Sunlight in a Tube 463
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)."
Oh crap. (Score:4, Funny)
How the hell am I going to maintain my pasty zombie-like complexion if they allow sunlight into the building?
Re:Oh crap. (Score:2)
HSL is an insufficiently sexy TLA for market traction.
We're safe.
You think that's bad. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You think that's bad. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You think that's bad. (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:You think that's bad. (Score:3, Informative)
Sunblock? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sunblock? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What's the system called? (Score:5, Funny)
I think it might be called hybrid solar lighting? Not sure though. Could anyone confirm?
Already out there... (Score:2, Informative)
Dearie me, yesterday's news for nerds indeed - architects have been using these systems for at least a few years now...
[shuffles off back under his stone...]
Re:What's the system called? (Score:4, Funny)
You might want to check Google (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What's the system called? (Score:2)
Windows don't have the "bling bling" factor.
Re:What's the system called? (Score:5, Funny)
They don't allow us to talk to him or even look at him directly. Although, I do toss in some raw meat an a cold Mt. Dew now and than just to keep the noise level down.
Re:What's the system called? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:What's the system called? (Score:2)
Re:What's the system called? (Score:2, Informative)
This is nothing new... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:4, Interesting)
Propane is just a burning gas, but gasoline employs internal combustion engines and refineries and all that.
They're more relaxed than they used to be, especially for their businesses, but they still try to keep it down to basics where feasable.
Their buggies need blinking lights by law, so they have no choice but to give in on some technologies.
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:2, Interesting)
Not that I'm saying anything bad about the Amish; I doubt that the average person on the street, or the average slashdotter understands those either.
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:5, Interesting)
The documentary is mostly about Amish kids when they go on their "rumspringa," but I learned a ton about the Amish in general.
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:2, Informative)
For instance, Amish are trying out cell phones. They are picky, but the criteria they use is 'will the tech bring us closer together or drive us further apart?'
For instance, they tried land phones...and apparently the lines got crossed, and someone heard a neighbor badmouthing her...
They also felt it was rude to leave the people that were in your house to talk to someone who's 'not there.'
For those reasons, they didn't adpot telephones.
But they are using compute
1988 Called... (Score:5, Funny)
(This is not intended to flame the parent post... it's along the vein of "This is nothin new...")
Re:1988 Called... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:1988 Called... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fluorescent lights are from the devil. This has to be an improvement over those horrible, glaring examples of last week's technology.
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:2)
Re:This is nothing new... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, this is different than simple redirected light. Check out this link [energy.gov] for more information. Basically, it runs the sunlight through fiberoptic cables to light fixtures that work much like our current light bulbs. These means that you won't have to have serious architectural redesigns of buildings to get the same effect. It also will generate electricity that can be used for other applications (powering computers?). It is basically a hybrid approach to lighting.
I've had this in my office for years (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I've had this in my office for years (Score:5, Funny)
You've got windows in your office. I've got Office on my Windows.
But wouldn't you prefer to have Enlightenment? With a light tube, we'd no longer have to live like gnomWHAMWHAMWHAM, OK, I'll stop now.
Re:I've had this in my office for years (Score:2)
-N
Re:I've had this in my office for years (Score:2)
Re:I've had this in my office for years (Score:2)
That would give you a green tan, not a bronze one.
We already have that (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I've had this in my office for years (Score:2)
You dreamkiller.
~D
Re:I've had this in my office for years (Score:3, Funny)
No sun please we're British. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No sun please we're British. (Score:2)
Re:No sun please we're British. (Score:5, Funny)
this isn't news (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.skylights-of-hawaii.com/page13.html
Re:this isn't news (Score:5, Informative)
This may be the first ever (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This may be the first ever (Score:5, Funny)
This may be the first ever entirely content-free story on Slashdot?
Obviously you don't remember Jon Katz.
Re:This may be the first ever (Score:3, Funny)
From the linked article:
Observation one: Slate needs editors.
Observation two: Does the title of that book sound like a beastiality extravaganza, or what?
Article already.. (Score:2)
We have light in buildings, it's called windows. We're not living in 1984, it is okay to see the outside world.
Re:Article already.. (Score:3, Insightful)
New Open-Source Lighting System (Score:5, Funny)
I have this in my house (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of a story ... (Score:2)
Not quite 20 years ago, I was sharing a house in Boston with another hacker. One day, the office manager from work had to come pick up some documents, and was horrified to find how we lived. There was a room, possibly labeled "kitchen" on the architectural drawings, but we had converted into "computer room" (well, with that 240V 50A outlet in there, where else were we going to plug in the VAX?)
She took pity upon us, and she and one of her girlfriends came to give the place a good de-toxing. She explai
Underworld (Score:2)
This just in... (Score:5, Funny)
i have two (Score:3, Informative)
one in a windowless bathroom and another in the kitchen, this is not new, mine are over 10 years old...
Is it really something new? (Score:2)
Solar Lighting (Score:4, Informative)
University of Minnesota Engineering School (Score:2)
--
suso.org website/email hosting [suso.org], no disk
Mid 80's (Score:2, Interesting)
It was on Beyond 2000 (The tv show.)
The roof of the building had the ends of fiber optics and every desk had a tube-like lamp.
They said it was to freshen up the workers.
The funny part: In the mid 90's I heard a similar building was sued by an employee for skin cancer!
Gotta love it.
Odd. (Score:2)
It's just fiber optics. (Score:2)
From TFA:
I know for a fact that they've been doing this with light bulbs for a while (they collect like 90% of the emitted light from a halogen bulb and then can light, say, a staircase with it). Why nobody's done this earlier with sunlight, I have no idea.
This stuff has been available for 15 YEARS (Score:2, Informative)
Has there been a breakthrough? A cost drop? Or is it just that Oak Ridge started playing with it?
