The Siphon Flush from Magnet hopes to put a dent in the 11 million gallons of water a day that gets lost because of faulty tank flappers. And it will let you flush 21 golf balls down a toilet, if you're in the mood. See video here. The device, being showcased this week at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas, takes a different tack on operating a toilet. Most flapper valves work by forming a seal around the pipe at the bottom of a toilet tank. The integrity of the flapper, however, is easy to destroy. Cleaner chemicals can erode the rubber, for example, and begin to let water seep down the pipe. And those slow drips add up. More than 85 percent of water leakage in residential plumbing systems comes from the toilet and a majority of toilet leaks are caused by faulty or worn flappers, the company says. The EPA has said that a silent leak in a toilet can waste 500 gallons of water a day, according to the company. In all, that results in 11 million gallons a day lost due to faulty flappers. In all, Americans flush 2.1 trillion gallons of water down toilets a year. The Siphon Flush, which was designed with prototyping software from Invention Machine, exploits how water and air displace each other instead. The opening to the hose sits atop a thing called a "float chamber" which is attached to a collapsing and expanding hose that rises and falls with the water level in the tank. Thus, when the tank is full, the expanded hose keeps the float chamber above the water line, thereby preventing leaks. When flushing, the hose collapses, the float chamber is submerged and water goes away. If Archimedes were here, he'd run through the streets naked again. Expect to see a lot of changes coming to household appliances due to rising energy and water costs. Some companies, for instance, are staring to bring things like ecological stucco (a standard in France) or toilets that use sink water rather than fresh water (like they have in Japan) to the U.S. Companies like Integrity Block are bringing out eco-friendly building materials. This is also another example of the software opportunity in greentech. Both Invention Machine and Autodesk are increasingly trying to demonstrate how their tools can help curb energy consumption.