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You guys might be right that the risk is minimal, but I try to limit, if I can, the number of items in my house that have to be disposed of at a hazardous waste site, especially when LEDs are mercury free and also use less energy. ...
I've never really liked CFLs, but I do use them in several high-use sockets where I'm OK with the light quality (which isn't bad in some cases). I think CFLs will be such a transitional product, that in 30 years they will show up in those quizzes - "Guess what this is?" and kids will have no idea.
I hope LEDs continue to come down in price and I hope they will be reliable (that 20,000 hour life is a bogus number). I have just one so far, a dim-able one. Just a little odd as is it in a fixture with two filament bulbs, and when you dim them, they get yellow/orange, and the LED stays 'white-ish'.
And I hope they standardize on some LED assemblies for new light fixtures. I understand that they need to feed the bulb replacement market, but fitting LEDs into the old Edison bulb form factor is not the way to use new technology. A filament bulb needs to be small to concentrate the heat so that filament can get white-hot. But LEDs (and their driver circuits) need to be cool for long life. The LED itself gives of far less heat (being more efficient) than a filament, but that heat is concentrated onto that small LED, so the temperature goes up.
It would be better if new light fixtures had the LEDs spread out so they have room to cool, and with the driver circuit further away from the heat. This would be easy in most lamps if it was designed in, but fitting all that in an Edison style bulb is what creates the heat and reliability problems.
It's like trying to put horseshoes on an automobile instead of tires. Gotta change with the technology.
I actually bought a strip of LEDs to play with, I might install them in our kitchen to replace the old, sometimes buzzy, sometimes flickery fluorescent tube lights. Lots of room in that fixture, and spreading the LEDs on those strips should disperse the light and keep everything cool.
-ERD50