim to be really are barely and cost a fortune.
Flor saves NO MONEY when dimmed, even if you can find expensive dimable ones.
Flor bulbs do not fit in all fixtures, especially decorative ones and small ones.
Flor bulbs are UGLY in many types of fixtures, period.
Flor FIXTURES are UGLY in many types of applications.
Flor light is not pleasing to many people- it is too white/blue or harsh.
Flor fixtures often emit lots of RFI.
Flor fixtures often emit noise.
Flor lamps are not instantly on.
Flor lamps are also not instantly 100% bright, many taking MINUTES to reach full brightness.
Until you can address all or most of those issues, there are very valid reasons to prefer incandescent lighting in many situations. I, for one, have replaced about 1/3 of all my lights with flor, but the remaining can't be because of many or all of the above reasons. If anything, tax incandescent lamps to make them cost parity with alternatives, but do not attempt to eliminate MY CHOICE until there is a truly suitable replacement.
There are LEDs with very tungsten-like spectra. They're just not very common yet.
I have had the CFL in my hallway for 15 years.
I haven't changed a lightbulb in at least five, and even that was because somebody hit it with a broom handle. I don't remember much from when I was a kid but those other types of lights would die every now and then.
You're doing it wrong.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
sick of them.
They also need to make Led's smaller so we can have LED TV's.
As for shipping, CFLs are quite a bit heavier than a twisted tungsten wire, so shipping a container of CFLs the same distance as a container of incandescent bulbs could well cost more too.
Except that commercial shipping is usually done by volume not weight. Only if the weight is extremely excessive does it matter for pricing. Shipping containers are usually charged by the container, not by the weight. They have a weight *limit*, but that is not the same thing. I can't imagine hitting the weight limit of a container with any kind of light bulb.
Trucks are the same way for large quantities.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
I really want to switch to LEDs. I've become disillusioned with CFLs in recent years. The very first two CFLs we ever purchased, in the mid-nineties, -- my wife's reading lamp and the hard-to-reach light in the stairwell -- are still working. But in recent years (since maybe 2002) I've had a remarkable number of failures, often in the first month of use, and I rarely see more than a couple years of service. Oddly enough, I get longer service from the outside lights, which should be the harshest environment. The indoor CFL overhead lights (except for that stairwell light) last about a year. The worst service is from the CFL globe lights over the mirrors in the two bathrooms. I lose about one a month, and recently I've started replacing them with incandescents as they burn out.
I think part of this is due to putting CFLs in environments where they do not thrive -- anywhere you have heavy on/off duty cycles like a bathroom or occasionally used overhead. But I wonder also if CFLs in general haven't become (at least in part) victim to "value engineering", IE, making them as cheap as possible.
But anyway, what worries me about LEDs is that although they *should* give longer life, (50K hours vs 15K for CFL and 1K for incandescents) they apparently don't, judging by the LED array stoplights that have been put in all around the city. It's difficult to find one that doesn't have large parts of the array completely out or blinking madly. Around Christmas I noticed that some of them had been replaced with conventional bulbs. Looking at the technology, LEDs should do better, but it's all about implementation.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I've been using CFL's since at least 1995, probably a lot earlier. Starting with the big Philips 'jam jar' types which lasted more or less forever - I still have some of the first lamps I bought, now more than 15 years old, they still work - and gradually moving to the more recent folded tube and even more recent incandescent form factor ones I have yet to see any trouble with them. They *just work*, save a *lot* of power and hardly ever burn out.
In other words, I completely fail to grasp the reluctance to change over, leading even to conspiracy theories and pseudo-science arguments against these dependable light sources. They may not be the best choice for all applications but they are a good match for most.
--frank[at]unternet.org
The little snippet at the end of the post if off-base, but it is good to keep in mind that LEDs are significantly more environmentally friendly nonetheless. They last a long time, years and years, and they are very durable. They don't require toxic chemicals, and they are more energy efficient than CFLs.
The energy payback is within the first hour of use.
I figure you can fit in ~300000 CFL bulbs in a container.
http://www.google.com/search?q=12022mm+*+2352+mm+*+2395+mm+%2F+(1.7in+*+1.7in+*+4.4in)&btnG=Search
Wikipedia says it takes 85MW to bring a certain class of container ship up to speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ship
Which works out to 1/50th of a watt per bulb. Thats such a small number, trying to calculate the cruising energy seems fruitless...
http://www.google.com/search?q=85MW+%2F+14000+%2F+300000
If it burned a lot more fuel to ship heavy containers, heavy containers would cost more.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Well, you nearly have that already. Sunlight is much closer to the bluish-white LED light than to tungsten. (Tungsten is around 3000K, sunlight is 6500K, white LEDs are around 8000K.)
