NYC's 250,000 Street Lights To Be Replaced With LEDs By 2017 372
An anonymous reader writes "New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the city's 250,000 street light fixtures, which currently use incandescent bulbs, will be replaced with LEDs by 2017. It's part of a plan to reduce the city government's emissions by 30%. The LEDs have a lifespan of 20 years, more than three times that of the current incandescent bulbs, and Bloomberg says it will save $6 million in energy and $8 million in maintenance every year. It will be the largest LED retrofit in the country. 'The first of three phases to replace the standard "cobra-head" high-pressure sodium street lights, which will upgrade 80,000 at a time across the five boroughs, is expected to be completed in December 2015 with the final phase expected to be completed by 2017. Following the replacement of roadway lighting, decorative fixtures in the city's business and commercial districts will be addressed.'"
I wish they'd do it here. (Score:2)
I wonder how many smaller cities have already done this?
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I wonder how many smaller cities have already done this?
Redwood City, CA, near where I am, is doing it. It's striking, because Redwood City standardized on yellow sodium lamps some time in the 1930s. You know you're in Redwood City when the street lights turn yellow. The new daylight LEDs are a big improvement.
If your community is doing this, push for solar power on some of the lights. Not necessarily all of them, but at least at street corners. That way, no matter what disaster happens, some lights will stay on.
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I admire your "plan ahead" approach, but in 2 small cities I've seen where they had some that were solar powered, they ALL were damaged by the accompanying natural disasters so they really didn't help even when disaster strikes. :(
They are just too fragile to hope to survive things like hurricanes, tornadoes, really bad thunderstorms, and earthquakes.
Re: I wish they'd do it here. (Score:3)
You could largely eliminate battery maintenence by adding nickle iron batteries which effictevely have infinite endurance. There are some nickle iron batteries which still function 100 years later.
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According to what I've read, NiFe batteries can last darn near forever (as far as batteries go), but they do require maintenance: The electrolyte needs occasional topping-off and replacement.
Furthermore, they're expensive.
According to these folks, the smallest 12V package is $1010.00, and consists of ten 6x3x15 cells of 15 pounds each. It provides 100 Ah of 12V power. [beutilityfree.com]
Which is roughly enough to run a single streetlight all night, assuming that the streetlight draws around 100W (which I think is a reasonabl
Stick with sodium (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stick with sodium (Score:5, Insightful)
Near observatories to cut down on light pollution. LEDs are too broadband.
On the plus side, if somebody is thinking about installing LEDs, that is (sometimes) a sign that light fixtures that have been, well, fixtures, for decades, sometimes quite a few of them, are getting their first re-evaluation in quite some time.
It only helps if somebody pushes at the correct time; but if the fixtures are being reevaluated in anything resembling a serious way, that's your best chance to get action on things like fixtures that point upward, ill-designed fixtures that don't target their output very well, and all the various other dubious lighting decisions that help add up to light pollution.
It's unlikely to be perfect; but LEDs (being costly; but easy to aim fairly tightly, as well as very good at doing accent work (say, lighting a set of stairs with small lamps set just above the steps, rather than one big bulb-on-a-stick pointed in the direction of the stairs and cranked to 11), do encourage more efficient targeting in a way that big, cheap, one-size-fits-all bulbs don't.
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unfortunately.... (Score:3)
It only helps if somebody pushes at the correct time; but if the fixtures are being reevaluated in anything resembling a serious way, that's your best chance to get action on things like fixtures that point upward, ill-designed fixtures that don't target their output very well, and all the various other dubious lighting decisions that help add up to light pollution.
Unfortunately, the major impact around me is that our streets are now incredibly bright at night...they used the extra efficiency to make eve
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From the few astronomers I've talked to, streetlamp design affects light pollution as much or more than what kind of bulb it's using. Many streetlamps, especially older ones, shine in every direction including up. Lights with a hood to reflect all of the light towards the ground are better for both energy consumption and light pollution.
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Even small cities can affect light pollution from dozens of miles outside of the city. I grew up about 20 miles from a city of 60,000 and it gave off enough light pollution to effectively blot out much of the southern sky near the horizon. I imagine NYC's light pollution reaches much further.
Re:Stick with sodium (Score:5, Informative)
What about amateur astronomers?
