{"id":144,"date":"2010-12-17T12:43:38","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T20:43:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/?p=144"},"modified":"2011-01-06T16:26:19","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T00:26:19","slug":"solar-powered-led-lights-%e2%80%93-a-new-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/2010\/12\/17\/solar-powered-led-lights-%e2%80%93-a-new-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Powered LED Lights \u2013 A New Experience (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks to our adult children who are advocates of Permaculture<\/span><\/a> and all things sustainable, we became aware of solar powered lights this year.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, these lights are on sale at retail stores such as Target, where they are marketed by Seasonal Specialties L.L.C.; produced under the Philips brand name; and manufactured in China from Earth\u2019s resources and Ancient Sunlight (oil, coal, natural gas, etc.)\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A Closer Look – How do the new solar-powered lights work?<\/h3>\n

A small 2.5\u201d x 3\u201d solar panel collects solar energy during the day, converts it to electrical energy and stores it as chemical energy in a rechargeable non-toxic Lithium Iron Phosphate (LiFePO4) battery that then provides power after sunset for the string of 50 high efficiency Light Emitting Diode (LED) lights. The control unit uses a photocell to sense nightfall and automatically activates the lights each evening, so there is no human intervention required after the lights are setup initially.<\/p>\n

Our first Christmas \u201coff the grid\u201d<\/h4>\n

As Elders, we have downsized significantly this year. Nevertheless we still possess a need to celebrate life and experience the joy of the holiday season \u2013 a desire that is so deep it must be wired into our neurological makeup or even embedded in our DNA. This year, we added the satisfaction of not using any power from the coal-fired electrical grid for celebration. This holiday season we did not use any Ancient Sunlight to send our symbolic light of joy back out into the universe in joint communion with the Cosmos as it shares its nightly light with all of us. 2010 is our first Christmas \u201coff the grid.\u201d This small effort to become more sustainable has been accompanied by a sense of satisfaction and calm that adds to the joy of the season. The Universe may not know that the source of our few milliwatts of celebratory light came from today\u2019s sunlight instead of from the Earth\u2019s non-renewable Ancient Sunlight stored 300 million years ago \u2013 but we know.<\/p>\n

Indoor Use of Outdoor Lights \u2013 Gail\u2019s Experiment<\/h3>\n
The cure for boredom is curiosity.
\nThere is no cure for curiosity.
\n\u2026\u2026..Dorothy Parker,<\/address>\n

The new solar powered LED lights are advertized \u201cFor Outdoor Use\u201d in the lower left hand corner of the box. Gail\u2019s curiosity drove her to pull out the extra set of lights we purchased just to conduct a simple experiment.\u00a0 She was determined to find out if the solar powered lights would work indoors as well. Is there enough indirect indoor light to recharge the Lithium Iron Phosphate battery and operate the lights?<\/p>\n

What did we learn?<\/h4>\n

So, after several nights of experimenting, she concluded that the lights can be used indoors. At least marginally. The tiny solar panel, no bigger than the palm of her hand, became her pet as she faithfully walked it to different windows during the day – tracking the sun\u2019s movement \u2013 so her new found charge could recharge. She learned the panel can recharge partially using only indoor light, but a partial charge is only enough energy to operate the lights for 2-3 hours after sunset. Used outdoors, the tiny solar panel collects enough solar energy to stay on for at least 4-6 hours each evening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After a week of taking her solar panel pet for walks indoors, Gail decided to end the experiment, set her panel free and place it outdoors where it had a chance to experience a direct view of the sun.<\/p>\n

What else did We Learn?<\/h4>\n

Together we learned that this green tangled array of bits of evening brilliance was indeed an exquisite creative arrangement of plastic, wire and glass \u2013 that in turn are creative arrangements of Earth\u2019s elemental resources (petroleum, copper, silicon, etc.). We observed it to be a cleverly evolved \u201csystem of star stuff\u201d with enough memory in its electronic DNA to switch on at sunset, but nothing more. We learned that what the retailer called UPC 7 41895 02609 5, was a marvelous green colored (solar) plant with a minute brain that gave it awareness of sunlight. A miniature solar plant capable of harvesting 7.5 square inches of current sunlight, converting these photons of incident electromagnetic energy into stored chemical energy housed safely within an environmentally friendly battery, sensing nightfall and then drawing the energy out of the battery to illuminate 50 LED red-yellow-blue-green lights. We suspect that even though the panel appears to possess an awareness of the sun, it does not summon the least amount of consciousness of its own being nor its total dependence on sunlight.\u00a0\u00a0 Sort of like some of us.<\/p>\n

And our string of solar powered LEDs colored lights\u00a0use no water.\u00a0 This is a good thing.\u00a0 In this heavily populated desert valley of southern Nevada, there is no water to spare for trivial celebrations or even for communing with the stars. The city plot where this experiment was conducted receives on the order of 4000 square feet (540000 square inches)[3483864 square cm] of sunlight. Approximately 15% of the lot is covered with natural plants that faithfully do their part in harvesting current sunlight every day (with the addition of weekly water). The remaining 85% of the property either rejects \/ reflects the gift of the sun, or accepts \/ absorbs the life-giving energy and converts it into thermal energy (heat) raising the temperature of the rooftop, sidewalk, driveway, and assorted gravel scattered in the xeroscaped beds cleverly and tastefully arranged around the property.<\/p>\n

The 7.5 square inches of solar panel collecting surface represents 0.00153 % of the 3400 square feet of unclaimed \/ unutilized property. In other words, we are taking advantage of 0.00153 % of the opportunity to harvest our sunlight. We are taking on 0.00153% of our responsibility to utilize the gift coming to us daily from Father Sun. So glad we are taking a small step toward sustainability.\u00a0 Just 65,359 similar small steps to harvest current sunlight and we will be doing our part to live sustainably.<\/p>\n

But we didn\u2019t add any more carbon to the atmosphere, nor lower the level of Lake Mead by using our string of 50 LED colored lights this year.<\/p>\n

In a later installment, we will address the Question:\u00a0 Are Solar Powered Lights Appropriate in the Context of Sustainability?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to our adult children who are advocates of Permaculture and all things sustainable, we became aware of solar powered lights this year.\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, these lights are on sale at retail stores such as Target, where they are marketed by Seasonal Specialties L.L.C.; produced under the Philips brand name; and manufactured in China from Earth\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-relationship-to-nature","category-living-sustainably"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.nowforourturn.org\/CosmicReflections\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}