EJB brought this to my attention. California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-LA) is planning on introducing a bill to ban incandescent lights in favor of compact fluorescents as an energy-saving measure. The number being thrown around is a 75% reduction in energy usage, which maps to the industry-standard tables of incandescent wattage (i.e. 60W) to compact fluorescent wattage (i.e. 15W).While EJB might be sickened by fluorescent light, I don't have as much of a problem with the light from the compacts, which tends not to have human-noticeable cycling to make you nauseous. However, the printed equivalencies certainly don't make sense to me; a "150W equivalent" compact fluorescent is just beginning to get into the ballpark of my perceived brightness for a standard 100W incandescent bulb. Even so, there is still clearly a savings there, and in fact I'm using compact fluorescents for about a quarter of my household's bulbs right now.
Many people have complained about fluorescent light. Headache, eyestrain, fatigue, inability to concentrate, irritability (or as we know it, EJB syndrome), cutaneous light sensitivity... There is a discussion on fluorescent light at the James Randi Educational Foundation. In general, I think it all boils down to incomplete spectrum and flickering -- neither of which are significant issues with modern compact fluorescents.
EJB -- are your problems worse in Germany than with the CFLs we get in the States? You've never complained about my kitchen lighting, but your exposure could be too limited or you may just be too polite :-) Perhaps there is a different standard manufacturing process for CFL in Europe with more efficient but less stable ballasts.
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