GE Energy Smart CFL's are a pretty good approximation of the spectra of incandescent (2700K 82CRI). They are available at Sam's Club (and I believe Walmart). I've been using them for about 3 years now and just replaced my first bulb. Since I live in the Cleveland area and grew up going to their holiday lighting show I'm thinking about returning the failed unit myself and seeing if I can find out why it failed =) Btw GE rates their bulbs to fall off ~20% from initial peak so using a 14W (75W equivalent) for reading lamps is probably a minimum.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
This is partly an interior design problem.
Color and texture.
Paint and paper.
The gas light wasn't oil or candlelight.
The incandescent lamp was harsher and stranger still. The Victorians had to think creatively about how to use these new forms of illumination.
Not entirely. CFLs are fluorescent lamps. They produce ultraviolet light which a fluorescent layer of different phosphors on the inside of the tube converts into visible light. This conversion isn't 100%. Most CFLs do therefore emit a very small amount of UV light. (If, and only if, you leave the phosphors out, you get the kind of tubes which are used in tanning beds.)
Where this argument enters bullshit territory is that the problem is worse with CFLs than with incandescents. Incandescent lights are black body radiators. In order to create a "whiter" light, the temperature of the filament must be increased. This also increases the amount of UV light. If you use halogen lights, make sure you buy bulbs with UV filter fronts, because halogen bulbs really produce noteworthy amounts of UV lights.
Let's say that you do pay extra for the incandescent light bulb made in the US. Let's further assume that number of times a user has to drive to the store and replace the incandescent light bulb is compensated by the increased mass, and chemicals, in the CFL. Even with that, one can't ignore the basic physics. A basic CFL uses at least 40 watts less than an equivelent incandescent. Most of that excess power is converted to heat. Unless one lives in a cave, or in a cold region, that heat needs to be removed, usually at a lower efficiency. Generally speaking then, that 40 watts results in an excess of at least 100 watts of inefficiency. This 100 watts, over the lifetime of the bulb, say 1200 hours, or 4.32 Msec, results in an inefficiency of more than 0.4 TerraJoules. A gallon of gas is around .1 megajoules. If it takes 4 gallons of gas to transport a single CFL from the factory in china to your local store, because I can buy a CFL for $3, about a third of the what four gallons of gas would cost.
This, of course, does not take into account that a CFL will last 8X longer than an incandescent, so we are really talking about 32 gallons of gas, rather than four.
Get real. We live in a changing world. As much I would prefer to ride a horse, or ride a bike, or take the bus, I know that I have to have a car. Change sucks, but there it is. CFL, like fluorescence, will exist. LEDs are providing us with new opportunities. Hopefully, before I die, there will be another new thing that will continue to make life interesting.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Compact Florescent Light/Lamp (CFL)
Light Emitting Diode (LED)
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605413? Yes, it's a prime.
Flor is generally not dimable. Even those that claim to be really are barely and cost a fortune.
...
My dimmable floods don't get quite as dim but they go from about 8W-100W equivalent. They cost a couple bucks a piece.
Flor saves NO MONEY when dimmed, even if you can find expensive dimable ones.
Huh? The switching power supply in good ones are perfectly capable of using the rated wattage which is way less than the equivalent incandescent.
Flor bulbs do not fit in all fixtures, especially decorative ones and small ones.
True enough, LED's will rule here.
Flor bulbs are UGLY in many types of fixtures, period.
How many fixtures do you have with exposed bulbs anyways?
Flor FIXTURES are UGLY in many types of applications.
Flor light is not pleasing to many people- it is too white/blue or harsh.
You can get them in just about any colour you want and better manufacturers have CRI's from 82-95, though you will pay a premium for anything &RT90.
Flor fixtures often emit lots of RFI.
Buy non-crappy ones.
Flor fixtures often emit noise.
Buy something not sold in China town.
Flor lamps are not instantly on.
My GE bulbs are on in about a second.
Flor lamps are also not instantly 100% bright, many taking MINUTES to reach full brightness.
Peak brightness is about 10-20 seconds depending on ambient temps.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
so using a 14W (75W equivalent) for reading lamps is probably a minimum.
There is one of the big problems with CFL acceptance. I don't know how they rate the lumens, but the human eye doesn't get a 75w incandescent equivalent amount of light in it from a 14w CFL. You need something more like a 27w CFL to match a 75w incandescent. So, when people buy a CFL that is 14W and claims to be a 75w incandescent equivalent, they feel like the CFLs are too dark. Better labeling would go a long way in improving CFLs reputation. Of course, they wouldn't be able to claim as great of energy savings, but 27w is still way less than 75w.
