Lunar Resonant Streetlights

The current (March/April 2008) issue of Seed Magazine highlights a great idea: streetlights that are in-tune with the moon (in June, and the other 11 non-rhyming months).

Lunar-Resonant Streetlights - by Civil Twilight A small of simple invention by the designers of a San Francisco collective addresses the gluttony of energy use in the developed world. The outdoor lamps are fitted with an ultra-sensitive photocell that responds to ambient moonlight, allowing the streetlight to dim and brighten as the moon waxes and wanes. It could save as much as 80 to 90 percent of energy used in streetlight grids and also work against crime in the cities. [From Seed: Science is Culture]

A simple yet great idea. I'm suggesting it to Alderman Reilly. Why not? Wouldn't it be cool to actually be able to see some of the night sky?

Read more details here including:

Perhaps the most fascinating fact that the collective’s research revealed, however, is a little-known detail about the history of electricity: in the 1930s, with the spread of electrification and the consolidation of utilities, streetlights became a convenient way to off-load excess energy from the grid at night, when power demands dropped significantly. This intentionally inefficient system determined the norm for nighttime outdoor lighting levels, a standard that has not been revised since, even though the need for off-loading ended in the 1970s. What we now assume is a safety measure is in fact the forgotten remnant of an obsolete energy practice. Next Gen juror Fred Dust, head of IDEO’s Smart Space design practice, says the jury found this part of the proposal both shocking and compelling. “It’s such an archaic concept that it seems like science fiction,” he says.

Questioning current lighting standards and asking what level of illumination is actually necessary brings some sur prising answers. Willis explains that the human eye, with its com -ple mentary systems of rods and cones, evolved to adapt to both full-sun days and moonless nights. “We can see an incredibly broad range of intensities,” he says. “The difference between sunlight and starlight is something like a hundred thousand orders of magnitude.” Bright moonlight is in the transitional part of this range, when both rods and cones are active. “It’s a natural biological benchmark,” Willis says, “because we evolved with it.” Meanwhile, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ recommendations for artificial lighting are only about ten times brighter than full moonlight—almost nothing compared to what the human eye is capable of seeing and yet significant in terms of our ability to appreciate the night sky.