While governments have diddled for decades in the energy marketplace, subsidizing a 500-megawatt nuclear plant here, a 5,000-kilometre Arctic pipeline there, the big energy gains have come via pint-sized innovations in conservation and energy-efficiency. This decade, the biggest little gainers on the planet are LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, those gizmos that first entered the public consciousness in the 1970s through calculators and digital watches.
LEDs are fabulously efficient devices that often can save upwards of 90% of the energy required by conventional lighting methods.
