Shedding More Light on Streets

* The article on bringing back the old-style street lights only covers part of the picture (“Torch-Style Lamps Again Lighting Up Older Areas,” Feb. 5). While the old, deteriorated and inefficient street lights of yesterday are being replaced with replica poles manufactured to modern standards, new light sources are now offering big savings in dollars and energy.

Original light sources were either gas or incandescent electric lamps. Many of the old incandescent lamps are still out there, wasting money and energy. Modern street lights today, regardless of what they are attached to, are generally illuminated with highly efficient high-pressure sodium vapor (HPS) lamps. The old incandescent lamps had a life expectancy of only 6,000 hours. Today’s HPS lamps consuming the same amount of energy put out about 10 times the amount of light and have a life expectancy of 24,000 hours.

There are other cost-saving systems that can be added, such as solid state time clocks. These time clocks know where the sun is all year long and turn the lights on and off at the appropriate times. Regulating transformers that when incorporated in a lighting circuit will reduce the voltage at the lamps to the minimum required after they have warmed up can in some cases save 30% of the energy bill.

With the drain on our resources and increase in our taxes, more thought should be put in the type of lights we are using and not just the aesthetics of the poles we hang the lights on.

JACK NIDAY

Newport Beach