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Solar Street Lights - first steps to renewable energy.
We replaced our lightbulbs, now it is the city's turn!!
Date: 12/22/2008 8:15:24 PM ( 16 y ) ... viewed 1773 times post scriipt note: I wrote this with paragraphs and spacing, but like other posts recently, the displayed version just is not formatting like I wrote it... sorry about the "one large paragraph" !!
-----------Solar Street Lights:
I think that our political leaders need to start showing a little bit more interest in reducing emissions that are contributing to global warming, and polluting our air with toxins. We need to see some changes, and I have an idea for one that everybody will see:
Convert every street light in every city and town in North America to solar power.
There are a lot of these lights and it takes a lot of electricity to power them all. In addition to putting up big solar or wind farms to feed the electrical grid clean electrical power, in some situations such as street lighting, we should also set up renewable energy replacements on site, one light at a time.
I am picturing, just off the top of my head, a half-meter square solar panel and a small battery pack on top of each pole, and an efficient-but-bright high tech lamp lighting the streets [CFL,s or LEDs, for example].
If need be, like in northern areas or in winter, the output of the light - in terms of hours used or the brightness - could be governed to match the amount of energy the battery stored up during the day, or simply have dual-power so that the light can be powered by the regular grid when the battery is drained.
They allready do this sort of thing for the 'bouy beacons' on the big lakes near my home, because there is no grid power there, and those work great.
This idea embraces renewable energy [solar, wind, wave, etc]. Every watt produced by renewables means less emissions from coal and other polluting sources of electricity.
The cost to the municipality of street lighting will go down over time as the price of these renewable energy street lights is recovered [by not paying for the grid electricity] and eventually they are operating for free, and they will do that for many many years until they wear out. Renewable energy sourced electricity IS CHEAPER than electricity produced by burning fossil fuels, over the lifetime of the equiptment - that is a truth that we are not hearing very often, or at all.
That calculation of the cheaper cost of renewables is not even including carbon credits or the costs of pollution to health and the environment.
Sometimes when a project like this gets started, it kick-starts all sorts of innovation and improvements in the technology. The company that gets the contract will find ways to do it better and cheaper ; the citizens will see the benefits and they will realise that it can be done ; the economy will see a boost from the project and at least a few people will get jobs in each of the steps of producing the equipment, and installing the lights and panels and batteries [if thats the way they go].
One of the potential problems could be theft, but I doubt if thieves are going to be able to climb a light pole and remove the equiptment without damaging it. These street lights will be a source of pride for people, and they will be protected by the citizens [unlike some crimes where nobody bothers to report them to police].
We have all been convinced to replace our household lightbulbs with CFLs, now it is time for our municipalities to do something similar! I hope Obama and the next leader in Canada will promote and help fund 'solar street lights', together with the municipalities who are actually footing the bill for street lighting.
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PS2: Coincidentally, two hours after posting this, I heard on the news about a town in Germany that is shutting street lights off after 9p.m., and that residents can turn them on by phoning a certain code on their cellphones.
Innovative thinking can do a lot to reduce pollution and electricity usage.
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UPDATE - article for "Solar powered street lights: here:
http://tinyurl.com/acgwms
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