12 replies to this topic

[yoder]

I'm not sure if this should be considered a renewable energy story or not, but a company is using Kickstarter to fund the production and sales of genehacked seeds that will grow bioluminescent plants.  The more realistic expectation in the short term is that they will ship plants that faintly glow in a pitch black room, but the hope is that eventually they will be able to grow bioluminescent trees that can act as street lighting, or gardens of glowing roses.

Now the scifi nerd in me thinks, "it's about darned time", but the organic gardener in me shudders at the thought of genehacked plants cross pollinating and decimating entire species of plants, insects and animals that rely on them.

And although the idea of bioluminescent trees lining our streets and providing free lighting at night sounds cool, the light pollution from that would be distressing to just about every astronomer.  Astronomers have made headway in getting street light manufacturers to create more efficient lights that direct the light to the street instead of dispersing it out and up and creating light pollution that is visible for dozens of miles.

Bottom line:  Cool scifi idea, but with a healthy dose of skepticism.

[E3 wise]

I agree completely as an organic gardener I also wonder about the unknown consequences of manipulating nature and how it would affect pollinating insects, while like you being a science geek think it's a neat idea, just goes to show the huge range of issues that are raised by humans hacking the planet and nature.

Just goes to show how much more awareness we have today of possible negative outcomes over preceding generations.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

See also-
http://www.altenergy...go-haywire-imo/

[still learning]

yoder, on 12 May 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

.......The more realistic expectation in the short term is that they will ship plants that faintly glow in a pitch black room, but the hope is that eventually they will be able to grow bioluminescent trees that can act as street lighting, or gardens of glowing roses.......with a healthy dose of skepticism.

I'm really skeptical too.

It's one thing for a plant to store enough energy during the day and to later convert that stored energy to enough light so that there is "a faint glow visible in a pitch dark room"  and something much harder to store enough energy to act as a streetlight, for all night anyway.
Green plant cells collect sunlight and save some of that energy by reducing carbon dioxide to carbohydrate, so as to be able to later use some of the energy produced during the oxidation of carbohydrate back to CO2.  Use that stored energy to produce light and it won't be available for normal purposes.  I really doubt that plants have the energy to spare for streetlighting. To convince me otherwise,  I'd want to see the actual thing work, or at least some relevant numbers.

[yoder]

Ya, sounds like just adding a bioluminescent gene will not be enough.  There needs to be something feeding the plant with enough energy to luminesce.  Early humans found that eating meat gave them the energy to grow larger brains, so maybe if the plants became carnivorous they could generate enough energy to light our streets. We just wouldn't be able to walk them for fear of being eaten.

Sounds like one of those gee whiz things that gets people excited/riled up and then fades away (kinda like my flying car darn it).

But I'm still waiting for my flying car.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

yoder, on 14 May 2013 - 06:24 PM, said:

Ya, sounds like just adding a bioluminescent gene will not be enough.  There needs to be something feeding the plant with enough energy to luminesce.  Early humans found that eating meat gave them the energy to grow larger brains, so maybe if the plants became carnivorous they could generate enough energy to light our streets. We just wouldn't be able to walk them for fear of being eaten.

Sounds like one of those gee whiz things that gets people excited/riled up and then fades away (kinda like my flying car darn it).

But I'm still waiting for my flying car.

I don't think a carnivorous daisy or violet would make me go screaming into the night; but a cactus plant would.

[Besoeker]

yoder, on 12 May 2013 - 02:58 PM, said:

And although the idea of bioluminescent trees lining our streets and providing free lighting at night sounds cool, the light pollution from that would be distressing to just about every astronomer.  Astronomers have made headway in getting street light manufacturers to create more efficient lights that direct the light to the street instead of dispersing it out and up and creating light pollution that is visible for dozens of miles.

I agree with your point about light pollution.A clear sky and with brilliant stars one of the things I miss about living far out in the countryside where I grew up.

A while back, maybe a couple of years ago, I was flying back home from Edinburgh to one of the London airports. It was at night and I had a window seat. What struck me was that, at no point on the one hour flight, was there any time when we were out of sight of lights.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Besoeker, on 18 May 2013 - 09:40 AM, said:

I agree with your point about light pollution.A clear sky and with brilliant stars one of the things I miss about living far out in the countryside where I grew up.

A while back, maybe a couple of years ago, I was flying back home from Edinburgh to one of the London airports. It was at night and I had a window seat. What struck me was that, at no point on the one hour flight, was there any time when we were out of sight of lights.

[E3 wise]

The subject of light pollution is one I am very familiar with.  At 10 I got my first small refracting telescope and fell head over heals with astronomy. In 1980 I purchase my first Meade 10 inch Schmitt-Casagrain telescope and a few years later moved to Florida.  In those days we would load up and make a twenty mile trip to our dark sky site.  But with the development of South Florida today we have to make a 110 mile trip to get to our dark sky site in Everglades national park.

