Light pollution and solid-state lighting: reducing the carbon dioxide footprint is not enough

Salvador Bará

doi:10.1117/12.2025344

18 November 2013 Light pollution and solid-state lighting: reducing the carbon dioxide footprint is not enough

Salvador Bará

Proceedings Volume 8785, 8th Iberoamerican Optics Meeting and 11th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers, and Applications; 87852G (2013) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2025344
Event: 8th Ibero American Optics Meeting/11th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers, and Applications, 2013, Porto, Portugal

Abstract

Public and private lighting account for a relevant share of the overall electric power consumption worldwide. The pressing need of reducing the carbon dioxide emissions as well as of lowering the lumen•hour price tag has fostered the search for alternative lighting technologies to substitute for the incandescent and gas-discharge based lamps. The most successful approach to date, solid-state lighting, is already finding its way into the public lighting market, very often helped by substantial public investments and support. LED-based sources have distinct advantages: under controlled coditions their efficacy equals or surpasses that of conventional solutions, their small source size allows for an efficient collimation of the lightbeam (delivering the photons where they are actually needed and reducing lightspill on the surrounding areas), and they can be switched and/or dimmed on demand at very high rates, thus allowing for a taylored schedule of lighting. However, energy savings and carbon dioxide reduction are not the only crucial issues faced by present day lighting. A growing body of research has shown the significance of the spectral composition of light when it comes to assess the detrimental effects of artificial light-at-night (ALAN). The potential ALAN blueshift associated to the deployment of LED-based lighting systems has raised sensible concerns about its scientific, cultural, ecological and public health consequences, which can be further amplified if an increased light consumption is produced due to the rebound effect. This contribution addresses some of the challenges that these issues pose to the Optics and Photonics community.

Citation Download Citation

Salvador Bará "Light pollution and solid-state lighting: reducing the carbon dioxide footprint is not enough", Proc. SPIE 8785, 8th Iberoamerican Optics Meeting and 11th Latin American Meeting on Optics, Lasers, and Applications, 87852G (18 November 2013); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2025344

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