Amateur astronomers actually make a *lot* of the discoveries and do a lot of the photography.
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LEDs are more directional, meaning that more light goes down, instead of up. Do you think that would help any?
This was the hope, yes. Unfortunately it's not working out that way. Mainly this is because these LEDs are *so* much brighter that the directionality advantage is lost since we're seeing more light reflecting off the ground and into the sky. Also, some direct light likely does creep into the sky from the fitting. Secondly, the directionality advantage assumes the fittings are attached correctly (sometimes they're not). In addition, it's now becoming possible for home users to buy LED "globes" with LEDs poi
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Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:4, Informative)
I wonder how many smaller cities have already done this?
I think that it's not uncommon (though traffic signals usually go first, since LEDs have been cheap and good at red, green, and amber for longer than they've been either cheap or good for white, and bulbs-behind-filters have always had even more miserable efficiency than bulbs in general).
LEDs are still pretty expensive, and white ones (because they are usually blue ones pumping a phosphor layer) are still less efficient than one might like; but one big advantage is lifespan.
A replacement lightbulb doesn't cost much; but sending out guys in bucket trucks to deal with dead ones adds up.
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:5, Informative)
We have had them in my crappy city in the UK for a couple of years now. They put out better light than the old orange bulbs and seem brighter. The orange colour of the old bulbs is actually known to inhibit night vision, so white LEDs are safer.
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure where you're getting the "expects redder colors" part from. The Purkinje effect simply describes the fact that we're more sensitive to blue light at lower intensities—we see it better. This is purely physical, and due to the assymmetry in the response curve of all of our photoreceptors [wikipedia.org]. While most direct light sources activate the cone receptors, this bias is sufficient to make us think of our monochromatic rod cell night vision as slightly bluish, which is why nighttime scenes are depicted as being blue in art, even though you're literally only seeing something grey. Rod cells have such a wide response range in the blue portion of the spectrum (not shown on graph) that some people can see very violetish frequencies with them, causing eyestrain as we get indecisive about how to dilate the pupil.
Sodium lamps are extremely monochromatic; they only put out a very small range around 600 nm [wikimedia.org] because of the chemical reaction that they operate on. Any white bulb either incandescent or LED, even ones with a bluish tint, will illuminate red signs much better than a traditional sodium-vapour lamp.
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Your image is for low pressure sodium, which is indeed monochromatic and very yellow. I haven't seen any in use in years, except industrial things where you need the absolute most light at least cost (LPS is even more efficient than LEDs), at things like big compounds, jails, etc. I remember some cities using them as street lights when I was younger, though.
Settlements near observatories tend to use them, as the single color makes the light easy to filter - and the lack of blue makes it scatter much less, t
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Re: I wish they'd do it here. (Score:3)
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Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit [wikipedia.org]. Street lighting has been found to reduce pedestrian crashes by approximately 50%.
peed bumps increase traffic crashes and reduce safety
Double bullshit [portlandoregon.gov]. Overall, the treated streets experienced a 39 percent decrease in crashes per year after speed bumps are installed. The 39 percent decrease on speed bump streets is a statistically significant difference (t = 2.8) from 1.39 to 0.85 crashes/year, meaning crashes most likely do decrease on speed bump streets due to bump installation. As well as [stackexchange.com] this gem which asks a different question but which provides the same evidence against your "common sense".
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> Yes, in studies that compare pedestrians in unlit crossings to lit crossings
So, "good" studies then.
> not by comparing pedestrians hit anywhere in an unlit city to pedestrians hit anywhere in a lit city
Given the paucity of "unlit cities" that might be used apples-to-apples, I'll stick with the studies I have to the ones I don't.
> it can actually cause accidents if misused
Note the term "misused" and the lack of the term "pedestrians".
Also note that the only referenced statement in the entire secti
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Is there an unofficial law, similar to Godwins, that applies to people dragging partisan politics into completely unrelated discussions?
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The orange colour of the old bulbs is actually known to inhibit night vision, so white LEDs are safer.
My understanding is that white light destroys (photobleaches [wikipedia.org]) the rhodopsin/visual purple [wikipedia.org] in the eye, inhibiting night vision, which is why ships and subs use red (or simply non-white) lights at night. Anyone out there with more specific info and/or why one color is better than another for night vision preservation?
