July 11 - A bottled liter of water with a few teaspoons of bleach is proving to be a successful recipe for dwellers in the light-deprived slums of the Philippines. The simple technology is spreading sunlight in places where it has never been, and saving residents money at the same time. Gemma Haines reports.
Now that's brilliant.
ReplyDeleteI would think that the problem with this is those who are poorest usually have a hard time finding water to drink in the first place. I think they would much prefer drinking water to light.
ReplyDeleteIn Brazil they would cut up 2 liter bottles and turn a bunch of them into Christmas trees.
ReplyDeleteYou use what you have...
Nothing to do with the liter of light, but when I saw this I thought of you:
ReplyDeletehttp://fakescience.tumblr.com/post/7620301551/where-do-butterflies-come-from
I suppose if you filled a (bigger) bottle with urine and bleach, it would make a bug light...
ReplyDeleteFunder, I knew of that site, but don't visit it regularly. Tx for the heads-up.
ReplyDeleteAnon, there's no problem with a lack of rainwater in the Philippines.
ReplyDeletefyi:
ReplyDeletehttp://glassian.org/Prism/Deck/index.html
Good comparison, jk. In homes some people use glass bricks, and if you Google "solar tube" you can see fiberoptic methods to bring light even more deeply into a house.
ReplyDeleteAre there different spellings of the word "liter"? Because where I'm from it is spelled "litre".
ReplyDelete@Joy said...
ReplyDeleteYes.
The SI system spells litre as litre as the French Text is authoritive.
http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP330/sp330.pdf
The U.S. spelling as "liter" is permitted and indeed mandated within the Unites States. see p. iii.
For the most part the rest of the world, including Canada, the UK, etc. use "litre"
http://www.grammarist.com/spelling/liter-litre/
I would be the neighbor with the 5 gallon jug coming through my roof...
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection
ReplyDeleteAnother use for plastic bottles in creating safe drinking water.
Combined with fiber optics, it could light any room in a building, even several floors below the roof.
ReplyDeleteAh! I see you, Stan, have a site about fiber optics. But putting the two together would make the "bulb" end very simple and basic.
Either way, it is free light. We could save a LOT of electricity in the world this way. WAY too much electricity is being used to generate light.
On the other hand, when they perfect the LED light bulbs, that will take care of a lot of that power usage. What I've seen of the LED, though, they don't put out many lumens. Anything will be better than the stupid fluorescent things they mandate now.
But this liter of water is a really cool thing. Thanks, Stan.
Dang. Wish I could get this in MY apartment.
ReplyDelete