Life without Electric Current

Natalie J. Aponte Méndez

Today our lives are based in technology, electric devices, internet and others sources that simplify and gives to the human race the ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The global economy depends of technology and countries around the world use spaceships and some other technological devices to investigate new alternatives and to discover new physics laws. Think about how much we all depend on technological products and the times you use technology each day. In the past Newton discover important laws and in the 1800 Alessandro Volta invented the first electric battery and produced the electric current without technology. How we can reduce this terrible dependence of technology?, What happened if we reduce the amount of electric current consumption? Thomas Alva Edison in 1879 invented the light bulb a historical important device that uses electric current to maintain our houses illuminate in the night.  The light bulb is an electric lamp in which a filament is heated to incandescence by an electric current. It is possible to create a light bulb without electric current passing through it? 

We learn about circuits to complete the charge flow and the different forms to connect a light bulb or any other device. But it is time to create a new alternative to illuminate our world, a new light bulb that reduce or eliminate the current consumption, light bulb created by WATER. Water covers 70.9% of the Earth’s surface and is a natural source.  This is why a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology installed 10,000 light bulbs made form water in Philippines. This light bulb is composed of nothing more than one-liter plastic bottle, water, and bleach. The installation process is easy and can be installed in less than an hour. They have never needed to be replaced. They are maintenance free. To turn them off on the day time, they can be covered by a solid bucket. The light bulb lasts for five years, and is equivalent to a 60-watt bulb. The principal inventor was the mechanic Mr. Alfredo Moser and now the solar bottle bulb is illuminating poor settlements across the Philippines. 

Figure 1: Water light bulbs installed in Philippines houses

This new creation gives us an idea of the power of water. Water can be used for everything and now is used to replace electric current. This water bulb works simply because the water diffracts the light, letting it spread throughout the house instead of focusing on one point and the bleach function is to keeps the water clear and microbe free. If this new invention reduces the consumption of normal light bulbs what happened if we try to reduce the overall consumption of electricity? Is a new alternative an is possible with some other experimentations, we want to grow and to invent technology but sometimes the simplicity and the natural resources like water give us more energetic and viable possibilities to create the new future. Is life without electric current possible? We don’t know but if we continue with experimentations like this we can create a different life style and a better future free of technology dependence.

References:

Reach Michael J. Coren,  The World’s Cheapest Light bulb Is Made Of Just a Plastic Bottle. November 10, 2011.

Water Light Bulbs. Sustainable Times. October 8, 2008, November 10, 2011.

Additional resources:

http://www.boreme.com/posting.php?id=28861