January 2007 ISSUE
Mark Skovmose
STUDENT COLUMN
Kids Eat Deadly Smoke
While Doing Homework
U of C Students Gear Up to Better Serve Expanding Schulich School of Engineering Enrolment
BY MARK SKOVMOSE
University of Calgary Student Columnist (Engineering)
Kerosene lamps are dangerous and expensive for the developing world. And the technology that’s making light safe and affordable for disadvantaged villagers has an application in your life, too.
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WHERE THERE’S NO SMOKE |
It’s likely you’re reading this article with artificial light, and why wouldn’t you — it’s plentiful and inexpensive, after all, for most North Americans. Now imagine your life lit by kerosene lantern, completely disconnected from the power grid.
The light emitted is barely enough for reading, and as for the carcinogens released, you may as well be smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Close to 25 per cent of your gross yearly income is used to buy kerosene, and you have to hike close to five hours a week to obtain it.
Not only is it unhealthy and expensive, but it poses an immediate risk to you and your family, too. It could easily burn down your home.
Two billion people, a third of the Earth’s population, live in darkness after the sun sets. Close to 400 million use these kerosene lanterns for light. Centralized, grid-system distribution of electricity is too expensive and cannot service remote villages. Flashlights and batteries are expensive, too, and the bulbs are fragile.
An innovative idea from a University of Calgary professor, Dr. David Irvine-Halliday, P.Eng., uses modern technology with renewable resources to bring light to these people. As you may have read before, Dr. Irvine-Halliday co-founded the Light up the World Foundation with Ken Robertson after a trip to Nepal in the late 1990s.
The foundation is based upon solid state lighting, namely white light emitting diodes. These emit nearly 100 times the light of kerosene lanterns — while eliminating the pollution, the danger and the excessive cost.
White light emitting diodes are durable and a single bulb lasts upwards of 100,000 hours. That’s 10 times longer than a standard incandescent bulb.
Overcoming Obstacles
Sounds simple. But there are obstacles to this revolutionary conversion.
The largest one is affordability. The initial investment for a lantern for the diodes is close to the yearly cost of kerosene fuel.
Through micro-credit systems with the governments in their countries, however, locals can purchase the system and effectively save 20 per cent of their annual incomes. The social impact of that extra annual disposal income is immense.
Economics aren’t the only benefit. A lack of suitable home lighting is solidly linked to illiteracy and poverty. In many developing countries, most children are required to work during day hours to help provide for families.
After dusk, these children can now study without using the family’s valuable fuel and exposing themselves to deadly chemicals. Education is the key driving factor for development — so this movement ultimately leads to better overall conditions in more villages and countries.
Here’s what the mother of an asthmatic child in the village of Dambuwe, Sri Lanka, in 2004: “The doctor told me not to let my son study at night, because the smoke from the kerosene would make his asthma worse. Now that we have our LEDs, he can study at night.”
It’s an interesting formula that fosters such success. For one, the system allows people in developing countries to build, distribute and use the technology. For another, there’s a decidedly green tinge to this story.
Energy sources to fuel this new technology are an important success factor. Using disposable batteries is expensive and would create as much pollution as those dreaded kerosene lanterns.
This is avoided through solar, wind, bio-mass and other renewable energy sources, combined with rechargeable batteries. In Nepal alone, nearly 300 million dry-cell batteries are sold and disposed annually. In the United States, three billion batteries are disposed annually, which could build a six-by-six-foot wall, 10 miles long.
What About Us?
The technology of white light emitting diodes is obviously a substantial reducer
of pollution in the developing world. However, over-developed countries such
as Canada and the United States contribute 80 per cent of global pollution.
With only a third of the Earth’s total population creating this pollution, something in this equation doesn’t add up. Although the Light Up The World Foundation does not focus its efforts on pollution reduction, we all have a moral responsibility in this area.
Yes, just like the kids studying in those off-grid villages, we should be replacing our outdated technology. People balk at this change because of a lack of knowledge about better technology and because our electricity is so inexpensive.
Many homes contain incandescent bulbs that are incredibly inefficient in light production — and very effective at producing unused heat. This is a terrible waste of energy, and the technology is available for us to change.
Although our energy costs little, much of it is produced from non-renewable fossil fuels and has a negative environmental impact. People in the developed world must consider the cost to the environment and leave a world our children can thrive in.
Replacing conventional lamps with light-emitting diodes in the United States alone will bring energy benefits of up to $100 billion by 2025, a 2002 summit on LED illumination concluded. That’s a saving up to 120 gigawatts of electricity annually.
Compact fluorescent lighting is almost as efficient as white light emitting diodes, but it has a much shorter lifespan, making the diodes the best value when considering all factors — lifespan, light output and initial investment. Even so, the technology is in its infancy and will take a few years to become widely available.
In the meantime, choosing compact fluorescent lighting is a
good start to personal energy reduction.
Light Up The World is an opportunity for Albertans to use their wealth of knowledge
elsewhere in the world. Its biggest challenge is to spread the message. Dr. Irvine-Halliday
accepts invitations to speak, and his foundation seeks partners with people who
have a good sense of the world.
I think Alberta companies have a responsibility to share their wealth with the world. Although there are plenty of ways to accomplish this, consider this idea: as people begin to understand global warming, they’ll be quick to side with those companies that proactively worked to prevent it.
I am currently enrolled in a class called Solid State Lighting for Human Development, taught by Dr. Irvine-Halliday. There are many things I took for granted in the past in regards to the environment, and he’s helped open my eyes to the big picture.
So thanks, Dr. Dave. You are truly a visionary.