60W bulb outlawed tomorrow in Europe

In the "long run" anything that strays from 0C-30C will have a "negative" impact on life. But when you have to reduce life to 50,000hours at 50C temperature or almost 6 years of 100% on time it is really not a factor.

At 0C it will work just fine, the junction temperature will heat up really fast.

As to being turned on and off "quickly", nothing to worry about. If you are measuring quickness in anything more than picoseconds it is a very very long time to an LED. Anything that has a dimmable LED is turning it on and off hundreds of thousands of times every second. They don't adjust it down analogue style, they pulse it so it appears dimmer when really it is just on at full brightness for some short amount of time so it appears less bright than full brightness.

 

I too have replaced all the incandescent bulbs in our house (except the oven... forgot about that one - about 60 bulbs all told). The CFLs that I had were very bad when it got cold inside (low 50s). The bathroom lights are standard (40-60 watt incand - replaced by 6-7 watt LED - 500 lumens IIRC). The recessed ceiling lights in the kitchen (65 watt R30) were replaced by 15 watt LED R30 bulbs. Much brighter and more directed lighting. I have some 3 or 4 watt LED candelabra bulbs that are a bit dim and somewhat off color for one ceiling fan fixture. But, compared to the CFLs these are great. In the 10 months they have been in, not one bulb has failed. I was replacing CFLs about 2 per month due to the short time we typically leave any light on.

 

Don't replace that one now. Wait for an oven-proof replacement.

And since incandescent's normal wasteful byproduct is heat -- which is exactly what the oven needs to operate -- there isn't much point in converting to a more efficient light. For those of us with electric ovens, that waste heat emitted before and during baking is 'free', as the oven will burn that energy in the coils anyway. Only the the light/heat used after the baking is finished is wasted.

 

A possible justification that I see for outright banning something (as opposed to the steep tax that you suggest) is for national security and sovereign state concerns. For example, during WWII, gasoline was rationed to civilians in many countries. If the UK sees electricity supply versus demand as maxing out in the near future and creating a national security and sovereign state concern, I could see that as justification for an outright ban as opposed to a steep tax. (what you don't know is that your government secretly has this magic anti-matter project underground in the basement that will soon be consuming massive amounts of electricity )

Personally, I think many countries need to be treating gasoline and national trade deficit in this manner - not a complete ban, but higher mpg limits and a higher gasoline tax.