patrick.net

Very clever, but from the looks of many of that guy's installations, they are going to leak badly the next time it rains.

Probably living in drought conditions, they did mention that they seal after the install. Once this concept is perfected, it will become more mainstream.

I seriously doubt the oil, coal, and other energy lobbies are going to allow this. They'll probably get chlorine banned or set up some $100,000 a bottle fine for this idea. Trust me, I'm sure the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute is working very hard on the spin as we type.

Can't wait for it to arrive here in the US. It will do two things, first, it will help rid us of that nasty plastic bottle problem, who would have ever thought that that enviromental hazard could have been put to a good use. Second, it will count as another Obama green job.

--- Sarcasm mode off ---

I will consider this when I move from my camper to a Tin Shack.

the snow globes I have glued into my camper roof do a good job now, but shaking the camper is a real biatch @:^(

Sorry, but this violates the end user agreement you signed when the electric company wired your shack for electricity. Also, you have to pay royalties on the intellectual property of the bottling companies.

Oh wait, this isn't in America...

lisalisa says

but shaking the camper is a real biatch @:^(

Obviously you are not making good use of the camper...

www.solatube.com/

I think that water absorbs infrared preferentially to visible light, so the bottle may cut out 75% of the heat or so. Given the piss poor efficiencies of incandescent lights, these may run cooler than the electrics that they are replacing.

I didn't look at the solatube literature, but it looks like a basic fiber optic light pipe product. There should be no reason why you cannot put a low E coating on the collector. That will block most of the heat. Ideally, depending on your environment, you would have a movable IR shade, so that you can pass the heat through in the winter. I doubt that would be used.

How fast do the bottles photodegrade? I suppose this is additional repair business down the line for the fellow doing the installs. Looks pretty cool.