An entirely new green conundrum
cussnu2
| Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on
So cities around the country are now switching to LED traffic lights. Great idea, right? Way less power consumed. Save the environment. Hug a tree. Politicos can claim to be green weenies. Welllllll….turns out LED traffic lights don’t generate enough heat to melt the snow and ice that accummultes on them. Ther have been cases where crews have had to go out and scrape the LED traffic lights. Two steps forward, one step back.
Replies
So, Florida should be able to get a bunch cheep?
I doubt that. Politicians are loath to admit mistakes so somebody will come up with a a way of putting heating elements over the lenses just like on your rear window defroster.
If you wanna save money, it's
If you wanna save money, it's gonna cost you.
Warning:
This is in response to a prior political observation: (Those allergic to all forms of "poljive" are cautioned - you've already been infected by the previous post.... may as well relax and enjoy it {G})
>>Politicians are loath to admit mistakes
So, is the problem the responsibility of the politicians? Or the engineers or sales people at the company manufacturing the units? Or the city engineers? Or the city contractors who installed them?
It seems to me the "politicians" who approved the expenditure have the least responsibility for determining whether they will actually work.
Question: Could this be a case of stopping one's thought process at the point the slogan "government isn't the solution, government is the problem" kicks in?
I think the person(s) who invented them are at fault. No, not the LED versions, but rather traffic lights in general. We should have allowed nature to take its course and afforded 10X road deaths to help keep population under control.
Just think how many fewer Big Macs would have been sold, and claimed as such by McDonalds.
Some thougts. If the LED doesn't generate enough heat to melt ice accumulation ... how is it that the ice accumulates to begin with? It's got to be from the heat from the fixture. Maybe the heat fins of the fixture have a tendency to hold ice rather than let it slide off. This is interesting stuff as I've been considering LED light fixtures like this for a bit, now. I'll have to ask my LED rep what he has to say about it.
The smart aleck answer is that ice and snow tend to accumulate due mainly to a specific set of atmospheric conditions coming together.
The real for true answer is ice storms form the ice and snowstorms cause the snow build up. The old fixtures/bulbs would generate enough heat to melt it but the LED ones don't. Understand too that we are talking about cases in some extremely bad whether we have had recently but I don't think I would be installing them in Buffalo or Fairbanks.
Wasn't intended to be a smart
Wasn't intended to be a smart aleck answer. Simply thinking out loud a bit. I've heard LEDs to be installed e.g. in a couple of LARGE cities 'up north', so I'm genuinely interested in this topic. On the other hand your tone seems to throw the technology in the proverbial trash w/out finding out what's up with the phenomenon (other than ice storm weather, which I understand). Maybe you're just a naysayer.
"... how is it that the ice accumulates to begin with? It's got to be from the heat from the fixture. "
I haven't experienced the phenomenon myself, since Orange County has not had such winter conditions in probably the last 30,000 years or so, but "Ice storms" occur every winter in some areas, covering tree branches, power lines and other non-heated surfaces with thick coatings of ice.
You're right ... and even
You're right ... and even some heated devices (like LED and other traffic lights). The right weather conditions can create some strange phenomenon. My comment wasn't well thought out.
http://www.todaystmj4.com/news/local/79008352.html
In case you want to see for yourself.
>>Despite the extra work and hassle of scraping the lights off, West Bend’s Director of Public Works said the lights have been a success and have dramatically cut down on energy costs.
Sure he is saving money on electricity but he never once gave you a calculation of how much the costs are for the additional accidents, the time spent scrapping etc.
>>Sure he is saving money on electricity but he never once gave you a calculation of how much the costs are for the additional accidents, the time spent scrapping etc.
Think of how much money we'd save if we didn't let idiots drive?
What sort of person just blunders into an intersection with "non-visibly-working" traffic lights?
"Gee, I couldn't tell if it weas red or green so I just drove on in...."
We're all in favor of people taking responsibility for their own actions, except when we figure we can gore the ox of someone else we don't like.
Even with old style traffic lights, in the right conditions they would freeze over and one couldn't see the lights.
Should we actually install heaters in all traffic lights?
If you've been in florida
If you've been in florida after a hurricane, you know almost everyone blunders into the intersection without lights. This after constant announcements on TV and radio to treat them like a 4-way stop.
Well, if folks just drive into an intersection with non-working lights, I'd say Darwinism is at work.
Doesn't make it OK to do it
Doesn't make it OK to do it just because everyone does it. Accidents due to those conditions should be treated as at-fault accidents.
My compliments on using the word "conundrum".
And to those who seem to think that government is the problem--see what no building codes and no enforcement gets you--look at the collapsed buildings in Haiti.
Cliff