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Will this stop the streetlights going off when 'psychic' people walk under them?
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, we've had LED traffic signals here for years, and I've only seen them obstructed by snow once. You need a wet, sticky snow and a swift drop in temperature for it to happen. IINM they put remote-controlled heaters in the newer ones.
And it seldom snows upwards. I don't think I've ever seen it snow upwards.
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think I've ever seen it snow upwards.
Never seen a good blizzard?
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I've seen it snow upwards before. I was in a city and on the 7th floor of a building. Apparently they got updrafts when the wind was blowing from the north and it was indeed snowing upwards!
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I think you're confusing street lights and traffic signals. Places in the snow belt have had issues with LED traffic signals getting blocked with snow, but I can't see the same thing happening with a downward facing street light.
It will when temperatures fluctuate above and below freezing. When above the snow on top will melt and the water will cling to the downward facing cover where it will freeze when the temperature drops. Icicles may form, which could be a safety hazard.
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We have shrouds on many of our lights in upstate and western NY, although they're far from ubiquitous. I've never really noticed a big problem with snow sticking to traffic lights except in the rare blizzard that combines the right amount of gusty with large, wet snowflakes and relatively warm temperatures... it's a once every few years occurrence. It's far, far more common for traffic signals to lose power altogether.
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This is a pretty terrible idea. It snows in NYC right? the LED's dont generate enough heat to melt the snow, so they will have to install heaters to keep the street lights from caking up with snow/ice and becoming useless.
Even if heaters need to be installed they only need to be turned on during cold weather so there is still a potential efficiency benefit.
Re:I wish they'd do it here. (Score:4, Informative)
Part of my town (the main streets) have LED street lights, and we have no problem with snow or ice. BTW, LED's are in the neighborhood of 20-30% efficient, so they don't run ice cold (pun intended). It may seem so though if you've only touched indicator LED's (flashing lights on equipment).
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This is a pretty terrible idea. It snows in NYC right? the LED's dont generate enough heat to melt the snow
Yes they do.
no, actually they don't (Score:3)
I live in the Canadian prairies, and I've seen traffic lights covered in snow because there wasn't enough heat to melt them. The city had to send out crews to clean the lights off.
It doesn't happen often, and the LED lights are still cheaper overall, but it does happen.
Costs (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, there is a savings, but how much is it going to cost NY taxpayers up front ?
Would a better strategy be to replace the sodium lights with LED style lights, as they wear out?
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They're doing that *too* of course, since while they're rolling them out, they'll still need to replace broken ones in parts of town that they're not in.
I know it was for me, but my replacement costs were low. [I didn't have to pay the laborer...]
Many of those bulbs due for replacement anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, there is a savings, but how much is it going to cost NY taxpayers up front ? Would a better strategy be to replace the sodium lights with LED style lights, as they wear out?
Yes, there is a savings, but how much is it going to cost NY taxpayers up front ?
It looks like a 4 year program and the incandescents last about 7 years. So many of those bulbs will be due for replacement anyway.
Re:Many of those bulbs due for replacement anyway (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, LED's often win out in real-world comparisons, because all the lumens are more efficiently directed where they need to go. Still, to get that much brightness, it's going to cost quite a lot of money.
Re:Costs (Score:5, Informative)
Nope, its actually cheaper to replace them in large blocks than to replace them one at a time. Old tech told me once that when they maintained the long tubes at the factory high up. Once a few went it was only a matter of about a year or two before the rest of the them did and it was more disruptive, time consuming, and costly to replace them one at a time than to do it all at once. So, I've followed this process for most of my larger lighting projects. If you are going to replace one brake light replace them all. If you are going to replace one headlight replace them both.
Also, the nice thing about LED lighting is that the way it fails is it just doesn't produce as much light as it once did. So in 20 years if they want to put off the costs for another couple of years, it's entirely possible to do so.
Nothing (Score:2)
20 year lifespan (Score:4, Informative)
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Because traffic lights go on and off and on and off all day long. They're a terrible idea for LED because the ballasts wear out doing that. The actual LED built into the thing is still perfectly OK actually. Your local government (and many others) have been scammed by clueless but well meaning greenies on the city council over the traffic light LED thing. Streetlights that come on and stay on all night long are a much better use.
