Thursday, June 23, 2005

Highlight of the day

Some good news on the energy-conservation front:
WLED technology is based on a diode that conducts electricity in one direction through various materials, like phosphorus, germanium, or arsenic, which light up as electrical current passes through them. Such diodes are inexpensive to make, exceptionally bright, and shine continuously for 30 or 40 years...

WLED lighting not only has a long life, but may help us curb our electricity use. Twenty-two percent of electricity use now goes to lighting, and in a recent issue of Science, Fred Schubert and Jong Kyu Kim, two experts on LEDs, suggests this number could be cut in half by moving to solid-state lighting.

So far, these lights have mostly been installed on First Nations reserves which otherwise lacked proper lighting altogether since they weren't connected to electrical grids. That's how efficient this lighting is: it can run off the electrical charge present on a telephone line. And it's headed for use in the third world soon, in a project to ensure that every human has access to lighting - making this development doubly positive.

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