LED lighting is the future. This is going to reduce our electric consumption in a big way. We’re using LEDs in bike lights, flash lights and stop lights, but because of various challenges, we haven’t reached the point where we can use them everywhere in our houses. This article in the NYTimes shows and interesting concept to solve one of the challenges — heat.

Because LED light sources generate all their heat through the rear, manufacturers are adding heat sinks to dramatically increase the surface area and let the heat dissipate rapidly. Without them, the LED fixture would lose its color accuracy and have a dramatically shortened life.

I love the track lighting concept — it looks good.

According to the Ecomomist

…(A) study which estimated that standby power accounted for approximately 5% of total residential electricity consumption in America, “adding up to more than $3 billion in annual energy costs”. According to America’s Department of Energy, national residential electricity consumption in 2004 was 1.29 billion megawatt hours (MWh)—5% of which is 64m MWh. The wasted energy, in other words, is equivalent to the output of 18 typical power stations.

It turns out that the 5% was an estimation. When they actually went into homes and tested the amount of power being used by devices in standby mode — the numbers ranged from 7% to 13% for a typical western household! Imagine that, up to 13% of the electricity in America is being used while nobody is using the devices.