Slashdot Mirror
White LEDs for a Brighter World
deepfry writes "CBC radio today featured an interview with Dr. Dave Irvine-Halliday, an engineering professor at the University of Calgary, who's developed a home lighting system for the developing world using a combination of white LEDs, pedal generators and rechargable batteries. This type of "pico-power" can make a huge difference in the lives of villagers in rural areas where being connected to a power grid is not an option and probably never will be. Read about the Light Up the World project and make a donation."
Ride a bike for 10 minutes, get a couple of hours worth of light so you can read and learn.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why limit something like this to the developing world? If the developed world used low-power, high-efficiency lighting, we'd dramatically reduce the consumption of energy and non-renewable resources. If these lights are cheap enough for the poorest on the planet to consider using them, there's no doubt that they'd save the industrialized nations amazing amounts of money, as well.
Frankly, I suspect we'd do more for the developing world by adopting this sort of thing for ourselves--which is not to say, of course, that we shouldn't encourage them to skip our wasteful ways in favor of the right way to do things.
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
One way to bring down the cost would be to sell them in the developed world. A finished product, that could screw into a standard light socket, but use 1/100th the power to provide the same light would sell well in the U.S.
Especially with all the noise about power shortages and rolling blackouts.
Selling them in the U.S. and the rest of the developed world would go a long way towards creating enough demand for serious mass production.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Yeah, too bad the article doesn't mention that it takes more power to make a white LED than you would save with fifty 100-watt lightbulbs.
i don't know about developing countries, but think about how much good it would do to get the overweight sedentary people here in the US off their asses and on a bike. Aside from energy savings, think of the savings from improving health
Here is a link to some products with white LEDs. Hopefully they can find some better uses =p
"I either want less corruption, or more chance
to participate in it." -- Ashleigh Brilliant
uh, ok. $1 a piece for a .1 watt bulb. sounds great. Exactly how many would I have to gang to be able to read my newspaper?
Maybe not that many... Remember that the efficiency of a normal light bulb is very very bad, since most of its energy is dissipated as heat. I wouldn't be suprised if a 100W bulb only produced 1W of visible light.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
You should stop being so paternalistic and conservative. The attitude of your response shows you romanticize poverty, and mistake powerlessness for aestheticism.
Some people might be better off without lights or connection to a power grid.
So I suppose it never occurred to anyone that this might be of use in hospitals or clinics?
Does anyone realize how important low cost oil lamps were to families back during the industrial revolution. In those times, a worker would generally work all day until dark, and then after work, spend an hour or two of quality time with his/her family. How much quality would your time have if it was dark and you had no light source?
We all need to step back from our CRTs/LCDs for a second and realize that many places haven't even reached where the western world was 100 years ago!
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Have you ever used any of the "traditional" light sources he is trying to eliminate in the article? And, have you ever visited any of the communities this is targeted towards? In the US, there is absolutely no reason to use this kind of system, but the rest of the world does not always have the same standards of living that the US does.
I spent some time working in rural villages in the Dominican Republic, and I can guarantee that you have no idea what real poverty is until you have been to some such place. These people had no electricity (the nearest town with power was 40 miles away), no potable water or sewage, nor any other form of technology more advanced that several hundred years ago. Their lives are regulated by the day/night cycle; you get up at dawn, work hard, and go to bed at dusk because kerosene is too expensive, as are candles. I really hope you weren't suggesting using electric lanterns, as that would just have been silly. THAT is the target market for these kind of devices. He is talking about producing these for about $50/household, maybe less. This probabally won't be paid for by the people themselves, but more likely by first-world charity organizations, or subsidies from the parent government.
Please, please read and comprehend the article before you reply.
Having lived in a developing country for several years, I can appreciate this groups efforts and the technological advances made here but...
Where I lived (a rural part of Thailand) very few if anyone would have used the generator. Why? Because they can rent car batteries from a business down the road for all their electrical needs (which are very few - a few flourescent lightbulbs and occasionally TV).
In my case, the business was hooked up to the power grid for recharging batteries but I also saw even more remote places where they had a generator (gas? Diesel? Never checked) for the same purpose.
Having participated in harvesting rice, I really doubt any farmer would want to hop on their pedal-powered generator at the end of a day of back-breaking field work to charge up their batteries for a night of bad soap operas.
a) Apparently you don't have access to common sense either. Criminals prefer dark alleys to well-lit streets. The "data" that you fail to cite is probably inconclusive, since there are a billion variables involved with comparing the crime trends in location A to the crime trends in location B.
b) Where are you getting this stuff? If we didn't have well-lit urban culture, we'd still think that the Earth is a flat disc a few miles in diameter, with a large mechanical sphere surrounding it. That's not exactly what I'd consider an appreciation for the vastness of the Universe.
c) People watching television probably learn more about the vastness of the Universe than you will staring at the night sky.
Stop puking up luddite FUD, please. You're making a mess.
You're right on.
.1 watt bulb of some new technology giving the same light output as a 100 watt incandescent tungsten filament bulb.
With as long as we've had "100 watt" and "60 watt" lightbulbs, people have gotten it into their heads that the wattage rating is a measure of the light output.
I would have to work out the physics to see if it's possible, but I don't immediately see any barrier to a
Some people do not want or have a need for the modern medicine that a hospital or clinic would provide.
I think that the "some people" that you refer to are in the minority.
I understand that 'some people' may not want modern medicine due to various reasons. Of course, 'some people' would prefer to die in agony from a burst appendix than get medical help. 'Some people' get a nice case of lockjaw from the tetanus infection they got from a cut. 'Some people' walk with a limp from that leg that they broke when they were six. 'Some people' just plain lose all their teeth by the time they are 35, presuming that they live that long.
But I'm sure 'most people' would rather have a hospital or clinic nearby. And, when it comes down to it, most people are pretty flexible about issues such as their personal beliefs conflicting with urgent medical treatment.
The fact of the matter is that it's our duty to provide opportunities for those who are less fortunate than us to improve themselves. That hosptial or clinic full of modern medicine has to be there on the off-chance that it might save a few lives and improve their quality of living. If pedal-powered LED lights gets it there, well I'm all for it.
If you can get a population that is healthy , they can get on with improving their situation. If they're so busy fighting to keep alive, well improvement takes a back seat.
This has turned into a bit of a rant. But having visited places where "upper class" living means having a toilet (which may be flushed with a bucket), it kinda stirs me up a bit.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
You can do that, but:
1. Somebody's already done that before. R+G+B LEDs are an older technology. They are more complicated to produce than the traditional blue+phosphorous white LEDs and thus cost more.
2. White LEDs produce a nice wide spectrum. R+G+B LEDs produce narrow peaks of output. This makes them inferior for illuminating objects and having said objects look right. If the object reflects a narrow band of bluish green light, a light source containing blue and green will result in a dark-looking object. Also, if you've ever worn glasses the prism effect of R+G+B is noticeable (and annoying).