Holy cow! Some streetlights in Haiti operate off solar panels!

[napi21]

Do we even have any of those here???? Brian Williams just talkedabout those on MSNBC just now.

I never knew they had such thing! Wouldn't that be a good way for Cities, towns, & Counties &&& electric companies tosave money?

[DesertFlower]

1. i just heard that too.

i have landscape lights that are solar.

[malaise]

2. Lots of them around the Caribbean

It's the only way to go. There are even hotels these days opting for solar everything.

[napi21]

4. Soooo, what's wrong with the US? Why don't WE have them? n/t

[Unca Jim]

8. We're at 35 degrees lattitude?

And they have lots of sun and no snow to cover them up?

[napi21]

10. I'm not knowledgable enough to argue latitude with you, but DC has them!

I KNOW they have snow and cloudy days there! I also read a site that named one of their customers as Portland! Google solar powered street lights and you'll see several places that sure aren't sunny all the time!

[Lorien]

13. No. Most work on cloudy days just as well. We're owned by fossil fuel Barons

Israel , many African Nations, China, New Zealand, even the U.K uses more solar than we do. I live in Florida and it's usually sunny here, but most of the solar developers in our state ship their products OVERSEAS. The fossil fuel lobby is incredibly powerful here, and they'll fight green renewable energy at every opportunity tooth and nail.

[Xithras]

20. The big difference is the existence of current infrastructure

In an urban area with an existing copper grid, for example, it's actually more expensive, less efficient, and less environmentally friendly, to place solar panels on all streetlights or outdoor electrical devices. Solar panels (and the deep cycle lead acid batteries that usually accompany them) have an energy and materials footprint that must be accounted for with their own production. Distributing these throughout the grid leads to unnecessary resource duplication.

In the developed areas of western nations, it usually makes more sense to build large scale solar or wind installations and then use that power to support an existing grid. Doing so is far more efficient energy-wise, costs less money overall, and has a smaller environmental footprint.

[Unca Jim]

24. You misunderstood me...

I wasn't saying we shouldn't have more solar, only that the Caribbean has more than enough sun.

I still think we'd do better to focus on wind here, but solar is fine in many areas. For much of the country it's not the best choice for streetlamps, however.

[Edweird]

19. We do.

[itsrobert]

3. Common in California

Increasing more and more.

[napi21]

6. Well, there's sure none I've ever seen in Ga! n/t

[KamaAina]

16. This morning I saw one on a transit shelter in San Jose

presumably it powerrs the lights, message board and ticket vending machine.

[Zywiec]

5. We have them in the DC Metro area

Almost surprised someone didn't know they existed...

[FarCenter]

7. The copper in electrical lines wouldn't stay put very long

[sandnsea]

9. Oregon gov wants to do I-5 with them

May have already passed the bill, I think using stimulus money but not sure. It's a good idea but I'm not sure the best use of money. But yeah, there is so much we could be doing like this.

My nu2me house has the solar ceiling lights. Every house should have these and they should collect energy to work at night too. Instead of changing bulbs, we should have been completely eliminating them.

There is so much we could be doing in this country if half of it weren't still living in the 1800s.

[napi21]

12. I have no idea how much they cost, but you need ti di the payback time

on these things/ Street lights, those on interstantes, etc. can't be cheap to operate! I know most of not all now have sensors to turn them on & off, so why not go the next step and not have to pay for the pwoer either?

[sandnsea]

21. Agree

I was just thinking in terms of immediate expenditure and people having so much need right now. Some kind of grant program to put solar street lights in all the rural towns might have been more economically and politically useful. Plus, at some point, the national DOT will do this and, once again, liberal states won't get any of the money because they will have already implemented the program. This happens all the time, it gets to be a little annoying to me.

[tsuki]

11. We don't have street lights or traffic signals that are solar, but we have

those flashing yellow lights for schools and intersections that are solar.

[TransitJohn]

14. You probably have a lot of them in your state.

Here in Wyoming, every WyDOT webcam/weather station around the state is powered by them.
http://www.wyoroad.info/Highway/RoadBuddies.html

[fascisthunter]

15. In Germany, I have seen them

they are probably in more countries than we realize. Now the question is, do we use them in the states, and if not, WHY NOT?!It would save lot's of tax money and it's clean energy.

[Xithras]

17. We have them here in California.

They are generally used in remote areas where no existing electrical infrastructure exists, because it's now cheaper to put up a solar/battery light than it is to string miles of poles and electrical cable.

It is actually LESS efficient and MORE expensive to use these in urban areas that already have an electrical grid available, so you probably won't see them in cities anytime soon.

[Edweird]

18. Yes. I've installed some in Coral Springs, Florida.

[blondeatlast]

22. Nearly every single street light in my neighborhood is solar powered. nt

[sakabatou]

23. Yeah. I know a lot of streets here operate off solar.

[Catshrink]

25. We installed some motion activated lights on our campus

They're right over the student lockers and really help during the winter months when it's still dark in the morning. They're bright LED lights and cost us nothing to operate -- and the equipment was from a grant. Very cool.