Interesting new light bulb

[Arlo]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-2353 ... ontinues_1.

Pictures inside link

Alfredo Moser's invention is lighting up the world. In 2002, the Brazilian mechanic had a light-bulb moment and came up with a way of illuminating his house during the day without electricity - using nothing more than plastic bottles filled with water and a tiny bit of bleach.

In the last two years his innovation has spread throughout the world. It is expected to be in one million homes by early next year.

So how does it work? Simple refraction of sunlight, explains Moser, as he fills an empty two-litre plastic bottle.

"Add two capfuls of bleach to protect the water so it doesn't turn green [with algae]. The cleaner the bottle, the better," he adds.

Wrapping his face in a cloth he makes a hole in a roof tile with a drill. Then, from the bottom upwards, he pushes the bottle into the newly-made hole.

"You fix the bottle in with polyester resin. Even when it rains, the roof never leaks - not one drop."

"An engineer came and measured the light," he says. "It depends on how strong the sun is but it's more or less 40 to 60 watts," he says.

The inspiration for the "Moser lamp" came to him during one of the country's frequent electricity blackouts in 2002. "The only places that had energy were the factories - not people's houses," he says, talking about the city where he lives, Uberaba, in southern Brazil.

Moser and his friends began to wonder how they would raise the alarm, in case of an emergency, such as a small plane coming down, imagining a situation in which they had no matches.

His boss at the time suggested getting a discarded plastic bottle, filling it with water and using it as a lens to focus the sun's rays on dry grass. That way one could start a fire, as a signal to rescuers. This idea stuck in Moser's head - he started playing around, filling up bottles and making circles of refracted light.

Soon he had developed the lamp.

"I didn't make any design drawings," he says.

"It's a divine light. God gave the sun to everyone, and light is for everyone. Whoever wants it saves money. You can't get an electric shock from it, and it doesn't cost a penny."

Moser has installed the bottle lamps in neighbours' houses and the local supermarket.

While he does earn a few dollars installing them, it's obvious from his simple house and his 1974 car that his invention hasn't made him wealthy. What it has given him is a great sense of pride.

"There was one man who installed the lights and within a month he had saved enough to pay for the essential things for his child, who was about to be born. Can you imagine?" he says.

Carmelinda, Moser's wife of 35 years, says her husband has always been very good at making things around the home, including some fine wooden beds and tables.

But she's not the only one who admires his lamp invention. Illac Angelo Diaz, executive director of the MyShelter Foundation in the Philippines, is another.

MyShelter specialises in alternative construction, creating houses using sustainable or recycled materials such as bamboo, tyre and paper.

"We had huge amounts of bottle donations," he says.

"So we filled them with mud and created walls, and filled them with water to make windows.

"When we were trying to add more, somebody said: 'Hey, somebody has also done that in Brazil. Alfredo Moser is putting them on roofs.'"

Following the Moser method, MyShelter started making the lamps in June 2011. They now train people to create and install the bottles, in order to earn a small income.

In the Philippines, where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line, and electricity is unusually expensive, the idea has really taken off, with Moser lamps now fitted in 140,000 homes.

The idea has also caught on in about 15 other countries, from India and Bangladesh, to Tanzania, Argentina and Fiji.

Diaz says you can find Moser lamps in some remote island communities. "They say, 'Well, we just saw it from our neighbour and it looked like a good idea.'"

People in poor areas are also able to grow food on small hydroponic farms, using the light provided by the bottle lamps, he says.

Overall, Diaz estimates, one million people will have benefited from the lamps by the start of next year.

"Alfredo Moser has changed the lives of a tremendous number of people, I think forever," he says.

"Whether or not he gets the Nobel Prize, we want him to know that there are a great number of people who admire what he is doing."

Did Moser himself imagine that his invention would have such an impact?

"I'd have never imagined it, No," says Moser, shaking with emotion.

"It gives you goose-bumps to think about it."

[J.J.B.]

Yes, interesting, worthy, sustainable and also totally hopeless at night.

I, however, am waiting to kit my place out with the new LIFX bulbs, if only anybody could get hold of them...

http://lifx.co/

[Dannie Boy]

Yes, interesting, worthy, sustainable and also totally hopeless at night.