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If that's true, then it's a terrible design. Only one of the lights is on at a time, right? So the ballast can run continuously, switching between red/green/yellow as appropriate.
Re:20 year lifespan (Score:4, Informative)
There is no ballast in an LED light.
Fluorescent and sodium vapor lights have ballasts, not LEDs.
All of the traffic lights in my area were switched to LEDs many years ago. I have never seen a single light that wasn't working properly.
Re:20 year lifespan (Score:5, Informative)
LED lighting systems don't have ballasts. True, LEDs require power conditioning (for these applications, it's some sort of switched mode AC/DC converter with constant current output), but those kinds of circuits are highly efficient and robust. LEDs experience essentially zero degradation from being turned on and off repeatedly. All those blinky lights on the front panels of computers, all the flashing indicators on routers and switches, those are all LEDs.
You are probably thinking of fluorescent lamps (tubes and CFLs), for which frequent on/off cycling is indeed a good way to make them die soon. No one makes fluorescent traffic lights precisely for this reason.
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I think you've got this backwards.
Incandescent bulbs don't thrive in constant-switching environments because there's an inrush of current when the filament is cold. That's why most incandescent bulb failures happen right when you turn the light on. It's less of a problem if you run the bulb below its design voltage, but that drastically reduces efficiency.
LEDs have no corresponding issue. If you're very stupid about the way you build your power supply, that might fail (or even take out the LED), but I don't
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The problem with LEDs in traffic lights, in my experience just driving around, is that the main problem is the light module itself somehow fails such that some of the LEDs can't get electricity. This results in part of the LEDs not lighting. New Orleans is right on the ocean, so the salt water in the air is more likely to cause corrosion problems. The equivalent would be blaming incandescent lights because the bases of the lamps fell apart after wind shook the signals around too much.
And then there is the
Some of the first LED based signals not visible... (Score:2)
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It's not always cold:
http://www.yr.no/place/Norway/Oslo/Oslo/Oslo/statistics.html [www.yr.no]
Sorry if it's in C not F, but in general: 0C is the freezing temp of water, 20 is comfortable, 30 is really hot, -5 is normal cold, -10 is quite cold, and -20 is freeze-your-balls-off-cold. Luckilly, that doesn't happen to often.
Generally the winter weather in the city (which is by the sea, or at least a small fjord) is quite variable. The proximity to water also means that it *may* be humid - and humidity amplifies the feeling
Re:20 year lifespan (Score:4, Funny)
Nobody said they worked underwater.
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Yeah, exactly. Someone somewhere has won a huge contract based on probably unverifiable claims of LED lifespans.
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This is precisely correct. LEDs, when properly designed and manufactured, have lifespans that are just phenomenal. I have all LEDs in my house. The ones that I bought that were high grade CREE LEDs I expect to have the rest of my life. Zero failures after 5 years of use so far.
On the other hand, some of the cheaper ones I've bought have often not lasted 2 years. I tried some cheaper ones just to see how well the worked. They often didn't even produce the amount of light they were claiming.
In conclusio
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They've been pushing a cheaper version that's bout 30-50 percent less for a while now. The problem is that the life is literally 5-8 years instead of 15-20.
You should mean roughly 50-70 percent less. Because that's what you're claiming with the lifespan. That's a big difference.
How many Mayors (Score:2)
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Apparently, 1/250,000th of one.
One (Score:3)
Snow? (Score:2)
One of the side benefits of traditional bulbs is that the heat generated helps keep them clear of snow and ice. I don't think LED's generate enough. Anyone know how they are handling that?
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Cue the Unintended Consequences (Score:2)
Like 'dim' streetlights in Winter because they have frozen over, and (for cities that don't think of these things ahead of time) failure to install seasonally enabled heating units into the enclosure. All in all the human-time and effort of manufacturing and deploying these new solutions, along with the added heater circuit to make them useable, will really eat into that eco-energy difference equation.
Lots of eco initiatives these days come down to someone smiling and pointing to a little device that saves
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Thank You Planet Saving Fluorescent Bulbs for saving the planet by seeding our landfills with elemental mercury instead of evil carbon.
