Can a light bulb be the answer to world energy?

Question

In France, they have a large array of reflective mirrors that focus the suns beams on a central point, generating heat and, thus, electricity.

That got me to wondering....

If I took a single light bulb and used magnifying glasses and mirrors and such, could I produce enough heat to, say, boil a small amount of water (producing steam)?

Or how about this: Could I take that single light bulb and, using mirrors and magnifcation, light and entire home? a stadium? a city?

That is, IF, IF, IF I could use fiber optics and so forth, just what could be done with a single light bulb?

Is any of this possible? Could a single light bulb perhaps generate enough electricity to light itself, or at least offset some of the power usage? Thoughts?

Thank you so much for EXCELLENT answers. I really appreciate it.

A further thought occurred upon reading these responses....

Surely a single light bulb in a room is greately enhanced by having a thousand mirrors--each reflecting the light bulb--in place.

That is, instead of having a wall that is one mirror, I might have a wall that is 10,000 mirrors, each adjusted to reflect the bulb. Are you saying that the room would not be brighter that way...than just with the single bulb? Thanks again--I am learing so much!

Answer 1

yes

Answer 2

When you use a magnifying glass or mirrors, you are not creating more energy. You are simply focusing the energy from a large area onto a small area. If you take a light bulb, you could focus it's energy and create steam but the amount of steam would be so small.

Due to inefficiencies the energy out is always going to be smaller than the energy in.

Your question about if a lightbulb could be the answer to world energy is an interesting one. I listened to a presenter just yesterday explain how over half the world lives in metropolitan areas and how over 50% of their electricity consumption was used for lighting. Most lighting is done with incandescent bulbs which produce more heat than light. By developing a lower, more efficient lightbulb, we could greatly help reduce world energy usage. So in a way, yes, a lightbulb may be an answer to world energy.

Answer 3

No. The law of conservation of energy holds here; you're not making more light with magnifying glasses, you're just focusing it. The more you spread light out like this, the less intense it gets, and at some point it won't even be visible. As for trying to produce electricity - definitely not. A light bulb produces far more heat than light energy, and solar cells are not 100% effective either. Even if everything was 100% effective, there would be no gain and no loss.
Sorry, there's no such thing as a free lunch.

Answer 4

All the above "can't get out more than you put in" comments are correct. To that I just wanted to add that walling a room with mirrors makes the room no brighter than simply painting the walls a bright white. On the other hand, paint the walls flat black and see how light is absorbed.

Reminds me of a sorta-joke --- there is now a cable channel that is nothing but a camera pointed at a 500 watt light bulb. So if you're watching it, you get a 500 watt light from your TV for only the 80 watts or so that average TVs consume - Great idea, huh? =8^D

(Of course, it doesn't work that way at all...)

Answer 5

Magnifying glasses and mirrors merely focus and redirect the already-present energy—with a slight loss, I might add. If you spread the light from a single bulb around the house, you MIGHT have enough light to walk around, but probably not enough to read at night. There is no way you could light a stadium with a single light bulb.
You might be able to offset some power usage by collecting light from light bulbs, but it would likely be more trouble than the potential savings are worth.
A single light bulb can never generate enough energy to light itself. If you collected _all_ the energy the light bulb put off and sent it back through the filament, even assuming perfect efficiency (which current technology is far, far, away from), you might be able to keep the bulb lit indefinitely, but you would be unable to use the bulb. (if you can see any light from the bulb, not all of the light is being collected.)

None of it's possible! (the single light bulb might boil a bit of water, but you'd be better off sticking the cold glass bulb [if you stick hot glass into cold water, or vice versa, the glass might break.] into the water and turning it on—keeping everything but the glass dry, of course)
You can get (in theory) 60 Joules per second from a 60 Watt bulb—since a Watt is one Joule per second. You can spread light around, but the wider you spread it, the dimmer it seems. You can focus light into a bright but tiny pinprick, but the pinprick is too small to illuminate anything you might want to look at. However, you cannot multiply the brightness of the pinprick over the width of the room and not increase the power input.

I have ranted long enough, and feel in danger of repeating myself. I apologize for taking up so much of your time.

Answer 6

No, even however I do have concerns approximately coaching the common public approximately disposal of the bulbs. And that's a deceptive speaking factor that the incandescent bulb would be banned. The Act calls for form of 25 % greater suitable performance for mild bulbs, phased in from 2012 through 2014. Incandescents can nonetheless be made, and could be offered, if/while they develop their performance. genuine, contemporary bulbs does no longer have the means for use, yet basically a 2nd of concept will prepare that they are in a position to have long been burned out by technique of then.

Answer 7

Interesting idea, but has a flaw - You are not describing a closed system. You can't get something for nothing, especially where energy is concerned.
If you use sunlight to power a light bulb, then use the light bulb to power itself, or another light bulb, the drop off in energy would be tremendous, regardless of the route of transmission. You would constantly have to supply an external source of energy that would far exceed any you could produce.

Answer 8

No, this can't happen. It's different with the sun. The magnifying glasses aren't going to bring anymore energy of its own. It just collects more light, resulting in more energy concentrated in one place. While for a light bulb, if you collect all the light getting out of it, it wouldn't be able to do what the sun does. It probably could boil a small amount of water, or such.

Answer 9

Simply put, you cannot generate more energy from a finite energy source. You can't use 1 bulb to light an entire house, becuase the bulb only puts out so much light(energy). You can't increase this by using mirrors and such.

Answer 10

You can focus no more energy than the bulb produces. If it makes 10 watts of light, that's the most you'll get when you collect every bit of it.