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Sunlight in a Tube
Elitist_Phoenix writes "Scientists are developing a technology to save energy by transmitting sunlight into buildings through tubes. Indoor electric lighting is the largest consumer of electricity in commercial buildings. Their new system. called hybrid solar lighting, would reduce this energy usage with fixtures that supplement or completely replace electric light with sunlight, at times when its available. The system is called hybrid solar lighting (Google)."
So what SPF will my employer be required to provide for my balding head?
all the Amish retailers here use the same sort of thing. They can light a supermarket with redirected light during daylight hours, and light up the propane system once the natural light is gone.
Never ask for directions from a two-headed tourist! -Big Bird
I live in Britain you insensitive clod!
It's called "Lux-In".
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
I have large, rectangular transparent panels installed in many of my exterior walls. They work very well!
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
After Scientists tackled the perplexing problem of getting light through a wall, via what is now called a "window," they moved on to the even more confounding "wheel," "fire," and "walking erect" problems. More news on these stories as they develop.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Environmental Building News, Volume 8, Number 10 - October 1999
Imagine a device that sits on the roof of a building and focuses sunlight into cables the size of electrical wire. These cables are run through walls and ceiling plenums into light fixtures that beam natural, full spectrum daylight deep into a building's interior."
it's called Hybrid Lighting or Daylighting. Been around for a looooooong time.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
All of you who are immediately attacking the idea saying "haven't we done this before" are missing the point. This is not just redirected light. It is transporting the light through fiberoptic cables and transferring that energy through regular light fixtures. This would allow solar power to light internal rooms that don't have windows. It also will generate electricity for other internal applications beyond light.
This technology would allow businesses to retrofit their buildings with solar light without having to do heavy remodelling to add skylights (the old way of doing it). This can be especially difficult for multi-floored buildings with internal rooms. Please read about the technology before immediately dismissing it as "nothing new".
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
If you think this is old news being recycled, wait for the dupe.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"Indoor electric lighting is the largest consumer of electricity in commercial buildings."
Where is this true? I worked as a stationary engineer in commercial buildings for years. HVAC was, I thought, always the biggest consumption of power. Of course, I'm in Las Vegas where in the summer the power bills are 4 times in the summer what they are in the fall.
The prevailing opinion here seems to be that this is a stupid story, because light pipes are old news. Two people have even been moderated up to +5 for posting links to light pipe vendors.
Light pipes are NOT the story here. Hybrid lighting is a NEW lighting system which separates the visible and IR components of sunlight, directing the visible components to room lighting and the IR components to thermo-voltaic generator, which stores electrical energy to light the room after the sun has gone down. Ordinary light pipes do not do that.
From the U.S. Department of Energy Solar FAQ:
Q:How does a hybrid solar lighting (HSL) system work?
A:Imagine being able to light your home or office most of the day, and on most days, with sunlight, but not the kind that comes through the windows. That's what hybrid solar lighting (or HSL) systems are being developed to do. Prototype HSL systems are made up of roof-mounted concentrators that collect and separate the visible and infrared portions of sunlight. The visible portion of the light is distributed through large-diameter optical fibers to hybrid luminaires. (Hybrid luminaires are lighting fixtures that contain both electric lamps and fiber optics to distribute sunlight directly.) Unlike conventional electric lamps, the solar component of HSL produces little heat.
The remaining "invisible" energy in the sunlight, mostly infrared radiation, is directed to a concentrating thermo-photovoltaic (solar) cell that very efficiently converts infrared radiation into electricity. The resulting electric power can be directed to other uses in a building. When sunlight is plentiful, the fiber optics in the luminaires can provide all or most of the light needed in a particular area. But when there is little or no sunlight, sensor-controlled electric lamps turn on to maintain the desired illumination level.
Independent cost and performance models suggest the overall affordability of solar energy could be doubled or tripled by using this new hybrid approach. The multidisciplinary R&D effort involved in developing HSL includes several industrial and university partners. Other Resources:
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Put the window in a field for 10 years, let it soak up the sunlight and the scenery, then hang it indoors on any wall, and get a clear view of what went on 10 years ago.
Of course, since light goes both ways, at the end of the 10 years, if you unmount the window and look in from the back you'd be able to see what went on in the house 10 years ago. I can see a LOT of people (hello Michael Jackson) "accidently breaking" their slow windows when they expire.
Oh, well, maybe the next version of Longhorn will give us a similar experience with "slow windows [tt]"
How many Freudians does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two! One to replace the bulb, the other to hold the penis.
No more jokes about Freudian Strips I'm afraid.
William Wheeler invented a system to light up buildings with light pipes in 1880.