Inhabitat

About time!
I’m using Cree LED lights in a lot of my rooms for lighting and they work pretty well. They’re expensive, but lighting a room with less than 10watts is impressive
http://www.spymac.com/details/?2334927

I love to visit this place within my lifetime

Damn hippies!

go*

madison wi has some LED traffic lights and they suck in winter because they dont produce heat and therefore don’t melt any snow that covers them up in winter. Tha’ts bad. bad.

They are wasting at least half the light by shooting it into the sky. It also has a serious impact on astronomy and people who just like to see, you know, stars and stuff. Check out the International Dark-Sky Association here: http://www.darksky.org/ They have a list of IDA-approved fixtures that reduce light pollution.

Love the power savings Ann Arbor, let’s see if we can save another 40% by shooting the light downwards.

Ted

Ah, People need to do some research before bench-discussing(I can’t use benchracing) LED technology, and don’t just judge by the pictures in this thread. One of the key benefits of LED technology is that it is directional (light path) therefore reducing to eliminating light pollution in the future. Looking at the street globes in the pic and not knowing how Peter engineered and what the city/town engineers, requested in the design, I will have to check them out when I get back to MI. in March. I can only assume why the light path was designed to escape vertically.

As far as disposing LED lights, there is no mercury or any caustic materials (solid state technology).
Basically, when you buy led replacement bulbs for your household, when you sell your house, take them with you to your next residence. Many have a service life baseline of 50,000 hrs, which is like keeping on for 7 years without ever turning them off, many will last much longer!

Yes, the first generations of LEDs(a while ago) used many many individual leds which looks like a cluster (30 and more for one bulb). This stuff is still sold today and there is A LOT of LED JUNK out in the market, so buyer BeWare! Though, not all multi diodes or Led’s are bad bulbs or considered junk. You have to be careful what and where you buy because there is A LOT OF BAD LED stuff out there. I have seen bad batches of different types.

The new technology, some 1 watt high power 1 LED (not high consumption) diodes are insane how powerful they are. I have 1 watt #194 auto bulbs(meaning they consume 1 watt, they emit much more than 1 watt) in my parking lights in my car that are brighter than my fog lights which are 55W. For instance, if you have track lighting in your house and know how hot they get and how much heat they generate(usually a MR16), you can replace these halogen MR16 bulbs with a 1 watt/ 1 LED bulb or even a 3 watt/ 3 LED MR16 which also comes in different colors like, cool white or warm white. These can be taken out with your hands even if they have been on all day(they do get warm though nothing like halogen),

It will be pointless to get into all the dynamics and am not here to convice, make, force people to listen to my words.
All I ask is do some accurate research and try and test them yourself then make your own decision. I think you will find the proof is clear.

Virtually everything will be replaced with LED technology in the near future, until a new technolgy is discovered or invented which will replace LED.

LED is the way to go. If we as a country continue to waste energy and pollute our environment with CO2 because of our use of inefficient, wasteful lighting, we will not be here to gaze at the stars. Ann Arbor should be commended for taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. We as a whole should strive to be more like Ann Arbor in our own lives.

Its really worth to have a visit there… i wish i could do it soon.

[...] NYC was a bit behind on the LED phenom, but now they’re one-upping Ann Arbor, Michigan - the first US city to go 100% LED — by not only using LED’s, but designing NYC-exclusive streetlight [...]