The LED's Challenge to High Pressure Sodium
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters point to it in lighting threads for its pros and cons of LED versus sodium lamps, though one calls it almost right.
What it is
A Technology Connections video weighing LED streetlights against high pressure sodium lamps, covering efficiency, color, cost and light pollution. It is a follow-up to his earlier explanation of why street lights are orange.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2018 to 2021.
What Hacker News said
Recommends news_to_me · 2018-08 · on “Energy Saved, Sleep Lost: The Unintended Consequences of LED Lighting”
The youtube channel Technology Connections has a couple of interesting articles about LED (and sodium-vapor lamp) bulbs in street lighting: [this video] (Actually, most if his videos are pretty interesting to explore, especially the ones about early TV)
Recommends kibwen · 2020-08 · on “Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects”
Here's a quite good video about the pros and cons of LED vs high/low-pressure sodium street lamps: [this video] . It goes into lamp efficiency, how our eyes see differently at night, response time under different sorts of light, color temperature, circadian rhythm disruption, and light pollution.
Cites p1mrx · 2019-05 · on “Detroit’s LED streetlights going dark after a few years”
Warm white LEDs exist, with color quality exceeding that of sodium vapor in every way, but cities often use blueish LEDs because they're cheaper and more efficient. Relevant Technology Connections video: [this video]
Cites jedimastert · 2021-03 · on “A call to improve London's lighting at night”
I'm reminded of a Technology Connections video about what happened when his town switched from incandescent to LED stop lights < [LINK] > Of course, while I was looking that up I found out he made a video about sodium vapour lights! < [this video] >
Critical teslabox · 2020-08 · on “Germany plans to dim lights at night to save insects”
It's a good video, but it's also a case study in being 'almost right'. The almost-correct interpretations cascade and result in a faulty conclusion: that blue-white LED streetlights are better than orange-white streetlights. Various comments object to the faulty conclusion ([1], for example). At the end he at least addresses his ignorance: > [18:39] You may have noticed that I didn't talk about the blue light from LEDs, and how this is supposedly ruining our eyes. That's because the "science" behind this is questionable, at best. > [18:55] [discussion of chart with percentage blue light of various light sources] > [19:04] [...] but considering that our eyes can withstand the intensity of sun