Lunar-resonant streetlights save energy

During the day, it makes no sense to keep our streetlights on, right? What about at night? Well, sure, not all the time. Sometimes, the moon provides quite a bit of light at night, depending on what lunar cycle we are in. The Civil Twilight Design Collective proposes making our streetlights vary their power with the moons cycles. This, combined with LED lights would save an extraordinary amount of energy versus our standard streetlights today. One might even argue that these lights would be considerably more attractive as well, as they would not overpower the light that the moon is reflecting down to earth. Ideas like this are exactly the kind of straightforward, practical thinking that we all need to move into greener modern times. Apparently, others agree with this assessment as well, as the idea has won the 2007 Metropolis Next Generation Award. I hope to see them soon!

[Source: Civil Twilight Design Collective via Treehugger]