The Woohoo! Report

ScienceDaily (Dec. 20, 2008)

A “revolution” in the way we illuminate our world is imminent, according to a paper published this week by two professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Innovations in photonics and solid state lighting will lead to trillions of dollars in cost savings, along with a massive reduction in the amount of energy required to light homes and businesses around the globe, the researchers forecast.

A new generation of lighting devices based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs) will supplant the common light bulb in coming years, the paper suggests. In addition to the environmental and cost benefits of LEDs, the technology is expected to enable a wide range of advances in areas as diverse as healthcare, transportation systems, digital displays, and computer networking.

“What the transistor meant to the development of electronics, the LED means to the field of photonics. This core device has the potential to revolutionize how we use light,” wrote co-authors E. Fred Schubert and Jong Kyu Kim.

Schubert is the Wellfleet Senior Constellation Professor of Future Chips at Rensselaer, and heads the university’s National Science Foundation-funded Smart Lighting Center. Kim is a research assistant professor of electrical, computer, and systems engineering. The paper, titled “Transcending the replacement paradigm of solid-state lighting,” will be published in the Dec. 22, 2008 issue of Optics Express.

Researchers are able to control every aspect of light generated by LEDs, allowing the light sources to be tweaked and optimized for nearly any situation, Schubert and Kim said. In general LEDs will require 20 times less power than today’s conventional light bulbs, and five times less power than “green” compact fluorescent bulbs.

If all of the world’s light bulbs were replaced with LEDs for a period of 10 years, Schubert and Kim estimate the following benefits would be realized:

• Energy savings of 1.9 × 10²⁰ joules
• Electrical energy consumption would be reduced by terawatt hours
• Financial savings of $1.83 trillion
• Carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by 10.68 gigatons
• Crude oil consumption would be reduced by 962 million barrels
• The number of required global power plants would be reduced by 280

With all of the promise and potential of LEDs, Schubert and Kim said it is important not to pigeonhole or dismiss smart lighting technology as a mere replacement for conventional light bulbs. The paper is a call to arms for scientists and engineers, and stresses that advances in photonics will position solid state lighting as a catalyst for unexpected, currently unimaginable technological advances.

“Deployed on a large scale, LEDs have the potential to tremendously reduce pollution, save energy, save financial resources, and add new and unprecedented functionalities to photonic devices. These factors make photonics what could be termed a benevolent tsunami, an irresistible wave, a solution to many global challenges currently faced by humanity and will be facing even more in the years to come,” the researchers wrote. “Transcending the replacement paradigm will open up a new chapter in photonics: Smart lighting sources that are controllable, tunable, intelligent, and communicative.”

Possible smart lighting applications include rapid biological cell identification, interactive roadways, boosting plant growth, and better supporting human circadian rhythms to reduce an individual’s dependency on sleep-inducing drugs or reduce the risk of certain types of cancer.

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Published: Saturday, December 20, 2008 | 5:44 PM ET
Canadian Press: Bob Weber, THE CANADIAN PRESS

EDMONTON – The mall parking lot is packed with Christmas shoppers, cars are backed up four deep at the entrance and the temperatures are all the way down to -30.

But none of the drivers are scowling. For there, directing traffic to the beat of some soulful Christmas tunes playing behind him, is Const. Ron Smithman, Edmonton’s dancing cop.

“Inside me, when I’m directing traffic, there’s a beat whether the music’s playing or not, and I get doing some fancy moves,” said Smithman as he kept the lines moving Saturday at Edmonton’s Kingsway Mall.

He high-kicks, spins around, runs back and forth across the intersection and gestures energetically with his white-gloved hands as if he were swinging a tennis racket. Sweating despite the -30 temperature, he’s the hardest-workin’ man in traffic biz.

“I lose three to five pounds everytime I do this,” he said.

“Sometimes I split my pants. I’ve rolled off this stage. This is one of the colder years I’ve been doing this but I’m keeping warm right now.”

This has become a Christmas tradition for Smithson. But when he started in 2002, he wasn’t nearly as balletic.

“The first time I showed up here on this stage I was just directing traffic,” he said. “People were saying, ‘Is that all he does?’

“So I reverted to my moonwalk from the ’80s and other moves that I do. I just keep adding different moves every time.”

Smithson said he even takes some inspiration from his daughter’s dance classes and makes a game attempt at a ballet leap.

And all the while, cars drive past with a friendly honk and parcel-laden shoppers yell out “Merry Christmas!” That’s what it’s all about, he said.

“We get out here and we have a lot of fun.”

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