> "They consume up to 90 percent less energy and can last up to 25 times longer than traditional incandescent lights."
No one used incandescent street lights! Instead compare LEDs to sodium vapor lights and they don't come off so well. In fact they are worse, but the street looks nicer (it's in color).
Streetlights aren't for doing your makeup, they're for seeing hazards in the roadway that are beyond the range of a vehicle's headlights. Orange is the ideal color for outdoor lighting, because of the way the light-sensitive proteins in our eyes are 'tuned' ('cones' and 'rods', 'photopic' to 'mesopic' and 'scotopic', etc). My notes from a few years ago: https://teslabox.com/2020/01/color-vision-night-vision-notes... - tl/dr: peripheral vision is tuned to blue, 2 of the 3 color-sensitive proteins are highly sensitive to orange light.
Curious: why did you link to that particular thread? 66 comments, including one by yours truly. imho, this is the best of that thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19855545
True but there's still the issue that you won't see objects of certain colors when illuminated by sodium lamps. That could be a traffic hazard. With full spectrum light that's only the case for full black objects.
Colour rendering doesn't have to be perfect for this use but having full spectrum coverage does have its advantages.
Metal halide (MH) bulbs have been used for a long time now in street lighting, low-pressure sodium vapor (LPS) was just one of the first applications of the technology. Metal halide has a much whiter/bluer light and covers more of the spectrum than LPS.
I do believe though, that LEDs for such industrial applications don't or shouldn't suffer the same issues as the little LED bulbs we buy for the home, due to better QC and construction.
It's a very rare object that reflects nothing in the yellow-orange of sodium lamps. You'll just see a kind of black and white (except in yellow) version of the object.
Also, they have high pressure sodium bulbs that widen the color, and then I don't think there are any objects you won't see.
No one used incandescent street lights! Instead compare LEDs to sodium vapor lights and they don't come off so well. In fact they are worse, but the street looks nicer (it's in color).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19853473