Have you ever thought about street lamps? They are off during the day, but as dusk falls, they turn on. We no longer rely on lamplighters to stroll through the town in the evening turning them on, and then off again in the morning.

Instead, electrical components known as "photosensors" detect the amount of light in the sky, and automatically turn the lamps on in the evening and off in the morning. These simple little components save a lot electricity that would be wasted if the lamps were simply left on all day.

The same principle can be applied to your television, saving a measurable amount of electricity every month. And when you multiply these savings by the millions and millions of televisions in use worldwide, the savings can make a big difference.

Energy conservation and televisions

Energy consumption is growing worldwide. The statistics are staggering, but it boils down to this. The vast majority of our energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. This releases an enormous amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which many scientists believe is a significant greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. The effects or existence of global warming can be debated for hours but we do know this: we need to slow down our consumption of fossil fuels in order to help make our resources last longer while working on developing renewable energy sources - such as biofuels, wind, and solar - to replace our traditional fuels.

Television Energy Consumption Grows

What may surprise you is the role that televisions play in energy consumption. Ten years ago, almost all the televisions in use worldwide were picture tube models. These relied on a large vacuum tube - known as a CRT - to produce an image.

These sets were very inefficient in their use of electricity. According to one study, in 2004 picture tube sets accounted for 21 terawatt hours (TWh) of the 23 TWh consumed worldwide by televisions that year.[1] That's about 277 times the total residential use of electricity in California that year.[2]

We used to rely on picture tube televisionsthat made inefficient use of energy. Click on image to enlarge.