PUBLIC MARKS from multilinko with tag light

A building under construction in Japan will use natural light to illuminate its rooms, even during the night.

The biggest standby loss of energy, sometimes referred to as "leaking electricity," occurs in modern consumer electronics. Even when your television is turned off, it's really in standby mode so that it can respond to your remote control. Along with TVs, VCRs, cable boxes, and satellite dishes account for the largest share of a home's leaking electricity, roughly 35 percent. Audio equipment makes up another 25 percent of standby losses; a small compact audio unit can draw 9 watts while it's ostensibly turned off. Communications equipment such as answering machines, cordless phones, and fax machines are responsible for an additional 10 percent of home electricity losses. Today's estimates say that the average household constantly leaks about 50 watts of electricity. Right now, the only way to prevent some appliances from leaking electricity is to unplug them when they might not be in use for a long period of time. Watts wrong According to the EPA, lighting accounts for approximately 24 percent of total end-use consumption of electricity in commercial offices, the largest piece of the energy consumption pie. Making sure to turn off lights when you have left the room is the easiest thing you can do to reduce your energy costs. The problem isn't so much the amount of time they are left on but the inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs.

I ventured out to Eurolite and asked about LED lights, white LEDs had only recently come onto the market and I was hoping to find a simple fixture that used very very little power. They didn't have anything in the showroom. There was virtually nothing in their catalogues. Most of the LED fixtures they did have or could get used many LEDs, dozens or even hundreds of them together in one fixture. This didn't help me, but in conversation with Charles Lyall, the president of Eurolite, he showed me some of the parts that they had available. I left with a bunch of LEDs and some power supplies.