Traffic Lights

Learning energy conservation produces surprises. For example, today I returned some DVDs to the Library, which is about three miles away. There are six traffic lights between here and there; a simple calculation shows that they would use nine times as much electricity as we use in our house if they were still all incandescent (I mean all of our electricity, not just our lights). When they all convert to LED, they will be using only a little more than what our house uses.

The large cost savings from LED traffic signals is well documented. What I didn't realize is the change in where the money goes. The cost of an incandescent light is trivial compared to the cost of the electricity it uses, while the cost of the LED signal is significantly higher than the electricity. Conversion to LED takes money from the electric company and gives it to the lighting manufacturer.