Humans are not simply phototropic, we are photo-dependent. Without light, we are lost. Our dependency on thermochemistry, external to our bodies, remains a hotbed topic of discourse. We recognize our dependency, and yet continue to consume limited resources to power our dependency. At the same time, humans utilize an array of photoemitters, and each has their pros and cons. If you were to redesign New York City, using only one type of photoemitter, which would you use, how would you go about it marketing the change, and why would you utilize that one type? Be creative, yet remain practical.
POST your proposal, and then using the Comment feature, contrast your stance with at least two other students' posts.
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Thermochemistry is the study of heat or energy in association with chemical reactions. The reaction may absorb or release energy, as well when a phase change may occur. Photoemitters are things that emit light, such as lamps. But there are many different types of photoemitters that exist within our world, between natural and unnatural lighting, the possibilities are endless. The issue that exists with many of the photoemitters is their ability to capture such a light source and use it to light up a whole city is highly unlikely. The sources of non-renewable energy are limiting because they are considered non-renewable, and in order to renew them it would take literally millions of years. As a result the cost of energy obtained by fossil fuels, such as gas continuously goes up with each passing week. With this being said, there are other alternatives to simply fossil fuel obtained light, such as bioluminescene by way of animals, but to light up all of New York City with bugs? That would be ineffective, costly, and fairly gross. To have a thousand bright green bugs humming around your head in 101 degree weather at 11 o’clock at night would be fairly unpleasing. Therefore given the situation, I think the most effective photoemitter would be using Hybrid solar lighting. Assuming when speaking of only one light source, that the sun would not suddenly disappear and cause the world to end, the best way would be using solar power. From recent reports, everyone knows that the amount of fossil fuels that remain are quite limited, and so many car companies are conducting extensive research and experiments in order to create cars that are less dependent on these expensive fossil fuels, so why can’t the same be done for lighting? Hybrid Solar lighting is usually used within rooms without windows to provide some solar and artificial light. Given an example such as time square, all throughout the day the sun is exposed throughout the city, giving natural light to places everywhere. If there were solar panels on roofs of all the buildings, although somewhat expensive, given a sunny day, there would be no use of the light outside and inside the amount of artificial light needed would be minimal because there would be enough solar energy in the panels to light up rooms without artificial light. Given a cloudy day with some sun, in necessary, inside and out, the amount of solar energy that could be gained would be used, and the missing energy in order to maintain certain brightness could be artificial. This although does not seem practical with so many nights and cloudy days, but research within this area is expanding rapidly each year, and given the possibilities it would be more than likely to be able to no only use a lot of that solar energy, but be able to save some of that unused energy in order to light houses and streets at night. If we were to use this method of lighting up New York City, the amount of energy used by the whole city would drop dramatically. Between this method and the increased hybrid cars driving 60 miles to the gallon, the amount of fossil fuels used would drop, and would allow the prices to drop and for companies working on fossil fuel research more time to come up with a beneficial fossil fuel alternative.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_Solar_Lighting
Being human, we are attracted to light; some of us are even scared of the dark. We depend on light to help us find our way around. But our fellow animals such as jellyfish and insects actually create light. They do this for many different purposes such as attracting their pray or defending themselves from predators. This light is produced naturally and does not have to be the product of a chemical reaction that will produce a byproduct that will be harmful to the environment. Luciferin is a pigmentation in insects that is combined with oxygen to form a source of light. Trees also have this pigmentation however do not react with oxygen but if scientist could learn to bring the oxygen and luciferin together, light could be created. And enough of it in fact that the city would no longer need lamp posts. Almost 90% of deep water fish produce this light and use it for the reasons stated above. This light could lead to much other technological advancement in reducing carbon footprints as well as less energy use citywide.
Thermochemistry is concerned with the study of the heat evolved or absorbed during chemical reactions. If I had the ability to re-design New York City, using one photo emitter, I would use bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the production of light by human organisms. Bioluminescence is primarily a marine wonder. It is extremely important to marine life and it is the largest source of light in the ocean. Animals produce a chemical called luciferin, which reacts with oxygen to make light. This luciferin turn into oxyluciferin, which cannot make light. Although bioluminescence is often used by marine animals to find prey and attract mates, it is possible to use bioluminescence for lighting purposes as well. Animals use bioluminescence from their surroundings, while humans go to great extents to use artificial light sources. We use things like torches, light bulbs, and LED’s when we could use bioluminescence to light up our world. It would be extremely difficult to light up New York city using bioluminescence, but it is somewhat practical and would very environmentally sound. It takes a huge amount of energy to light up a city like New York so I would first line every city street with bioluminescent trees. The leaves of the trees would be injected with luciferin from fireflies to emit as much light as possible. They would also recycle oxyluciferin to make sure that they are always illuminated.
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