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>The sodium lamps use roughly the same amount of energy That doesn't sound right, source? edit: https://www.stouchlighting.com/blog/led-vs-hps-lps-high-and-l
by wnevets 8y ago
>The sodium lamps use roughly the same amount of energy
That doesn't sound right, source?
edit:
https://www.stouchlighting.com/blog/led-vs-hps-lps-high-and-low-pressure-sodium https://www.stouchlighting.com/blog/led-vs-hps-lps-high-and-...
Why would LEDs put Sodium vapor lights out of business?
Sodium lamps have the worst color rendering of any bulb. They produce a dark yellow glow which is generally a very low quality light. Additionally, there are serious waste disposal issues with sodium lamps. In particular, they have been known to start fires in the event that the lamp is broken and the sodium metal is exposed. The sodium can catch fire even in the event that the lamp is broken on the ground. For this reason it is safest to break sodium lights under water and then to subsequently dispose of the destroyed bulb. Lastly, HPS and LPS lights are monochromatic, so they can mess with your color vision if you look at them for an extended period of time.
Perhaps more importantly, in the last few years LED efficiency has surpassed that of even LPS and HPS lights and its efficiency improvements are progressing at a much more rapid rate. The largest selling point of LPS and HPS lights is the cheap selling price, the high energy efficiency (low operating costs), and the relatively long lifespan. LPS and HPS still retain these advantages over most conventional bulbs but they lose on all three counts to LEDs. In some areas (e.g. lifespan) they are drastically inferior to LEDs. The extremely low maintenance and replacement costs with LEDs is actually a major cost benefit over the long term. LED lifespan can be greater than 100,000 hours (more than four times that of LPS or HPS). Having to purchase one bulb versus 3 or 4 bulbs over the course of time is a significant selling point for LEDs. The bottom line is that having lost their traditional advantage of being the most energy efficient bulb on the market, there’s very little reason to use a sodium vapor light when LED lighting is available.
- sp332 8y agoThe low color quality, specifically the very warm hue, is a feature for nighttime lighting. Blue light messes with sleep cycles of humans and animals. The very narrow spectrum benefits astronomers because it's easy to filter out light pollution from low-pressure sodium lamps.
- notatoad 8y agoI thought the wider spectrum of light coming from LED streetlamps means they can be run at a lower brightness to provide the same visibility, which means less overall light pollution (less reflection back upwards) and less power usage.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y agoThe little wild creatures don't appreciate that visibility. If the recent report on biodiversity loss bothered you, avoiding LED outdoor lighting is one easy action to take locally.
- notatoad 8y agoThere's not a lot of biodiversity on the streets anyways, so that's not a big deal. but the little wild creatures do appreciate less light in the woods, which is what you get from less light pollution.
- lscotte 8y agoThe light polution glow from cities can be seen from about 100 miles or so, so it's not a localized problem.
- benj111 8y agoHow does this compare to a full moon? I assume animals have evolved to deal with that.
- Jill_the_Pill 8y agoNot all month long. They've found that frogs won't sing if it's too light, making it hard to woo a reproductive partner.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jedberg 8y agoFWIW, that website is from a company that makes money replacing streetlights with LED bulbs.
- wnevets 8y agoI just grabbed the first google result. I didn't notice anything suggesting HPS and LED energy usage was comparable.
- remcob 8y ago> For this reason it is safest to break sodium lights under water [...] This sounds like dangerous advice. Sodium reacts exothermically with water producing NaOH. In practice this means it will violently boil and splatter strongly alkaline lye around. (Source: this is how my high school chem prof lost some of his eyesight.)
- Simon_says 8y agoYea that didn't make much sense to me. Throwing sodium into water is a nice way to get an explosion. https://youtu.be/SJVSj9maK6Q?t=223 https://youtu.be/SJVSj9maK6Q?t=223
- sebazzz 8y agoSodium is kept safe in oil.