Cold Cathode Flouro's (CCFL) have been around for some time.
Electronics Australia(RIP) and Silicon Chip magazines have had a couple of flouro driver designs over the years for people wanting to run 20 and 40W tubes on 12 and 24V solar systems.
Most, if not all, battery operated flouro's... the ones with the 4W and 8W tubes like torches, camp lights etc, are of CCFL design.
Mass-market LED's really are not far away.
LED torches now outshine incandescent counterparts.
LED versions of the common 50W Halogen downlight are available, they are almost the same light output but use only 4W of power and plug into the same halogen socket. Right now though they retail for around $50 to $70 each.
LED's have a rated life of around 50,000 to 100,000 hours (no, thats NOT compact flouro hours either!)
It's a bright future for LED's.
Actually, LED's never really die(if treated correctly), like us, they just get dimmer as they get older.
