Lights
Simple enough
topic to be sure as in the bible God says, let there be light. I really don’t think
it is quite as simple as that, and will impart with you a few thoughts I have
had on that recently. A friend of mine
was living in New York and upon her first trip to Ohio was amazed at all the
lights we had here. In fact I never really paid much attention to it till she
said something. We were under lights almost the whole way from the Pennsylvania
border till I ran out of them just below Akron but never more than a couple of
minutes. Again I picked them up on I-77, north of Canton and was under them until
I reached Krantz hill on 800 south of Canton. Dark to day light we pay for
groundhogs to see when there are no cars. Wasted electric we feel is vital for
our safety and protection. This is usually along main thoroughfares, but then
when we are out in the country we have the same lights we depend on to drive in
the city, only not as frequent and we usually have to pay for them.
People in the
city believe as well, as a bunch in the country believes we need lights to
offer us protection from burglars and crime in general. Well that doesn’t seem
to work very well as we still have crime regardless whether we have street
lights or not. It is our fear of the dark we need the lights for, and for the
power company to make money. Somebody has to pay for it and it allows the power
company to grow and meet those demands. Whether it deters crime I am of the
opinion that it does little but instead aide burglars and window peepers a
better opportunity to evade those yard obstacles they might trip over. If it
was dark enough for them to use flashlights then it would be easier to determine
if someone was out there. My theory is turn off the lights till you need them. Solar
path lights work well and the technology will improve as we go along.
Street lights in
bad intersections would still be ok if there isn’t enough light off a traffic
signal to somewhat light the intersection. If it is real busy there will be
plenty of cars there and no need for lights. So if you feel you still need
lights at major intersections how about this thought? How about a motion
activated light so that if a pedestrian or an automobile approaches the light
will come on. Simple enough fix for lighting with proven results. If we could
do away with 75 percent of our outdoor stand-alone lighting, just think how much
that would save in terms of energy needed to produce all that lighting. In our
area we use coal as we belong to American Electric Power for the most part and
they generate the majority of their electric through the use of coal fired boilers.
They like keeping the lights on and keep their boilers going as they can easily
move from peak daytime hours into night generating power for lights. All this
electric is contributing to global warming and it is starting right here at
home. I doubt if any third world countries with limited resources are responsible
for global warming, yet they are paying the price just the same as us for us keeping
the lights on.
I mean really if
you are afraid of the dark, just stay home and turn off all lights unless you
need them, another real saver. Install motion activated lights in those places
you feel you need the security around you. The reason I am going into all of
this about lights, is first, the effect it is having on our environment, and
second, we are paying for street lighting that 60 – 90 percent of the time, no
one is using. After all this I will inform you that although we have a light in
the refrigerator, it is still more efficient than street lighting. When you
shut the frig door the light does go off. I know for a fact as I used my camera
with a time setting to see if it really does go off , and guess what it does
and the system works. Outside the house where the refrigerator sits, it’s a different
story.
The time has come
to look at our total energy usage and what resources we use to generate it. We
have coal, nuclear, shale gas now, and solar and wind to a minor degree. The Department
of Energy is looking at ways to improve electrical generation to meet our
future needs, and is fueling the idea with
a 400 million dollar grant to develop a portable nuclear power plant coming
soon to your back yard. Apparently the lessons learned from nuclear haven’t
been enough to sway or eliminate nuclear as any option. Spent fuel storage and
melt downs are now becoming more common than before and will in the long run
with increased usage , be a larger problem. That 400 million would go a long
way to reduce our electric usage by something just as simple as turning the
lights off if we don’t need them.
beneficial reuse of concrete in a local's backyard. my hat is off to them
I at one time
came up with an idea of using solar to light the edges of my driveway that could
run only when you needed it as the placement of motion activated sensors would
light section after section as you approach it and once you have passed would
go dark again. Really the groundhogs don’t care if its light outside after all
they are in a hole with no lights and when it gets dark they sleep. We know
what lights do to deers, so this may be a more environmentally sound solution
of using an alternative power source to light a driveway and with bigger grids
could easily be used to light highways the same. LED’s provide enough light and
are energy efficient when it comes to peripheral lighting. After all if it is
dark enough we need our car lights on anyhow. The same theory could be applied to our conventional
lighting system saving the taxpayers huge amounts of money. We don’t have to
study it, but know if no one is using the light and we turn it off, it saves
money and we don’t need nuclear reactors for anything. We just have to work on
coal and natural gas next, and reduce
our dependence on them.
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