This Micro-Algae Lamp Absorbs 150-200 Times More CO2 than a Tree
Check out these fascinating algae-powered public lamps, sent to us as a blogtip sent in from Tony Sherwood: a reminder that solutions to one problem often emerge from an understanding of the fuel, product, and waste from complementary processes.
Here’s a post about these lamps with some links to supplementary articles from Treehugger.com:
French biochemist and Shamengo pioneer Pierre Calleja has invented this impressive streetlight that is powered by algae which absorbs CO2 from the air. We have featured algae-powered lamps before but this one takes out 1 ton (!) of CO2 per year. This is as much CO2 as a tree absorbs on average during its entire life.
It seems to me that this is a pretty amazing idea that could really work and clean the air pollution from urban areas (like parking lots, tested in the video above) and at the same time look good. That said, reducing is still better than restoring, but in the meantime- let’s get this lamp working!
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Looks like it requires separate power for the massive light inside. I wonder how much in the way of CO2 emissions it takes to power that rather large light….
And who is gonna maintain these things? Anyone who has ever had a backyard pool or a fishtank will tell you that algae are rather fast growing in light. They would need cleaned out pretty frequently if you feed them actively. That or within a short period of time, they layer would be too thick to get any light through and the system would crash as the algae start to die…
And it smells nasty, AND there there is the associated bacteria including salmonella…
I would need to see a *LOT* more information to be convinced that this was not just a massive energy sink that actually PRODUCED more CO2 running and maintaining it.
Call me a skeptic but what happens if these take off and then there are too many. What if they remove too much CO2 from the atmosphere? Is that possible?
Otherwise I do really like it 🙂 can’t wait to have one of my own!
This is as much CO2 as as a tree absorbs on average during its entire life.
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Hmmm. Lots of trees weigh well over a ton, even when dried for use as lumber.
Looks like it requires separate power for the massive light inside. I wonder how much in the way of CO2 emissions it takes to power that rather large light….
And who is gonna maintain these things? Anyone who has ever had a backyard pool or a fishtank will tell you that algae are rather fast growing in light. They would need cleaned out pretty frequently if you feed them actively. That or within a short period of time, they layer would be too thick to get any light through and the system would crash as the algae start to die…
And it smells nasty, AND there there is the associated bacteria including salmonella…
I would need to see a *LOT* more information to be convinced that this was not just a massive energy sink that actually PRODUCED more CO2 running and maintaining it.
Call me a skeptic but what happens if these take off and then there are too many. What if they remove too much CO2 from the atmosphere? Is that possible?
Otherwise I do really like it 🙂 can’t wait to have one of my own!