I buy these bulbs, at about $1.25 per. Their color temperature seems closest to true daylight to me, and I've tried almost all of the different bulbs marketed as such. I hate the orange-ish glow of the "normal" bulbs now, and hate all of the CFLs' color I've tried too.
I've been using CFL's for about four years, some indoor and some outdoor.
CFL issues:
1) None of the CFL's I have used last as long as the incandescents they replace. One outdoor fixture in particular goes through about three CFL's a year whereas before I used to be able to leave a bulb in a few years.
2) Color is not great.
3) Lumen output is lower, usually too much lower.
4) Dimmable CFL's are hellishly expensive. I miss dimmable lighting, which often I turn low enough that I doubt a CFL would be saving me anything in terms of power usage.
5) I can often hear CFL's as a low background buzzing.
I'm going to switch to LED's for a few selected areas, and back to real lightbulbs for the rest of the place until LED's come down to reasonable levels for general use. CFL's are simply a transitory technology and not a very good one at that.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But typically LED-based "white" lighting is a series of discreet spectra between red and blue, rather than a continuous spectra from red to blue; color temperature by itself is not a sufficient metric for comparison.
Actually, caving (don't call it spelunking) is one of the areas that modern LEDs have absolutely taken over: the combination of efficiency, durability, longetivity, and small package size have completely replaced incandescent options (e.g., http://www.stenlight.com/)
Old-time carbide lamps still have limited application, mostly in giant caves and/or extremely long & cold expeditions, but Fluorescent has always been far too fragile in terms of packaging to warrant consideration.
It's actually more like two and a half days, according to GE. You need to take into account loading and unloading the boat, shipping from the factory, shipping to the store from the docks, the cost of fighting bad weather, packaging the devices, the cost of stores managing their inventory, et cetera. Which is, you know, not to suggest that 2.5 days is a problem or anything. Still, just so you know, someone who knows this process end to end has cooked up two days nine hours as an average to FooMart in middle america.
Still, thank you for being the first person to actually put effort into debunking this pathetically obvious myth.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
C. Crane's GEOBulb looks very promising in terms of the future of LEDs, but the price is quite painful. I'm personally using some 120-130 lumen candelabra LED bulbs, which delivers close to the light of a 25 watt incandescent.
The LED bulbs are now coming in different color temperatures, so things are progressing.
GE still has their lamp plant in Winchester, OH ( I think Ohio). They closed the other North American lamp plant in St. Louis 3 years ago. My dad was the head mechanical engineer. There is still a specialty bulb plant in Matoon, IL. The rest of bulbs are made in Mexico or China. All GE CFL's are made in China.
May I please have my frontal lobotomy if I bring back the ashtrays?
The projectors my school uses seem to follow the razor business model. $20 projector, $50-70 nonstandard bulb. Unlikely that company would switch to something that lasts longer. Unless they move to a completely closed unit (no replacing the bulb/fan/power supply).
I don't preview or spellcheck.
Thats definitely per cost, not per watt preventing room lighting. I suspect it is the same as CFL, many manufactures overstate the "equivalent light" factor causing a perception of dimmer. I bought led lights for my aquarium, just the 4 watt night lighting lights up 2 rooms ( not reading wise, but way too bright for a night light, the water diffuses the light nicely)
The directional nature also means to be truly efficient you would want more locations, the lasts (nearly) forever nature would tend to lead to a permanent mount.
So saving the cost of running thicker wires, fixture boxes, fixtures, 5 amp switches, etc should make LED lighting affordable for new houses/additions/remodels fairly soon.
(Especially for warm locations where you pay for all heat sources double, with AirCond)
I cannot understand why expensive efficient bulbs improve anything. Can anybody clarify?
An incandecent bulb produces heat from resistance. A resistance watt from a bulb or heater is the same except the heat from a bulb is typicaly at above head level leaving the floor cold unlike a heater. A heater cycles off when the room is warm enough. A bulb doesn't stop heating whent the room is warm enough.
If you use a heat pump, the effeciency of the heat pump is lost as it runs less while you heat more with resistive heat.
Is that clear?
The truth shall set you free!
In hot areas you get to double up on savings, so to speak. The wasted energy in a light bulb is given off as heat. So if you live in a climate warm enough to need to cool your house, the lightbulbs just add to the problem. You get a 100 watt bulb that is giving of like 90 of that in heat.
CFLs are much better of course. They still give off heat, but far less per amount of light output. So you get a double savings. You cut the amount of energy going in to the light, and cut the amount of heat waste which cuts the amount of cooling you have to do.
All that aside, I love CFLs because they have higher colour temperatures. 6000k lights are nice and blend real well with LCD monitors (which I calibrate to 6500k).
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Sure about that?
