My earlier post on Solar powered light emitting balloons elicited some thoughtful responses, and as comments aren't always read by visitors I thought I'd address them here. Go read the comments, I'll wait.
You're back? Good. First off, thanks all. Robert, I was actually wondering if anyone was making the connection with the Tropicana sun. So much I wondered if it factored into the student's idea. But really they have very different goals. The Tropicana "sun" was done to sell orange juice. Cool trick, but really that is what it boils down to.
I think the part that really gets me about this idea, is not that it is dreaming big. There's nothing wrong with dreaming big, but not every dream needs our approval. Some deserve derision. Anyone who has driven in a city can deride the idea of commonplace flying cars, they are dangerous enough traveling in one plane.
What really gets me is the arrogance of the idea that darkness is the problem here. The idea that my world is less rich because of it. I'd argue that it is richer because of such unique aspects of the Arctic. It is this idea that we need to beat back nature in order to make our lives better. This need to want to constantly push back the wild. That the way the natural world operates up here is somehow flawed. That bothers me.
And while we shouldn't restrict our ideas to our corner of the globe, if we are going to present ideas that address "enormous problems of in these Arctic communities with the remoteness and lack of light" we should at least have a smattering of knowledge about those communities. Suggesting that the balloons could guide ships in the depth of winter at Iglulik shows very little knowledge about them.
Is it hard to get a taste of this experience? This smattering of knowledge? Of course not, it is expensive but not hard. Another architecture student spent time in Arctic Bay this year. Wanting to be able to address the problem of affordable, practical housing he came up to live with an Inuit family. He came to see how lives are lived here. Now the problem, like almost any other is more complex than that, in this modern world there are many different ideas about what makes an home ideal. But it is at least an effort.
I realize that not every bit of research is practical in and of itself. That the benefits of well thought out pure research can yield surprising results in other areas. If you have a solar cell that could collect light over the period from May to August and release it from November to February, then you have something. It doesn't need a balloon though, it'll save the Hamlet a fortune for the street lights. And use less oil.
Comments
9 responses
Fun debate, Clare!
Obviously these students don’t know much about how modern ships navigate, but I don’t think they mention ships travelling in the dead of winter, just the dark season. Of course, in the high arctic the ice freezes pretty soon after you get into lots of darkness, but it’s moot anyway, as ships have more sophisticated ways of navigating now.
Also, to be fair, the article refers to “approaching travellers and vessels”, and doesn’t say anywhere that big ships would be arriving in mid-winter.
Remember though- these are bachelor’s students, not researchers. They won a contest, that might have very well been ranking them on how far-out they were. Architecture is not always one of the more well-grounded professions when it comes to rating ideas that win awards. This was a lighting contest- they would have been looking for cool stuff that totally pushes boundaries, not that is necessarily something you could affordably or realistically implement. That’s how these things go.
The students were using hyperbole when they used the phrase “enormous problems” relating to lack of light and remoteness, but 24 year old undergrads are inclined to talk like that.
But really, they’re not completely wrong. The darkness is enough of a “problem” that every community I’ve worked in has streetlights pretty much everywhere in town, and every house in town uses electric lights, which often blaze all night long in many houses, which is 24 hours a day in the darkest season. It’s hard to see the night sky now. A new form of lighting would just replace the existing light pollution. I think the solar aspect of the idea is actually really cool.
And remoteness is an issue for arctic communities. Fuel is shipped during a short season from far away. If someone can come up with solar lighting plans that decrease the dependence on 24-hour streetlights that are fueled by electricity generated by fossil fuels, I think that’s a great idea.
Would the idea bug you as much if it came from students at Arctic college?
…oh, and one more thing! (laughs) This contest was administered by a company based in Denmark, and the Danes are actually pretty good at understanding darkness (they’re pretty far north, and Greenland is beside Baffin and Ellesmere Islands), and pretty skilled with lighting too. So, if they see the seed of something useful in this, I can’t automatically discredit them as outsiders. The Danes have northern cred.
No, while it doesn’t say when the ships would be arriving it does say indicate the lights would be for November to February, so I made a leap of logic.
And yes, and again, if was possible for alternative energy solution that would effectively store energy from the Sun for use in the dark season it would of course be a welcome idea, and it wouldn’t need the grandiose idea of balloons.
Would the idea bug me as much if it came from Students in Arctic College. I think the balloon idea would still bug me, but obviously it isn’t just the idea itself that rubs me wrong.
And it is a good thing you threw Greenland in there for the Dane’s Northern cred. The far north of Greenland is only a little further north than Peace River Alberta.
Nice to get your perspective on this Nancy. And I did spy your CSI car in the desert photo.
I have a couple thoughts on this one. If they want to implement this idea in an area of the arctic that gets 24 hour darkness, when do the solar panal get any solar to charge up? Assuming that these things would have to carry a solar panal and a battery plus the light, for them to have any kind of effect how damn big a balloon are they proposing? Bet you would like looking at that after awhile.
Well I imagine that there would be a number of technical hurdles. As Nancy points out this is a conceptual exercise. Their drawing shows the balloons to be quite small, I would hazard a guess at around 10 feet diameter. It looks as though the equipment is at the ground and the balloon is tethered there. As it looks like it is directly on the sea ice in their drawings it also begs the question of who would recover them before break up and where they would be during the charging period. Also what would provide lift, which would change significantly in the temperature differences.
“It is this idea that we need to beat back nature in order to make our lives better. This need to want to constantly push back the wild. That the way the natural world operates up here is somehow flawed. That bothers me.”
fully agreed – now to play devil with your point about the usefulness/necessity of navigational lights for people who have been successfully navigating home for many generations, I point to this tragedy: http://nnsl.com/northern-news-services/stories/papers/nov19_10buo-nun.html
Thanks em. The tragedy of Seeglook’s death (and he was the brother of friends of mine) was not that he needed a light to guide him home, but that an unlit hazard was hit by him on his way home. The light there, while it would have helped in Navigation, was necessary for the safety of a traveler.
Elders are bemoaning the extensive use of GPS, not because they are not beneficial to travelers, but because the growing reliance on them alone is eroding navigational skills that have taken generations to hone. The skill of learning to travel up here, but landscape, drift direction etc can be lost in a generation or two. And then what happens when batteries or instruments fail?
You say “The far north of Greenland is only a little further north than Peace River Alberta.”
Are we talking about the same Greenland? I’m talking about the huge Island to the east of Baffin and Ellesmere Islands. The far north of Greenland goes at least as far north as the northern tip of Ellesmere.
Sorry, that is an error. What I meant to say was that the far north of Denmark is only a little further north than Peace River Alberta.