  By looking at quantum data compression in the second quantisation, we present
a new model for the efficient generation and use of variable length codes. In
this picture lossless data compression can be seen as the {\em minimum energy}
required to faithfully represent or transmit classical information contained
within a quantum state.
  In order to represent information we create quanta in some predefined modes
(i.e. frequencies) prepared in one of two possible internal states (the
information carrying degrees of freedom). Data compression is now seen as the
selective annihilation of these quanta, the energy of whom is effectively
dissipated into the environment. As any increase in the energy of the
environment is intricately linked to any information loss and is subject to
Landauer's erasure principle, we use this principle to distinguish lossless and
lossy schemes and to suggest bounds on the efficiency of our lossless
compression protocol.
  In line with the work of Bostr\"{o}m and Felbinger \cite{bostroem}, we also
show that when using variable length codes the classical notions of prefix or
uniquely decipherable codes are unnecessarily restrictive given the structure
of quantum mechanics and that a 1-1 mapping is sufficient. In the absence of
this restraint we translate existing classical results on 1-1 coding to the
quantum domain to derive a new upper bound on the compression of quantum
information. Finally we present a simple quantum circuit to implement our
scheme.
