There is quite detailed Youtube teardown video from Australia on dismantling sulfur microwave lantern.

As much as we all love conspiracy theories, I believe the system was buried by pure economical reasons:

- tremendously overcomplicated! Really visible in this video. Incessant RF shields to keep microwave energy at home. Two running fans to keep the thermal mode - imagine this in an outdoor lantern!!! An extra motor just to rotate discharge bulb.

- huge bulky expensive and inefficient transformer to power magnetron

- magnetron is inefficient by iself

- magnetron has a finite life of just a few thousand hours

Wow, never heard of them, that's super cool!

Here are some things that may be of interest,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2010/09/01/beyond-leds-indiana-town-goes-for-light-emitting-plasma-to-save-money/

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330347309_Cost-and_Energy-Effi_cient_LED_Induction_and_Plasma_Roadway_Lighting_JOINT_TRANSPORTATION_RESEARCH_PROGRAM

https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6866421,-85.7703508,3a,15y,139.46h,112.45t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sy5SbFd9FtiK0sr2O0WvZ3w!2e0!5s20230601T000000!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D-22.446525305680254%26panoid%3Dy5SbFd9FtiK0sr2O0WvZ3w%26yaw%3D139.46317349208232!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxNS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

One company who made these streetlights appeared to be called Luxim, who seemed to be at the wab address of http://Luxim.com , they seemed to be out of buisness by 2015. Unfortunatley the wayback machine isn't working for me right now, so I can't see what's in that site.

Hope this stuff helps.

There were some disputes about these lights jamming Sirius satellite radio service.
Because morons at Sirius thought it is very wise strategy to save money by using "free" ISM 2.45GHz band instead of proper licensing of some brequencies when designing a system involving billion dollar investment into satellite fleet. And then later, when someone really uses the band for its original purpose (aka microwave energy transfer, with some inevitable leaks outside), Sirius starts complaining those lights must be made so they would not disturb their radio service. And moron courts sided with the radio, completely ignoring what the band primary allocation was in the first place.

When capacitors alone go bad, they really just reduce their capacitance or blow up irreversibly.
It does not have to be the capacitor itself, what is faulty. It could well be just loose connection on it...

Does anyone have any information on plasma streetlights? Whatever happened to them? Were any installed on a large-scale basis?  I think they first showed up in the early 2010s if I'm not mistaken.

And from practice I'd say such behavior is not typical for non-polar capacitors, film or paper types. These always degrade one-way. Both to short circuit or open state. Modern metallized film capacitors may arc temporarily, but it ends up with massively and permanently degraded capacitance or, rarely goes to a dead short. Electrolytic capacitors may self-heal and even restore their capacitance, but are not used within magnetic ballasts.

Well, overdriving LEDs leads to lower and not higher efficacy.
So if higher efficacy becomes required, the designs must use less LED loading and run them cooler, which by itself should improve the reliability. The question then is, what consequences would have the need to reduce the cost of this back, what corner cutting we will see and have to deal with...

@suzukir122: My breathing didn't got affected.

@dor123, does your breathing get effected during sandstorms? Do you encounter any difficulty breathing?
I imagine I probably would, especially since I personally have asthma.

Almost every part of the circuit can have intermittent bad contact. Not necessary a capacitor.