They are made in China where coal fired powered plants are more common than in America and China could care less about stack scrubbers to clean mercury and other pollutants..
Right...but at a retail cost of $1.20 (which mean cost to the merchant of about 70¢ and cost to the producer of probably 50¢) the amount of energy would be next to nothing and hardly anything more than a regular light bulb. That ignores the fact that the normal CFL lasts for 5 years and a normal bulb lasts 1 year (meaning you’d have to purchase 5 bulbs). You also would be cutting off (according to the DOE) 18% of your energy use at your home to switch. I saw a 20% decline in energy use and a monthly savings of $30, personally.