It doesent matter if you leave lights on.

[Moxi]

Reports put it in the 50kW range apparently, they will probably be top of the Xmas list for many militaries around the globe in 2024

Moxi

[Krill]

Good for boats. Less good for fixed defenses: swarm targetting with artillery shells to overwhelm is probably cheaper than the hardware.

But Prism Tanks from Red Alert 2 are one step closer.

[Moxi]

Red alert that takes me back a bit

Moxi

[Ken]

If everybody leaves a few lights on then that is the output of a nuclear power station at £30B ? That is a big cost to the public.
Most houses have a phantom drain of 200-300W 24/7/365 -thats half the electricity bill for most people. Its not the light bulb on or off but the attitude to waste and then why just stop at a light bulb.

[Mart]

But, isn’t it a principle of if you’re not using/needing it, switch it off ?

Sure there are times where ‘switching off’ is not the best option , but surely, with LED’s, it has to be the right approach ?

Otherwise, it’s one less grump for the more mature male.

I thought that incandescent lights ought to be switched off whenever not needed (but at least the wasted energy does heat the house a bit - albeit expensively) but LEDs use so little power that shortening their lives by repeated switching was an own goal, both in respect of price and embodied energy?

I've also heard this. And we had four LED garden lamps fitted at the same time. All the same model, but one of them at the back of the house had a PIR sensor on it. The others are on a normal switch, two inside our garage/storage room, pointing from opposite ends, and one outside the rear door, to the garden. The three 'normal' ones are still fine after about 5yrs, but the PIR unit failed in less than a year.

Obviously only an anecdotal example, but when it failed I was reminded of the recommendation not to turn them on and off too much / unreasonably.

[Mart]

Red alert that takes me back a bit

Moxi

Takes me back too. But just to prove I've never grown up, I was at a LAN (local area network) games party back in Nov, with about 15 others, and had a great 4 on 4 game of Total Annihilation.

These LAN's date back to the previous millenium, with 6 of us squeezed into my loft. Now some of the folk attending are the adult children of the OG's. Getting old!