3 ms·

Seriously. Glowing plants. This is what people want to donate their money for. A noble and worth cause on the same worthiness as killing cancer and poverty.

HCIdivision17 12y ago
Both of those enjoy positively enormous amounts of funding, both via commercial and social means. Glowing plants, by contrast, get virtually none. Even with this half million, the amounts are unfair to compare. Further, there's immense potential here. Many people around the world - in the billions - cannot afford night time illumination. This is essentially free for most of us, but is immensely costly without our advanced power infrastructure (including astonishing power reliability and stability). What if all those people could have a plant light their home, even just a little, just enough to walk about safely? Without the awful smoke of oil and wood, and for only the cost of the water to feed it? THAT is easily, undeniably worth half a million dollars. Don't be silly derailing something of such worth with shortsighted and irrelevant comparisons.
- groby_b 12y ago
  I can't seem to make the math for that work. Plant energy generation is around 1 W/kg. Lighting an average room requires around 10,000 lumen. Maximum luminous efficacy is 683 lm/W. Lighting a room requires ~15W w/ perfect efficacy. Assuming the plant requires no energy to maintain its metabolism, that'd be 15kg of plant. Realistically, you can assume that it'll need at least double that, to maintain the metabolism. That's a whopper of a lighting plant.
  - hrjet 12y ago
    Why do you need 10,000 lumen to light a room? What sized room are your considering? And, if you are responding to your parent post, it says light enough to walk around. Even 100 lumens would be sufficient to walk around a 100 sq ft room.
    - groby_b 12y ago
      Of course that's sufficient - but that's half of what moonlight provides. Given that you already can have that for free, I assume the plants are supposed to provide some improvement. Any light output that's a marked improvement will mean either large plants, or a surprisingly large chunk of the metabolism dedicated to light generation. I don't say it can't be done - my bio-sciences fu is too weak - but I'm somewhat skeptical given the pure numbers. I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
      - hrjet 12y ago
        You can rely on moonlight just about 5% of the nights, because of the monthly changes in moon phase, and nightly change in position due to earth's rotation. I am skeptical about the plants too, and like your calculations. But the numbers you have chosen seem too harsh.
  - joesb 12y ago
    > Lighting an average room requires around 10,000 lumen. These websites seems to give lower requirement. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/light-level-rooms-d_708.html http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/light-level-rooms-d_708.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux http://maximlighting.com/fpage_lighting_need.aspx http://maximlighting.com/fpage_lighting_need.aspx Especially, the wiki page says only 50 lux (lumen/sq meter) is required for living room.
    - groby_b 12y ago
      On the wikipedia page: "Achieving an illuminance of 500 lux might be possible in a home kitchen with a single fluorescent light fixture with an output of 12000 lumens." And I'd rather not have my living room lit at 50 lux :) But yes, original author's point well taken - if we just want a tiny bit of light, it seems much more doable.
  - HCIdivision17 12y ago
    To be sure, lighting an average room demands far, far more energy. Rather, I'm thinking more like grass-roof huts where roads are exclusively ruts from foot traffic. In this case, you're racing to beat something approaching pitch black (on new moons), and where even a soft glow is a welcome improvement. Nothing to read or socialize by, though this could be a stepping stone towards realizing a plant that does (one can still dream, I hope)!

HCIdivision17 12y ago

Both of those enjoy positively enormous amounts of funding, both via commercial and social means. Glowing plants, by contrast, get virtually none. Even with this half million, the amounts are unfair to compare. Further, there's immense potential here. Many people around the world - in the billions - cannot afford night time illumination. This is essentially free for most of us, but is immensely costly without our advanced power infrastructure (including astonishing power reliability and stability). What if all those people could have a plant light their home, even just a little, just enough to walk about safely? Without the awful smoke of oil and wood, and for only the cost of the water to feed it? THAT is easily, undeniably worth half a million dollars. Don't be silly derailing something of such worth with shortsighted and irrelevant comparisons.

groby_b 12y ago
I can't seem to make the math for that work. Plant energy generation is around 1 W/kg. Lighting an average room requires around 10,000 lumen. Maximum luminous efficacy is 683 lm/W. Lighting a room requires ~15W w/ perfect efficacy. Assuming the plant requires no energy to maintain its metabolism, that'd be 15kg of plant. Realistically, you can assume that it'll need at least double that, to maintain the metabolism. That's a whopper of a lighting plant.
- hrjet 12y ago
  Why do you need 10,000 lumen to light a room? What sized room are your considering? And, if you are responding to your parent post, it says light enough to walk around. Even 100 lumens would be sufficient to walk around a 100 sq ft room.
  - groby_b 12y ago
    Of course that's sufficient - but that's half of what moonlight provides. Given that you already can have that for free, I assume the plants are supposed to provide some improvement. Any light output that's a marked improvement will mean either large plants, or a surprisingly large chunk of the metabolism dedicated to light generation. I don't say it can't be done - my bio-sciences fu is too weak - but I'm somewhat skeptical given the pure numbers. I'll be happy to be proven wrong.
    - hrjet 12y ago
      You can rely on moonlight just about 5% of the nights, because of the monthly changes in moon phase, and nightly change in position due to earth's rotation. I am skeptical about the plants too, and like your calculations. But the numbers you have chosen seem too harsh.
- joesb 12y ago
  > Lighting an average room requires around 10,000 lumen. These websites seems to give lower requirement. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/light-level-rooms-d_708.html http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/light-level-rooms-d_708.ht... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lux http://maximlighting.com/fpage_lighting_need.aspx http://maximlighting.com/fpage_lighting_need.aspx Especially, the wiki page says only 50 lux (lumen/sq meter) is required for living room.
  - groby_b 12y ago
    On the wikipedia page: "Achieving an illuminance of 500 lux might be possible in a home kitchen with a single fluorescent light fixture with an output of 12000 lumens." And I'd rather not have my living room lit at 50 lux :) But yes, original author's point well taken - if we just want a tiny bit of light, it seems much more doable.
- HCIdivision17 12y ago
  To be sure, lighting an average room demands far, far more energy. Rather, I'm thinking more like grass-roof huts where roads are exclusively ruts from foot traffic. In this case, you're racing to beat something approaching pitch black (on new moons), and where even a soft glow is a welcome improvement. Nothing to read or socialize by, though this could be a stepping stone towards realizing a plant that does (one can still dream, I hope)!