>>From http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_cfls:
>>
>>If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.
>>
>>Tamar
>>
>>P.S. We've started replacing our bulbs, too.
>
>I'm somewhat skeptical of those claims. It's not that I don't think that using CFLs are a good idea. I do, and am using them in my house. It's that without seeing the calculations behind the result, I'm skeptical.

So look at it another way...
You have them because it's simple as pie that 23 watts throwing the same light as 100 watts saves you money on your electric bill.
Now you know that each household who does the same saves similarly.

So if you have a million households using them there is 1 million times the saving of electricty (and its cost). 10 million households does that 10 times more. Etc. Making the ned for energy go down.

But the sad fact of the matter is that then producers' revenues will be down, so they'll jack up the price. You're then not saving any money any more, but at least you are still helping the environment.