Algae-powered street lamps suck up C02

hi there all

just found this whilst surfing around... pretty damn cool i must say, would be great to see those around cities to replace that bloody awful orange glow that emits from every town & city... green would be way cooler...!

Like most plants, many varieties of algae are photosynthetic, which means they feed on sunlight and produce oxygen as a byproduct. Some species are algae are also mixotrophic, meaning they are able to derive energy both from photosynthesis and uptake of organic carbon.

It is this last characteristic that was of particular interest to French biochemist Pierre Calleja, who has spent several years developing an algae-powered street lamp that feeds on the vast amount of carbon emissions swirling around in our atmosphere.

The lamps are really more like massive tanks filled with water and algae. During the day, the algae feed on sunlight and C02 in the air and the resulting energy is stored in batteries connected to the tank. The stored energy is then used to power the lights at night.

www.tgdaily.com...

i think its a fantastic solution... but whether or not they can find an affordable, economic and green way to manufacture and distribute these around heavily polluted cities is something else they should look into...

either way its a step forward in the right direction...

reply to post by fluff007


That is so cool. I would like to see these in every major city.....

Des

Great find!

Love the idea.
Wonder how they control the population of algae inside the enclosed space?
Need to make the tank strong enough for people who like to break things just to break things or there will be algae water everywhere.

reply to post by Destinyone


i know right..!

i think it'd make cities look alot nicer at night, i just despise that hideously awful orange glow... theres even a glow off our local village which is tiny..! but we can still see the glow over the mountain...
greener would be better... and also its a renewable source of energy.

reply to post by samara11278


lol yeah make them vandal proof...!!

i dont know to be honest... i found a bit more on them from this site...

www.earthtechling.com...

What’s not exactly clear is how this process works. There are certainly examples out there of micro-algae being bred specifically to absorb carbon emissions (you can even try building this one if you have the DIY skills), but whether that includes this pet project of Calleja is unknown. Perhaps it involves a carbon sink making use of photosynthesis?

Now one thing there’s been some confusion on out there, and which this story originally got hung up on, is whether or not this could also be a self-powered lamp. In a lighted environment, the process that results could perhaps create energy, like a similar idea we wrote about back in 2010 that is inspired by a technique developed by scientists from Yonsei and Stanford University, that might possibly be stored in batteries connected to the tank. The stored energy could perhaps then be used to power the lights at night, though questions have been raised by some, such as at The Atlantic, on how viable this solution might really be.

reply to post by fluff007


Not a word about cost. The other alternatives always fail because they cost way to much and I wonder if this is the same?

Sounds more like a pitch for funding than anything. If it were viable they would be touting their upcoming product and where to buy it.

There are multiple people who have succeeded in creating artificial photosynthesis. One I read about in MIT's newsletter was a paint on material that can be recharged by painting it on every few years. That was a about three years ago and not a word since they claimed to have it that I can find.

I find one thing odd. It will work in parking garages, but you have to light it artificially so it eats the CO2, meaning without light it won't work. That would mean using more energy, not less. Create more CO2 to reduce CO2. Perhaps that's why this is just an interesting side-note.

Solar creates no CO2 at all in the first place an since this requires light, Solar would always be better. If you use it to soak up fumes in a garage, you have to generate the power for the lights which creates CO2. It appears to have no practical purpose beyond an interesting experiment.

reply to post by Blaine91555


Algae is like the fastest growing thing on the planet, it is being used to make bio diesel (yes you can run your truck on it. If the worlds roofs were made of algae panels (not solar) then we would have a fuel created from sunlight and carbon out of the air.

I underdstand that burning it places that carbon back into the air it is still better than carbon neutral in that the carbon is in the stored fuel. From what I have read we can get more miles out of algae, then from solar panels back to charged batteries to run your car.

I doubt we'll need anything like this in the near future. Laser fusion will hopefully save us.

Look here:

www.foxnews.com...