This is great and not great (Score:2)
Not great in that it does nothing to help me with my lighting problems when it's actually dark out, which is when I need light the most. If you think about it, this is an improvement on the window, not the light bulb.
Also, I bet those tubes present opportunities for leaks.
Is this really a new idea? (Score:2)
I'm just really tired of me thinking of something then seeing it proclaimed as new several years later.
TIR Systems (Score:2, Interesting)
The startup phase has its usual challenges, I'm sure, especially finding markets, but the company has become very successful and very well known.
It's called TIR Systems [tirsys.com] .
(Unfortunately I can't comment on the cited article as it's already slashdotted.)
existed for many many years... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Not New (Score:2)
Sounds like "Not Invented Here" syndrome.
Agreed (Score:2)
I am not saying that Mother Earth news is the inventor, just that the tech existed 30 years ago, was published 30 years ago. Heck I am going to scour a few more of the older Mother E
So 1998. (Score:2)
Google Link [google.com]
This IS new technology! (Score:5, Informative)
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".
Re:This IS new technology! (Score:3, Informative)
(Very) Old idea, new technology (Score:3, Interesting)
Next Step or Beyond 2000 (Score:2)
I miss those shows. So far ahead they beat Slashdot by 10 years.
Largest Consumption of Electricity? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Deck prisms and SOLF tubes (Score:5, Informative)
And 3M had a material called SOLF, a vaguely Scotchlite-like material with tiny prism that could be made into tubes with highly efficient nearly-total internal reflection, that could carry light in, say, six-inch pipes over distances of many yards with negligible loss. Not terribly expensive, either.
I remember... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hybrid != Light Tube (Score:5, Informative)
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 [energy.gov]:
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:
Versus developing LED technologies? (Score:3, Interesting)
Given that these things can be installed using current systems, and have very low current draw and heat generation, I'm wondering how well what is essentially an architectural design element, with the implications of same from implementation through to building code (including safety features such and firewalling and the like) will be able to compete against LED fixtures and similar.
What about the extra heat? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's called... (Score:2, Funny)
What's wrong with Lightsabres?
"Hey, Yoda, back off, ya trying to blind me?"
Re:It's called... (Score:3, Informative)
Its called a Tubular Skylight [suntunnel.com]
Re:It's called... (Score:4, Informative)
The System from the article is not that new either, the basic idea has been around for a while. Although the cost of the Optic Fibre (vs. under priced electric power) has always been a factor limiting the deployment of systems such as the one in the article.
The Advantage of and Optic Fibre System is that optic fibre can carry light at much lower loss levels per metre. This means a fibre system is good for multi-storey work, like commercial office buildings.
Where we are trying to push the light 7-8m(21-26ft) horizontally into the building. Vertically allow say +3m(10-12ft) per floor. In an 8 storey building you need to be able to push light around 40m and around many corners.
An the advantages of using natural light are more than just the power saving. Using Natural light can vastly improve the health of the building. Enclosed areas like fire stairs, toilets, plant rooms will all stay cleaner if lit with natural light.
Re:It's called... (Score:2, Funny)
That reminds me of the old patent office joke, about the guy who invented a solar-powered flashlight...
Re:It's called... (Score:3, Interesting)
Or sunpipe.. (Score:5, Interesting)
..and I know T.I.R. systems [tirsys.com] has been making light-pipe for at least that long.. not that its not cool, its just sort of, you know.. old.
Re:Or sunpipe.. (Score:5, Interesting)
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]"
Re:Or sunpipe.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Or sunpipe.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Or sunpipe.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Smog Alerts in the Los Angeles area:
1975: 118
1980: 102
1985: 83
1990: 42
1995: 14
2000: 0
And what's this obsession with carbon these days? Even if you choose to believe that human activity is somehow causaly related to global warming, it's a bit of a reach to pin th
Re:Tinfoil Goggles (Score:3, Informative)
Some of these gases, unfortunately, are pretty toxic to us.
This has happened before, without our intervention. We're just conducting an experiment on a much larger scale than is
Re:Tinfoil Goggles (Score:3, Insightful)
125 years ago? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fibre Optics? (Score:2)
RTFA, moron (Score:5, Informative)
In the system, a rooftop collector concentrates and sends sunlight through optical fibers, tubes made of special, high-purity material that transmit light by reflecting it down their inner walls.
Re:RTFA, moron (Score:2)
Re:RTFA, moron (Score:5, Informative)
In the fiber optics community, this is called a multimode fiber: a core of material with a higher index of refraction surrounding by a cladding of lower refractive index. The ratio of core radius to cladding radius is high, and so a large number of modes of EM radiation are supported (i.e., most wavelengths of light are transmitted through the fiber.)
In fact, the language is precisely that of fiber optics: at these scales, the size of the fiber core is much greater than that of the wavelength of the light, and so the ray-like properties of light dominate. (i.e., the light beams "bounce back and forth on the walls".)
In single-moded fibers, the ratio of the core radius to cladding radius is extremely low: on the order of the wavelength of the transmitted light. At this scale the wave-like nature of light dominates. (You need to characterize the behavior using Maxwell's equations, rather than simpler "bouncing" notions.)
The downside is that a multimode fiber has a high leakage and is not suitable for long-distance transmission. Fortunately, that's not a problem here, since the light only need to be transmitted on the order of meters to tens of meters. -- Paul
Re:Fibre Optics? (Score:2)
What exactly are they working on? Just stick a lens at the end of an optic cable and a dome on the other and bam free lighting.
Re:Efficient(?) (Score:2)
Re:Um.. (Score:2)
But if that's all they're talking about, well, those have been available in home improvement stores for at least 10 years.
Re:Old news (Score:2)