Grad students' light idea could help feed world's billions

Demographic experts say the Earth’s population, about 7 billion now, could reach 10 billion by 2050. And Mattos, who grew up in Brazil, may have a better idea than most what the future will look like. His hometown is Sao Paulo, the planet’s seventh largest city. Its population is about 11 million — or more like 22 million, if you count the entire urban area anchored by the city.

But Mattos, a University of Georgia engineering graduate student, hopes he can help chart a way around the problem of vanishing agricultural land and find a way to feed the world’s billions — so-called vertical farming, growing crops indoors in tall buildings using artificial light.

But so far, the energy costs are too high — 25 percent to 35 percent of the entire cost of production — to make vertical farming economically feasible, he said.

Mattos hopes to cut those costs with a lighting system that combines LEDs and a computerized feedback system, and now he has a $30,000 scholarship to Silicon Valley’s Singularity University that could help him develop the idea into a commercially viable application.

Mattos’ idea, and the research he’s already done on it, helped him win a contest to become this year’s UGA representative to the summer course at Singularity. He’ll be one of 80 bright students from around the world who will gather at Singularity for 10 weeks beginning June 16.

The university aims to find solutions for the big problems of the future — like feeding the world’s people, maintaining water quality and keeping people safe.

The students will work on projects together, and will meet with technology industry leaders and investors.

“The most important thing is the networking,” said Mattos, who has already formed a company in hopes of marketing the lighting system he’s developing.

He’s been working on his idea in a laboratory at UGA’s Bioconversion Research and Education Center on Whitehall Road, where UGA scientists have been working for years to find ways of converting plant material into energy fuels such as diesel or ethanol.

Mattos is using algae in his first experiments, but eventually his lighting system will be applied to bigger crop plants.

His idea is simple in concept, but complex in application.

He puts little vials of algae suspended in water into chambers lit by LEDs, short for light-emitting diodes.

He varies how frequently each sample receives tiny doses of light, and also the color of light — blue, green or red. As the algae in the little vials begins to grow, the plants absorb more of the red and blue light. But as the algae grows and reproduces, the vials become more opaque and the algae begins to use more green light for photosynthesis.

Mattos is trying to figure out the optimum light conditions for the growth cycle. When he does that, he will use that information to build a kind of feedback system.

Sensors constantly measure how efficiently the plants are using the light, and can switch the colors and frequency of light exposure depending on how efficiently the algae is using the light.

Solar LED Lights

Before discussing solar LED lights, let us first understand what LED lights are. LED is the abbreviated term for Light Emitting Diode which is actually a chemical substance that is capable of emitting light if it is supplied with electricity. LED technology has come a long way from being used as an indicator to even being used in television sets these days. What has made LEDs most popular is their ability to emit a great amount of light while producing an insignificant amount of heat. They are also extremely cost-efficient and energy-efficient because not only do LED lights last for thousands of hours, they also use up only a fraction of the power that the other more standard sources of light do. As it is should be evident now that LED lights are a great way to save both energy as well as money in the long term, it is time to explain the association of solar technology with the LED lighting technology.

If you use solar LED lights, you can eliminate even the relatively small charges that an LED light would otherwise put on your electricity bill. If one can put together a technology that lasts for a long time while using only a small amount of electrical power with a technology that allows unlimited electrical power from the largest renewable energy source on the planet, then it is a very advanced and powerful technology indeed. If properly utilized, then solar LED lights can replace the conventional street lights as well as residential outdoor lights. The technology from the outset however, is as simple as attaching a photo voltaic cell to a LED light to make it independent of the grid electricity. What makes powering LED lights with solar cells easier is the fact that the LEDs do not require the current to be converted to AC from DC in order to run. As a result of being independent from the conventional sources of electricity, these solar LED lights are also wireless, which is an added advantage of course.

As is the case with most solar powered lighting systems, these are also made mainly for outdoor uses like street lighting, garden lighting, deck lighting and other similar purposes. The outdoor nature of the solar LED lights often makes it a necessity that they be made waterproof as well to withstand the climatic conditions. The only reason as to why people may not choose to install solar LED lights can be the relatively high costs, but that too is mostly one time because they hardly ever need maintenance. Apart from lasting a very long time, Solar LED lights will cost you nothing to use as you would be utilizing the free energy stored within sunlight to power them without even attending to the procedure. If you are a person who is conscious of the environment, then you should have more reasons for preferring the solar LED lights because they are harmless to the environment as they do not emit greenhouse gases or use up non-renewable sources of energy.