100W light bulbs banned / goverment predicts power shortages

The 100W incandescent light bulb is from today banned in Britain. It is illegal to manufacture or import them. The linked article says "According to the Energy Saving Trust, compact fluorescent lamps (energy-saving bulbs) use 80% less electricity than standard bulbs.
They could also save the average household £590 in energy over their lifetime of between eight and 10 years"
I have been using these bulbs for a number of years in some rooms. I have yet to find one last more than three years, perhaps I'm just unlucky. Its unlikely I'm that unlucky though.

The 100W equivalent used 20W to run, slightly more to start. So for each hour of running there is an 80W saving.

At 29.14p/kwh, 1 hours costs £0.02331 less, so to make the savings you would need to run for 25,311 hours. There are 2922 days in 8 years, which means that the light must be on for 8.66 hours per day EVERY day for the full eight years. That's unlikely in most locations I think. Don't forget that the bulb will cost you 5 to 10 times more to buy also. So the numbers we are fed don't stack up, even so ...

The energy case for these bulbs isn't bad, but the environmental case overall isn't so good. Incandescent bulbs have next to nothing in them that is harmful to the environment. The glass is a simple shape and will not use a great deal of energy to manufacture. The energy saving ones contain mercury, a small amount its true, but it only takes a small amount. The also require some smart electronics to get them going, this requires a small circuit board, which is made with the use of some very nasty chemicals indeed. The glass is a very complex shape is is likely to require much more energy to manufacture.

On the same day there was another news item saying that the government is predicting power shortages in the next few years, due to the rising demand for electricity. This is not a new story, but the fact that it was also mentioned today set me thinking:

Could the rising demand be cause because people think lighting is really cheap and don't bother to turn it off?