I, however, am waiting to kit my place out with the new LIFX bulbs, if only anybody could get hold of them...

http://lifx.co/

Not cheap, but an amazing product that will presumably become more economical over time - I hope so because I have just done a count up and I have over 80 bulbs in my house!!

[Arlo]

Yes, interesting, worthy, sustainable and also totally hopeless at night.

I, however, am waiting to kit my place out with the new LIFX bulbs, if only anybody could get hold of them...

http://lifx.co/

Yes hopeless at night but if you live in a windowless shack in the slums or on a farm somewhere where the door is the only place that light can come in, then this idea would be a nice upgrade. We all know there are plenty of plastic bottles in Thailand.

[StevePIraq]

Hopeless at night, true but what have you proposed? nothing like most people.

This oh so simple application has changed the life of millions, easy to berate when you have electricity 24/7.

Why not try living the life that multiple millions of people have to endure.

I bitch every day in my situation when mains power goes off and I loose what I had been typing, omg the end of the world,

Think of others sometime

[J.J.B.]

[quote="StevePIraq"Think of others sometime[/quote]

I frequently do, be it as part of an organisation that is responsible for providing over 10 million free malaria treatments in Africa each year or an individual who is responsible for administering the provision of over 30,000 free cancer treatments throughout Europe.

Regardless, what Arlo highlights is not a 'light bulb' but a very clever sunlight distributing device and I haven't "berated" the post, rather pointed out that it is hopeless at night, which it is. Neither of you have addressed this or what the "multiple millions of people have to endure" then, so perhaps I was not clear enough. If you knew anything about LIFX and the incredible technology they are developing, it's not about fancy-pants lighting systems but how they can generate enough revenue to revolutionise the entire way we think about artificial light generation. I've been following them through kickstarter for over two years and their journey has not been easy, as kickstarter requires individual funding/donations to get ideas off the ground that are rarely funded through mainstream sources.

With enough support, the people who are currently relying on the Moser lamp for their daylight because they can't afford electricity can hope for something like LIFX that will produce light at a fraction of the cost of any type of incandescent light.

[StevePIraq]

I 100% agree with you, maybe my take on your post was not correct however non of this helps the people who have nothing and no support from their governments who reap substantial benefits.

A simple light during daylight hours is an immense help to people.

If only advancement was not always in the hands of business the world would be a better place

[J.J.B.]

If only advancement was not always in the hands of business the world would be a better place

Advancement, or innovation, isn't always in the hands of business and I'd probably say that in the vast majority of cases it comes from individual inventors, entrepreneurs or small teams working on solving problems. Innovation can be taking an old idea and finding a new application for it (Arlo's post) or creating something the world as never seen before (my post). At some point, however, somebody has to pay for it because few, if any, things in this world are free, as we all know. Even the Moser lamps cost a small amount to make and the funding there has been provided by an NGO.

But it's not all bad. When an entrepreneur takes their idea to market, they need an investor - usually a business of some sort - and sometimes this investor can make the idea better by lending their experience and technical know-how to its production. It may cost a lot at first but gradually gets chaper over time and as more firms become familiar with the technology, even more affordable until it is the norm since everyone can afford it. I may be wrong but I think economists call this the 'trickle down' effect. You need wealthy people or nations to buy new things when they are expensive in order to increase their overall adoption and in they end, anyone can buy them.

In a way, I think even the plastic bottles we are discussing started like this. It wasn't so long ago that drinks only came in glass bottles or cans and water was something you would take from a public fountain when you were out and about. The early plastic bottles were fairly thick, rigid plastic with a separate base piece that was the preserve of the large drinks companies, who charged a premium price. What became apparent later, from carrying smaller, 500ml plastic bottles of water wasn't that people wanted to drink more of it in preference to anything else but that it finally made water portable. You no longer needed to find a fountain or go into a café for a drink, you could easily take it with you and that created a real expolsion in demand...and supply.

Within probably 20 years, from virtually nothing, plastic bottles are now everywhere in all shapes and sizes and using technology that makes them much thinner, cheaper, capable of being recycled and universally available; it's an interesting story.

[Arlo]

I know its not a light bulb. I just thought this was pretty cool and by no means was this post meant to start a debate. I was looking at it as a positive thing and thought I would share.

[StevePIraq]

And it is a fantastic positive thing. More power to the inventor, oh I forgot he doesn't need power.