The bulbs themselves are actually not that cheap to produce. In the theatrical lighting world, we have various fixtures that accept HID lamps, very similar to those used in an LED projector.
Although they're not quite as expensive as what you'd put in the projector, they are standardized, and still cost up to $200 a pop.
I imagine that the projector companies are profiting a good bit, although HID lamps are most certainly not cheap to manufacture.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
So-called white LED spectra are produced just like the spectra of fluorescent bulbs: white LEDs are actually UV LEDs that illuminate phosphors with different inherent spectra to cover the visible range.
For a brief while, triplet R/G/B LEDs were put in one package, but those are (a) too expensive, and (b) suffer from dramatic white-point shift (color shift) as the three chips age differentially.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
But LED lighting doesn't show up on the police infra-red helicopter-mounted cameras - a great benefit to many "herb" growers.
"It doesn't cost enough, and it makes too much sense."
While I agree with some of your points, please allow me to disagree with your Mertz analogy.
IMO, the suitability of a CFL for a given application is directly tied to the construction and quality of the CFL and its electronics versus the application it is being used in. Some applications will never be good candidates for CFLs, I'll get to that in a bit.
The biggest issue with CFLs as I see it right now is that a lot of junk is being imported with nary a focus on issues that affect consumer utility. Instead, the focus is solely on the lumens/watt, which is but one aspect of how people benefit from a light. For example, most lamp manufacturers do not publish how long it takes their bulbs to come up to temperature, what ambient temperature effects are, nor the color temperature, nor the variability in color temperature, etc.
In other words, other aspects of the light not tied to the lumens being emitted are completely ignored and the cheaper the bulb, the worse the above issues tend to be. For example, I tried buying some CFLs for my in-laws at Home Depot and I was amazed how slow they were to come up to temperature, how nonuniform the light temperatures were, and so on. One bulb would be a dim yellow, the other more orange, etc. and none would have the same luminosity either. In other words, the QC in that factory on that run was completely and utterly off.
Then again, having bought them at Home Depot, I should have known better!
In my own home, I have used CFLs throughout, with a few exceptions. The only areas where CFLs are not used is one hallway that uses a combined light/movement sensor (CFL power supplies hate that due to the method which the light sensor uses) and then there are maybe 5 old sconces with exposed light bulbs where we prefer skinny traditional bulbs. Other than that, everything is CFL, including bathrooms, hallways, outdoor overhead lights, etc. None of these bulbs have needed replacement in over three years of use.
The brands I have had good luck with are TCP and Panasonic. The Panasonic gen IV bulbs we have are perfect replacements for globes, etc. even in antique light fixtures since they have the same approximate shapes as standard light bulbs. They are somewhat slow to warm up to full brightness (maybe 10 seconds - it's our version of a fancy dimmer effect) but we have had great luck using them even in applications that some bulbs are not rated for (i.e. ceiling cans, for example). The TCP springlamps have also been super, offering a wide range of almost instant-on CFLs in many color temperatures with even results. I've not worked for either company, not affiliated, your mileage may vary, etc.
Last but not least, the technology of LEDs will advance just as that for CFL has for the last 20+ years. At some point, manufacturers of CFLs will perhaps get together and come up with a industry standard for electronic dimmer wall switches to talk to CFL ballasts so that CFLs can successfully enter that application also. Unless such interoperability is assured, that is one application where CFLs are unlikely to have a lot of success. Being tied into a single-vendor solution (like the Leviton series of electronic ballast and switch combinations for overhead flourescent lights) is not a solution! And CFLs that can work around ancient rheostat, etc. technology are expensive and not very reliable.
A glass of cloudy water would do what you ask, quite easily.
Sure, as long as you don't mind destroying the energy efficiency that was the original reason for using LEDs in the first place.
It's definitely not trivial to take a directional light source and shape it so that the output is directionally uniform. I'm a cyclist, and I use LED lights for riding at night. They're just now getting to the point that they're reasonably priced, with decent power, and with a decent beam pattern in maybe a 10-15 degree swath for a single LED. And the ones that use multiple LEDs generally give weird looking beam patterns.
The technology is coming, but it's not fully there yet.
I was an early adopter of the CFL bulbs. I, too, noticed that the early generations of these bulbs 1) were slow to ignite 2) took up to a minute to get up to full brightness and 3) Did not last nearly as long as claimed.
It got so bad that I started taking a Sharpie pen and writing the date of purchase on the base of the bulbs so I could take them back for a refund when they did not live up to their guarantee.
However, within the last couple of years they have gotten noticeably better. They ignite faster, are up to full brightness faster, and they last much longer. Since we moved into our house a year ago and installed CFLs, I have not had to replace a single one.
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Can you prove this theory of yours?
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?