If the reason you want to do this is because your electric bill has gotten unbearable, then I've got a couple suggestions, below. If the reason you want to do this is because some Chicken Littles are running around screaming "The sky is falling" and your nice lights are going to destroy the world, then don't worry about it. It turns out that the scientists who've been saying that the slight increase in temperatures over last couple decades is because of increased solar activity were right all along. Solar activity has dropped off recently, and temperatures have plunged like a rock. Your light bulbs aren't going to make one bit of difference in what the sun is doing, so enjoy them without feeling any guilt.

If you need to save some money, your can cut your power usage somewhat by switching to halogen bulbs, which produce more lumens per watt than a normal incandescent bulb, and don't throw a lot of those lumens away by coating the bulb with a blue filter. The higher color temperature of the halogen bulbs should be better for you than regular incandescent bulbs. Only you, of course, can decide whether thay are to your liking or not. I like the Phillips Halogena lamps; I believe that GE makes a similar lamp.

In the fluorescent camp, I have yet to see any fluorescent lamps that I feel have nice color. The GE "Kitchen and Bath" lamps aren't too bad to my eye even though their CRI is only in the 70's; I suspect that part of their low CRI rating is that they've emphasized colors that are pleasing to the human eye rather than being technically accurate to a spectrophotometer. As far as I know, these lamps are only available in four-foot tubes.

There are some expensive lamps out there that claim to have superb color rendering. I haven't had an opportunity to play with them, so I can't comment on how they look to my eye. Again, they're pretty much only available in 4' tubes.

I have to wonder about the possible savings after taking into account the cost of high-quality fluorescent fixtures and premium lamps. An old rule of thumb is that a capital improvement isn't worth doing unless it pays back within three years. An awful lot of the "green" suggestions I've seen don't come anywhere close to meeting that threshold.

I did a little searching around on their web sites, and it appears that the Halogena lamps will save you about 25% over the Reveal lamps. (I'm not 100% sure of that number, because GE and Phillips aren't terribly forthcoming about the lumens/watt figures for their lamps.) Obviously, that's not the dramatic reduction you'd see from CF lamps, but it does give you some improvement while maintaining good-quality light.

I too am a Reveal Bulb junkie. I have halogena bulbs in my sconces and chandi's, but I still like the reveal in places where the halogens would put off too much heat and make it uncomfortable, i.e., kitchen pendants.

I do use a "daylight" CFL's in my lamps that gives excellent color rendering.

The only incandescent bulbs I have are in the ceiling fixtures on my front porch and that was DH bought them before I could stop him. LOL

"but I still like the reveal in places where the halogens would put off too much heat and make it uncomfortable,"

But, the Reveal lamps put out more heat than the Halogenas for the same number of lumens...

Well, I am doing the Chicken Little dance, sp. I admit, you are the only person I have heard saying this lately. Can you site sources?

We can manage to pay the bills, but I am not convinced that using incandescent is really okay. Global warming or not...they seem too inefficient to me. I really dislike the mercury and recycling issues surrounding CFLs and I am (not so) patiently waiting for LED to become a viable alternative.

Brutuses, I bought some Daylights at Costco last week and they are blindingly bright and blue! Maybe just a lower wattage will be better... There isn't much selection at Costco and you have to buy a larger quantity than I feel I need to experiment with. I think I need to go my local hardware stores and see what they have.

Amysrq,

I don't have a good reference that synthesizes everything together. I've just been watching the news, and noted things in my mind as they've happened. There were reports a few months ago about solar activity being the lowest they've every seen it--as in NO sunspots whatsoever for a full month. More recently I've seen reports about unseasonably cold weather all over the world--glaciers rapidly growing in Alaska, the earliest snow they've ever had in Switzerland since they started keeping records, and similar reports from all over. Record low temperatures in London during a global warming conference. Global temperatures have been going down since, IIRC, 1998.

Seems that folks have been using IC bulbs for at least 75 years. The earth has not ceased to revolve. Now, in the interest of "green", a variety of options have emerged and many folks have discovered they are not thrilled with the new options. Get a grip.

How did we get from IC bulbs to coal? An increasing number of power plants are fired with natural gas. I guess the greenist thing to do is to group around in the dark.

Look at the Forth Generation fast reactors, such as the IFR (Integral Fast Reactor). 99+% efficiency compared with 1-% efficiency of current reactors, the final waste product is LESS radioactive than the ore you originally started with, it's not useful for diversion to weapons use, and we have enough U238 sitting around in barrels in the U.S. to supply all of our electrical needs for the next 500 years without even mining any new material.