Flourescant bulbs can be up to 10x as effcient as incadescant lamps (space heaters), and I believe they are a great deal more efficient than neon lamps, which were the leds of their time. I suspect neon bulbs were least 10x as efficient as a flame lamp. The same number of lumens (measure of light as preceived by your eyes -- they have a response peak around the same yellow as the sun) from a white LED, comprable to flourescent is about 1/10. Thus, each novel technological increase in extending our lives past dark has represented a logrithmic (or so) increase in efficiency. There also seems to be a corresponding increase in the projected life span of the new technology. So how does materials science keep us out of an oil-starved dark age? Material extraction and fabrication are oil-driven themselves. Is the world ready for portable atomic power (such as seen in Assimov's Foundation) or will tinkerers come back into fashion?

This is the blurred view which we get to see daily from the windows of the house where we stay at the moment, Many of us have seen or still see this from their windows. No thermal insulation here, no energy-efficiency at all. The view from inside the house's thus constanly blurred this time of year. We'll soon have iceflowers on these windows! Seeing those beautiful ice flowers on the windows in the morning will really bring back some icy but also exciting memories- In winter all rooms were freezing cold, except for the living room and the kitchen. The oil stoked heater in the living room would scare us kids to death in the morning as it roared to life. We had an oil barrel in our garden for that purpose, which was filled from time to time. These memories seem part of another world now. .