[TurdFerguson]

Originally Posted by V

Quite a bit of inaccuracy in this thread.

The new white lights are mostly LED, although Calgary is also experimenting with induction lighting, which is also white. There is also some white light sources that have been around the City for some time, and those are metal halide. The white lights that the city used to use back before the orange lights was mercury vapour, a very old technology.

The orange light that you're used to is high pressure sodium, and if you look around the province you will find the really orange light which is low pressure sodium. LPS isn't banned, it's just a terrible light source with a negative Colour Rendering Index, which means that pretty much anything you put under an LPS source will look black.

LED luminaires do not have a greater efficacy (they aren't "brighter") over HPS luminaires, although they're coming very close. I expect they'll be more efficient within the next year or two. The cost is also coming down significantly for LED luminaires, to the point where they're finally making sense from a financial perspective.

The colour of the light source does nothing to impact light pollution. The shape of the fixture and the location of the lamp inside of the fixture is what impacts light pollution. The new LED luminaires do not improve light pollution either, at least for a significant portion of the City. Most of the HPS luminaires in the City are flat lens luminaires which are Dark Skies rated. The new LED luminaires are no different.

Calgary is actually significantly behind a fairly large chunk of North America when it comes to LED lighting. Hopefully they catch up, but they've got a long way to go, and they're spending way too much money on changing out old crappy poles to pay for new lights. I think there's an RFP out right now to change out 500 critical poles, which is a pretty big expensive project for a department like theirs.

Edmonton has installed almost 15,000 LED luminaires to date. Nova Scotia has pretty much retrofitted all of their lights, IIRC. Lethbridge has installed a number and are planning on putting an RFP out for a very large amount of luminaires. I believe NB is getting ready to change out about 70,000 lights. There is a ton of activity in the States as well, most notably all of the work that has taken place in Los Angeles.

I am continually amazed at the niche knowledge of this board.