Contrary to what most environmentalists believe, our technological civilization is not based around an orgy of wastefulness, but is in fact based on standards of market derived efficiency
Red Lights, Green Lights and the Inefficiency of Energy Efficiency
With snowstorms in the air, cities that decided to "go green" by switching from incandescent to LED traffic lights are discovering that their new "green" traffic lights don't melt snow through waste heat. The alternative requires sending crews out to actually clean off the LED traffic lights, a single such outing costs more energy and money than LED traffic lights can possibly save in a year.