See p. 3 of http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/promotions/change_light/downloads/Fact_Sheet_Mercury.pdf [energystar.gov]
Coal burning power plants emit most of the mercury in this country. Using a CFL actually reduces the total mercury released into the environment because, in spite of containing a whopping 4mg of Hg, the electricity saved reduces Hg emissions by more than 4mg.
LED light is weird (Score:2)
Sodium light is a kind of light that the eye is very responsive to, and it is perfect for illuminating roads and freeways: any one of you that has done some nocturnal driving will agree that the difference between driving with your vehicle's headlights only on an otherwise pitch black road, with driving under sodium lights is huge.
Other technologies that produce bright light (Xenon, Halogen, all those 'energy saving' graded ones etc) are IMO are to bright to be of such use. Notice this: they are very bright
LED synchronized peril sensitive shades (Score:3)
Incandescent? Are we stuck in a time warp? What city has had the money to waste on incandescent streetlights since the 1960s? LEDs are less efficient than the orange sodium streetlights but probably more efficient than the more common high pressure sodium. They have some key advantages. The first is that they can be physically much smaller than high voltage discharge lights which means it takes smaller optics to throw the light where you need it. But where light trespass remains, LEDs present an interesting option. I how many of us end up having to put ugly black-out shades in front of bedroom windows to keep unwanted streetlight glare from keeping us awake? What if an LCD shutter were synchronized to close exactly when street light LEDs were on and open when they're off. Suddenly you see the natural night sky from your bedroom window, are awakened by natural morning sunlight.
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Well, not *just* yet, anyway.
I'm sure there's plenty of kickbacks in the roll-out phase.
So... ..3-5 years?
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Probably about as quickly as the plumbers' unions in Philadelphia went on strike when they learned the new Comcast building would have all waterless urinals in it. They sued, won, and forced Comcast to pay them to install miles of water that wasn't hooked up to anything. It cost Comcast subscribers millions of dollars.
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The urinals in my building are waterless, but each one has a capped water sup
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The IBEW won't strike over this any more than they went on strike to prevent the use of bucket trucks or remotely-read electric meters; my dad was a lineman, and for the first half of his career they had to climb the poles. Changing the bulbs in streetlights is just a tiny part of what they do, more often they're changing transformers squirrels blow up when they crawl inside to get warm.
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We'll just ship them off to a different planet, along with all the telephone sanitizers.
[obscure reference [wikipedia.org]?]
Let me not (Score:3)
Admit impediment.Light is not light
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-nixed dark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wanders Central Park,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Light's not Time Square's fool, though rolling hips
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Light alters not with his brief hours and blips,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be er
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Came here to say this. Sodium lights are already pretty darned efficient, if a bit ugly. Sodium lights get 140 lumens per watt, so I'm not sure where their savings are coming from - perhaps the improved quality of light lets them decrease the lumens.
Re:incandescent != sodium (Score:5, Informative)
I did a quick Google to satisfy my curiosity and found a few things:
- While high pressure sodium gives off more lumens per watt, LED has better effective illumination (in part due to how our eyes can detect different wavelengths)
- LEDs are more directional, eliminating up to 40% of light loss due to reflectors
- In the end, an LED might only need to give off 20 or 30% as much light to still illuminate the same area effectively
Source: http://www.al-e.com/led-vs-sodium-lamps [al-e.com]
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In the end, an LED might only need to give off 20 or 30% as much light to still illuminate the same area effectively
Source: http://www.al-e.com/led-vs-sodium-lamps [al-e.com]
Yeah, but it looks like what they're actually doing is over-lighting. So there's way more light than before. It's a disaster for amateur astronomy, nocturnal species, and even diurnal species which have their circadian rhythym disturbed.
Re:incandescent != sodium (Score:5, Funny)
It's a disaster for amateur astronomy,
You mean the one star that I can sort-of see in NYC will disappear? :)
I think that damage is already done. My daughter didn't really know what a star was until we brought her to the beach. After that, I felt pretty sorry that I had been singing "Twinkle Twinkle" all this time without actually telling her what the heck a star was...
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It's a disaster for amateur astronomy,
You mean the one star that I can sort-of see in NYC will disappear? :)
No. I mean that suburban areas which now have a limiting magnitude of 5 or so (okish for astronomy but not great) will turn into NYC. Also, the skyglow from these areas will creep into currently pretty good skies. e.g. The skyglow from the NYC area is currently just visible on the SE horizon from the heart of the Catskills, but we still have some dramatic skies there (Milky Way almost to the horizon). With these white lights appearing and spreading, that is going to change.
