Los Angeles is about to undertake the largest environmentally friendly LED streetlight project in the world, replacing a majority of its streetlight bulbs with energy-efficient light emitting diodes.

About 100 people crowded into the L.A. City Hall rotunda on a cold, rainy morning to hear Clinton and Villaraigosa describe a plan to replace 140,000 residential streetlights with energy efficient LED streetlights over the next 5 years. The city has 210,000 streetlights total. 

"We like doing things big here in the City of the Angels," Villaraigosa told Clinton. "This is the largest retrofit program undertaken by any city, anywhere in the world." 

Villaraigosa said the new streetlights will reduce carbon dioxide emissions in L.A. by 40,500 tons per year and will save the city about $10 million annually. "That's the equivalent of taking more than 6,000 passenger vehicles off the road every single year," he said. 

The announced plan is a partnership between the city and the Clinton Climate Initiative, which provided research on the latest LED technology and strategies for funding an LED lighting program. 

"This project will be paid for entirely by savings from reduced energy use and the lower maintenance cost of LED technology," Villaraigosa said. 

A 2005 trial program in Ann Arbor, Mich., showed that LED streetlights were 50 to 80 percent more efficient than traditional lights and saved about $100 per light, according to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a branch of the Clinton Climate Initiative. 

"In America there are almost 35 million streetlights," said Clinton. "If this announcement gets publicity and every city followed your lead, we would save having to build 2.5 coal-fired power plants." 

Ed Ebrahimian, director of the Bureau of Street Lighting in the Department of Public Works, highlighted the details and elaborated on the potential benefits of the new lights. "Today's LEDs also last 10 to 15 years compared to 4 to 6 years with [traditional light] fixtures," Ebrahimian said, adding, "They will only shine light on streets and sidewalks, minimizing light pollution and the unwanted nighttime sky-glow." 

Dan Kammen, professor of energy and resources at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, said Los Angeles is a perfect city for an LED streetlight initiative. He cited the success of a program in Mexico City. "It's perfect for municipalities like L.A. and Mexico City, because they can afford to look at payback on a time scale that a city can benefit from, not just 2 to 3 years," Kammen said. 

Asked if there are any downsides to widespread use of LED lighting, Kammen said, "Not really." He added that some like to claim there is a cost, because LED streetlights require novel materials, "But they're no more extreme than materials required for our consumption of personal computers." Kammen added that the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 placed greater responsibility on cities in California to manage the full life cycle of materials. 

"I want to try to put this into a larger context on Presidents' Day," Clinton said. "This announcement is only one part of the comprehensive plan L.A. has ... to prove what we must prove to the world, and that is that we can save the planet for our children and do it in a way that will give us more, not less economic opportunity." 

Ebrahimian said the LED streetlight program will begin in July and that he hopes to retrofit 20,000 streetlights in the first year and 30,000 each of the following four years.