The early-adopter blues

Abstract

You may have noticed them going up in your town's streets and parking lots: a new generation of pole-mounted lights that pour down a cool torrent of lumens from an array of light-emitting diodes. Like me, you might have welcomed this development. LEDs are, after all, the most energy-efficient lighting option on the market. They can last twice as long as ordinary sodiumvapor streetlights, and their prices have dropped to within range of the competition.