Re:incandescent != sodium (Score:4, Interesting)
Another advantage, if purchasers care to implement it, is that you can have somewhat intelligent LED lights that dim down to 30% when there's no traffic around, so it's still light, but much lower power, then run back up when traffic is a block away. It doesn't add much to the system cost to add motion detection and communication with nearby lights, particularly since some industrial/commercial LED lights are adding selftest health/failure reporting already.
Re:incandescent != sodium (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, so does LED. They tested a similar rollout in Oslo recently, but had to stop when they discovered that the LEDs aged far more rapidly than the old sodium fixtures.
Source:
http://www.abcnyheter.no/nyheter/2013/06/17/her-er-grunnen-til-oslo-satte-full-stopp-pa-led-utbyttingen [abcnyheter.no]
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The is a big difference between Traffic lights and street lights.. the one they are talking about "street lights" are the ones facing downward towards the road, if there is enough snow to block the out, i doubt anyone will care at that point that they don't have a functioning street light.
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First, are you talking about traffic lights or street lights? Second, if the older style bulbs produced enough heat to de-ice the fixtures, then the combined power draw of the LED's and the heaters need be no more than the draw of the old lights. Even in tropical Minnesota, you don't get snow or ice ever day. They even have a month of something they call "summer".
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They even have a month of something they call "summer".
I thought the seasons were Cold & Wet, Cold & Dry, Cold & Wet 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Bugs.
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Re:High-pressure sodium isn't "incandescent" (Score:5, Funny)
Why would I trust anything Canadians say? Underneath those obsequious manners and maple syrup, they're planning to invade America. Never let it be said the British Empire gives up easily.
Re:why? (Score:4)
Actually this is a simple math problem.
Two options:
Replace all at once
Replace as they burn out
Either way i have to physically replace each bulb.
It is more cost efficient to replace them all at once in a sequential pattern, rather than one at a time randomly, Thats because the cost to replace is the same, but i'm minimizing my travel distance & times as i'm going dispatch->pole->pole->dispatch rather than dispatch->pole-dispatch->pole->dispatch. You would be surprised but travel times are normally the highest impacting item when it comes to wrench time measurements. Also to add to it, if i wait and replace as they fail i'm paying X for electricity over that time, where if i replace it now i pay Y which is lower than X. The power savings is a fringe benefit compared to labor, but non the less it is factored in.
The biggest question that comes to mind for this type of decision is the time value of money. I can spend X now or X+1 from Now till then. which one is lower cost overall between now and then isn't always a straightforward answer.
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You're right, but they're replacing high pressure sodium vapor lamps (the ones with the fugly pinkish orange color). Metal-halide are bright white, take a while to warm up, and are usually used in places like school gyms. Occasionally I've seen them used in parking lots.
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Ever hear of pedestrians?
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Street Light != Traffic Signal
Yes, snow is a problem for traffic signals. Not so much for street lights which emit light downwards. And are not the same safety issue if they do get blocked.
Heaters can mitigate traffic signal blockage. And even with dozens of snowstorm days per year, will consume less energy than incandescents running 24 x 365.
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CFL. Those suckers have a life span of 5 months
They must be diffrerent from the CFL bulbs that have lasted for over 2 years in my house.
How is it possible that a tech forum is full of change-phobic luddites?
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At least he didn't go CFL. Those suckers have a life span of 5 months. Haven't tried LEDs yet, but all what I have seen so far is that they are about 5% brightness of CFL and Regular bulbs.
Yes, if you compare a LED bulb with x lumens with an incandescent of 20x lumens.
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have been over 100 lumens / watt since 2013-03, making them more efficient than high pressure sodium
You mean more efficient than the best high pressure sodium lamps at 150 lumens / watt or the best low pressure ones at 200? Even good, white metal halide lamps can exceed 100 lpw.
Sodium lamps are currently the most efficient lighting source. I expect LEDs will exceed them some day, but that day isn't yet.
I'm going to believe the easily verifiable figures for efficiency over unverified numbers from a politici