Huge Savings With New Home Lighting

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30497, 20 July 1964, Page 11

Huge Savings With New Home Lighting

(Special Correspondent NZP.A.) LONDON, July 19. “Green ray,” a radio-active power costing only a few pence to produce, and available to housewives and businessmen almost immediately, could slash lighting bills in homes, offices and factories, according to a scientific engineer, Mr Gordon McNally.

If the ray is put in a bulb, it needs no wir'- or switches. The ray, although on all the time, would glow for 25 years without a replacement. Mr McNally said he hoped it would be possible to use the new ray as an economic power in street lights, miners’ and pot-holers’ lamps, and aircraft landing lights. “The power comes from a combination of nuclear gases housed in a radio-active cell," said Mr McNally. “1 am keeping the names of the gases secret, but when they com-

bine, the green light is given off. The light is put through a system of optical l«ns to strengthen it, and it will glow non-stop for at least 25 years.” The torch which Mr McNally uses costs 15s to make. A room bulb, 10 times more powerful, would cost only a few shillings more. A spokesman for the electricity authorities said that to burn 100-watt bulbs 10 Hours daily for 25 years would run up a bill of about £6O. This was about £5B 10s more than Mr McNally's estimate for his equivalent power.