Sunday, August 29, 2010

Energy conservation in olden times



This is an image taken from the book "The End of Energy Obesity" which shows an 18th century automatic candle snuffer. Candles were precious at that time and so using them judiciously was the need of the hour. People used to set the level/time before going to bed till which the candle should burn and these simple mechanical systems never failed to "turn off" automatically. Can't we build simple to use energy saving devices for electricity and thermal energy?