Many of us are still trying to catch up on that hour of sleep we all lost over the weekend. The goal of Daylight Saving Time is to save energy. One local neighborhood is trying to do that every day on their streets.

The street in one Las Vegas gated community is well-lit. How it's lit is a problem.

“It makes us feel less safe,” said Dan Brasen of the San Marino Circle HOA. He feels less safe because they are gas lamps. Sometimes the flame blows out, sending toxic gas into the air for weeks. Burning or not, they are a big polluter.

“Environmentally in the valley, they spew over 17,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,” he said.

Two and a half of the perpetual flames use as much gas in a year as a three bedroom house does. Getting rid of them isn't easy.

“That is an understatement,” laughs Brasen. “It's been a struggle because we had to deal with Southwest Gas.”

Back when gas was cheap, the gas company gave the lights to home builders to install for free. Now, 10,000 home buyers are stuck with the skyrocketing bills.

“We were watching our budget and these gas lamps were taking 40-percent of our budget,” said Brasen.

To shut them off, Southwest Gas wanted more than $200 in fees for each one. After four years of battling to extinguish the flames, involving Senator Reid and the Public Utilities Commission. A new day is dawning.

“The suns energy charges the light,” said William Ramsdell, of American Solar Electric. He engineered a solar-powered street light. This year, for the first time homeowners associations are installing them, feeling good about going green.

“I like it. It doesn't inconvenience me in any way. It is recharged with a solar battery, and it is almost maintenance free as far as I am concerned,” said Brasen.

They are twice as brilliant as the gas lamps he says. While it's a bright future — the present seems… well, medieval.

Ramsdell adds, ”Well, it is kind of embarrassing actually. We are the most powerful country in the world and we have all these assets but yet…”

But yet he says, in this battle between forces of light, some Las Vegans aren't aware of his lamp that uses the power from the giant ball of burning gas in the sky — and instead opting for the weak fire here on the ground.

“We do a lot of things in America that are inefficient because we don't think about it. I don't know how it kept going but these lights [gas lamps] are still being installed today. Nobody talks about it,” said Ramsdell.

There are currently more than 10,000 gas-burning street lights running 24 hours a day in Las Vegas.

The Public Utilities Commission hasn't finalized criteria for how homeowners can get them removed, but Southwest Gas is considering waiving the fees for shutting off the gas lamps.

Email your comments to Reporter Ky Plaskon.

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