It’s no secret that I love the idea of LED lighting, and hate the idea that so much energy from a conventional incandescent bulb is wasted in the form of heat. It turns out, though, that colder climes are discovering that there’s a lethal downside to electrical efficiency when it comes to traffic lights:
http://gizmodo.com/5428749/energy+efficient-led-traffic-lights-are-backfiring-in-a-deadly-way
The problem is obvious in retrospect, but I for one sure didn’t think of it ahead of time. I suspect there’s one of those annoying, “try it small before rolling out across an entire city” lessons we should be taking away from this one, as any fix is likely to be hugely expensive.