Netflix Wants to Shrink Your Favorite TV Show’s Carbon Footprint (1)

There’s a soft, afternoon glow suffusing an intimate scene between the plucky protagonist and her wood-chopping, flannel-shirted love interest’s mother on the Vancouver set of the Netflix Inc. show, Virgin River. A soapy drama centered on a nurse practitioner in a small, northern California town, Virgin River is the kind of show that reliably delivers buried secrets, thwarted villains and reunited lovers. That fake sunlight — the combined power of two massive 18,000-watt lights running on a giant battery — is how Netflix wants to clean up the dirty business of Hollywood productions.

On most film and television sets, illumination is ...