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Light Pollution Revisited

Started by Rod Kaufman, 06/03/2010 02:41AM
Posted 06/03/2010 02:41AM Opening Post
Overheard today on KNX news radio during the noon lunch hour:
The city of Los Angeles has begun installing high intensity LED street lights today. One resident described the new lights as "insanely bright" and complained he couldn't sleep at night because one was shining into his bedroom window. Another stated he felt it was a good idea because he thought it would prevent cars from being broken into and he had foliage covering his bedroom window so he could sleep at night.
The four year plan is to replace the 140,000 existing street lights with LED bulbs. The new light boxes are brighter than the ones they will replace because they are wider and bigger than before. In other words, more glare everywhere!
The LED bulbs will reportedly save 40% in energy costs as compared to existing street lights.
The city could simply turn a lot of the existing ones off and save even more or place motion sensors on them like another city did but why do that when you can re-invent the light bulb? :S
Posted 06/03/2010 12:20PM #1
LED lights do save a lot of energy and I think it's in general a good idea to install them but that doesn't mean they have to use the brightest possible. They could also cap them so that all the light is pointed towards the ground. They could use the savings they'll get to install motion sensors so that the lights only turn on as needed. Lights could be turned off at empty ball fields and parking lots. There is so much common sense stuff that could be done that's not.

Andreas

DSOs observed:
NGCs 2005, ICs 103, Other 70, Palomar GCs 6, Abell PNs 12, Herschel 400: 316.
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