Light pollution is also a big problem with nesting sea turtles here who become disoriented and either miss nesting beaches completely or nest in bad areas that cause significant die off of hatchlings.  On this front some progress has been made to convert nesting areas over to special lighting.

The feeling of standing under a star filled sky on a moonless night with the Milky Way stretched out before you is one everyone should experience, today's kids living in cities are missing being exposed to the wonder and amazement of the universe.  One of my very first activism was with the dark sky project and I still support their work today.
Jeff

[Shortpoet-GTD]

E3 wise, on 18 May 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

The subject of light pollution is one I am very familiar with.  At 10 I got my first small refracting telescope and fell head over heals with astronomy. In 1980 I purchase my first Meade 10 inch Schmitt-Casagrain telescope and a few years later moved to Florida.  In those days we would load up and make a twenty mile trip to our dark sky site.  But with the development of South Florida today we have to make a 110 mile trip to get to our dark sky site in Everglades national park.

Light pollution is also a big problem with nesting sea turtles here who become disoriented and either miss nesting beaches completely or nest in bad areas that cause significant die off of hatchlings.  On this front some progress has been made to convert nesting areas over to special lighting.

The feeling of standing under a star filled sky on a moonless night with the Milky Way stretched out before you is one everyone should experience, today's kids living in cities are missing being exposed to the wonder and amazement of the universe.  One of my very first activism was with the dark sky project and I still support their work today.
Jeff

North Koreans, as bad as they have it otherwise, see the stars clearly.

[Besoeker]

E3 wise, on 18 May 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

The feeling of standing under a star filled sky on a moonless night with the Milky Way stretched out before you is one everyone should experience, today's kids living in cities are missing being exposed to the wonder and amazement of the universe.

Totally agree. As I noted above I was lucky, in many ways that I didn't properly appreciate at the time, to have grown up in the countryside. It wasn't just countryside, it was a farm in one of the glens in Scotland. We were fairly self sufficient in growing most of our food, either in the ground or on two or four legs. We had our own source of water and a wood burning stove for cooking and heat.

My interests and education took me in a different direction. I have done my bit for the environment over the years but I still miss living on the farm. Being on fairly high ground, it had excellent views but the flip side was the usually severe winters combined with the remoteness. And you can't as my mother often said, eat the views. But then she was a townie....

The ShortPoet kindly put up a world map of illumination into the night sky. It shows a couple of fairly dark areas on the African continent. One of the areas is the Sahara Desert. I was there for a while and the sky was amazing. Not just the stars but the sky was black. Stygian black. One of my colleagues, who was there just prior to me, also commented on it.

But what really brought back the memories of the night skies we had when I was growing up was  South Africa. I had to drive from Johannesburg to Cape Town. The drive, about 16000km, is through some very sparsely populated regions. It had been suggested that we (had the family with me) should stop and look at the night sky. Amazing. And I think it was the first time my children ever had such a brilliant display of what the sky can look like.

Back to the bioluminescent trees......or street lighting in general......
I think, even if we can make the light source directional, and we can, there is still the issue of reflected light. And that's actually how we see things. Not by the actual light source but by the light reflected by the things.

If bioluminescent trees or any other such source can be made to work to effectively for street, or highway lighting, that must surely be a net positive for the environment.

There was some discussion here in UK about turning off street lights after a certain time at night. Maybe midnight was suggested. Pubs mostly close at 11:00 pm so even those revelers ought to be home by midnight. The same on illuminated sections of motorways (highways).

On street lighting some objections, quite legitimately, were raised by people who work shifts like nurses who walk home from work at unsociable hours and the darkness inviting/facilitating crimes against pep This got aired on a local radio talk show that I often catch on my way to work. It one of those that asks people to call in. I did. I suggested motion sensors to switch on street lights, a bunch of them, if  people were detected. It's technically feasible but, of course, there would be a cost. At present, I think a good many of our lights work work on locally mounted light intensity detectors thus, autonomously.

[DeeNeely]

E3 wise, on 18 May 2013 - 08:27 PM, said:

One of my very first activism was with the dark sky project and I still support their work today.
Jeff

Me, too. For those who don't know http://www.darkskiesawareness.org/

[Faith A. Colburn]

Bioluminescent trees seem problematic to me for all the reasons mentioned above.

I like the idea of lighting our streets with lights on motion sensors. That way, we're only using light when it's needed. I REALLY miss living on my family's farm where I could turn the lights out at night and -- except for the moon and stars -- have actual darkness outside.  The nearest neighbor was over a mile away and his yard light just looked like another star.

I don't know if they would be bright enough, but I don't know why street lights couldn't gather solar energy during the day and give it off at night, like those solar lights people use along their driveways and walkways. I suppose it would be expensive to convert to such a system and the collectors would have to be larger than the marker lights, but perhaps the savings in energy cost could make up for the expense. Is it possible to combine motion sensors with solar technology?