Poor man's bulb - No need of Electricity

Moser with his Lamp   (Image credit BBC)

Electricity has become a vital asset in our lives. In our day to day life we depend on electricity for almost everything we do. The generation of electricity is carried out from non-renewable sources which may vanish one day or other in the coming future. Also, renewable installations like solar and wind power options have their own cons which impede their adoption in considerable numbers. With this growth in usage and ever hiking barrier between the supply and demand, the cost per unit of electricity is skyrocketing. This tremendous growth in the cost is shoving the lives of poor in to darkness. A lot of research is going on in the field of renewable energy utilization to make the electricity affordable to all but the efforts that they put in, failed to pull out satisfactory results. Keeping all these researches which are done by educated people aside, a Brazilian mechanic named “Alfredo Moser” came up with an option of natural way of lighting your home when there is availability of sunlight.  At this juncture, one may get the routine question in their minds “If there is abundant sunlight available then what is the need of lighting the home by additional means?”
well the sunlight enters our home only when there is proper ventilation through windows. This is not the case with the houses of poor who reside in slums with poor ventilation. Also they work in their houses to earn their bread and butter under dim light conditions. Moser being a poor mechanic is not an exemption. In addition to his financial status, the frequent outages in his country annoyed him and made him investigate alternatives. Poor, who usually reside in their home with poor ventilation, may sometimes opt for some illegal ways of obtaining electricity to their homes from the nearest current pole. This illegal stealing of power will be considered offence if observed by the authorities making their lives even miserable. So, to make his life better, Moser had developed a bulb which doesn’t require electricity at all. Instead, it uses sunlight to provide crystal clear, absolutely harmless lighting inside your house.

The idea of a Moser Lamp:

As I already said, the idea of this lamp came from Moser’s financial status and regular outages that used to obstruct his work. So, the lamp was called a Moser lamp which was named after him. All you need to light your house is a used water bottle with a black cork on it, couple of spoons of bleach, and proper sunlight outside your home. We can say that it’s absolutely free to get light from this sort of bulb. So, all you have to do is to take a water bottle and fill it with water. Then add a couple of capfuls of bleach to the water to avoid algae formation in water. After filling the bottle with water and bleach, you need to drill a hole to the ceiling and insert the bottle into the ceiling. Don’t doubt the leakage from the roof when it rains. If we fix the bottle in with a Polyester resin, the roof never leaks not even a single drop. The lamps when inserted to the roof will appear as an artistic carving for the outside world as shown in the picture below.

Moser lamps fitted to the roof- artistic isn't it

How it works:-

This lamp simply works on the principle of refraction of light. When the sunlight falls on the bottle, it will be refracted and the refracted light enters the home through the bottle and distributes the light in the house. The working is quite simple but this sort of approach was never ever proposed by any person in the history. After Moser installed the bulbs in his house, an engineer examined the lighting inside the room and reported that the light due to the Moser’s lamp inside the home is almost equivalent to that of a 40-60 watts bulb based on the intensity of sunlight outside the home. Also one can save a very decent amount by installing these bulbs in the roofs.

Look at the glow from the bulb-That's without power

Impact:-

Moser came up with this tremendous idea in 2002. Though he made it for himself, the bulb crossed the boundaries and was widely installed in all parts of the world. As per a report statement, In Philippines where a quarter of population lives below the poverty line, and electricity is usually very expensive, this idea of Moserlamp was fitted in around 1,40,000 homes and also analysts estimate that the installation may also take off in other 15 countries in the world. Even though Moser provided the world with a zero cost lighting option, which made the lives of millions of poor better, he was not recognized and is life was quite unchanged. He didn’t become wealthy with his idea but when he came to know that his idea brought light into many lives, his face was lit with a tremendous glow and emotion. When asked about his idea,

"It's a divine light. God gave the sun to everyone, and light is for everyone. Whoever wants it saves money. You can't get an electric shock from it, and it doesn't cost a penny."  Moser replies.

Moser came up with an idea that many of the researchers failed to, he may not get a Nobel Prize for his idea but he will be remembered by the millions who made their lives better by implementing his idea and this gives more satisfaction than a Nobel prize.

                                                          Source : bbc.co.uk