Solar Power: Traffic Lights
Solar Power: Traffic Lights
'Green' traffic lights are not a new idea. The move to LED traffic lights is already offering significant savings on both energy consumption and costs. Berlin already derives 100% of their electricity for traffic control from renewable sources. India has combined both these attributes into a single traffic system. South African's first solar powered traffic light intersection was unveiled a few years ago. The main benefit being that traffic flows will be free of disruption when inevitable power failures occur.
Some solar-powered traffic signals have been previously provided by private investors. Sometimes costs were defrayed by allowing limited advertising on the lights. Certainly one way of getting motorists attention, but not likely to improve road safety. But the extensive use of renewable sources to power traffic lights is still very limited.
What Energy Crisis? (JPN)
What Energy Crisis?
What Energy Crisis?
Business common sense will tell us that an energy crisis is any great bottleneck, or price rise, in the supply of energy resources to an economy. In popular business literature it often refers to just one energy source used at a certain time and place. But what exactly constitutes a global energy crisis? A global energy crisis is a situation in which the world suffers from a disruption of energy supplies.
In the case of the automotive industry, oil, is accompanied by rapidly increasing energy prices that threaten economic and global security. The threat to economic security can be represented by the possibility of declining economic growth, increasing inflation, rising unemployment, and losing billions in investment. The threat to global security can be represented by the inability of certain governments to exercise foreign policy options towards countries with substantial oil reserves. The automotive industry is therefore providing a valuable service by putting human ingenuity at the center of the debate over energy.
