LED streetlights in LA and NYC

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former President Bill Clinton recently announced a program to replace 140,000 street lights in Los Angeles with LED bulbs. The plan is funded in part by the Clinton Climate Initiative. They are also receiving funding for the $57 million project through a $14 million rebate from Department of Water and Power.

The project is estimated to save $48 million and 197,000 tons of carbon emissions over a seven year period. This is the equivalent to pulling 6,000 cars off the road, according to Clinton.

Clinton also claimed that if every major city undertook a similar project, enough power would be saved to shut down 2 1/2 coal-fired power plants.

New York City has announced a similar plan. They are testing new LED light poles in a small area of the city. If testing proves successful by fall 2009, they may replace all of the city's streetlights (300,000 in total) with LEDs.