No need for streetlights in the future because our trees WILL be streetlights?

Using gold as an energy source. Makes perfect sense.

Do you think in amounts comparable to coating trees’ leaves sufficiently to illuminate streets?

This is the “tree” they are referring to… Bacopa caroliniana… an aquarium plant…

It seems that they’ve got a long way to go before the London Plane Trees of NYC start glowing at night… thank God.
Plus, the trees would need to be evergreen otherwise you’d lose all of your nanoparticles of gold each fall, though it would encourage fall cleanups as people scurry for the annual gold rush… leaf smelting becomes new urban tradition… filling the air with, er, um, carbon… granted LSD usage amongst teens would drop as a result of living in a constant designer-induced hallucinogenic state, in which trees glow, sidewalks move and buildings breath…

Here’s an urban design project from school in which I used photovoltaic “trees” along the sidewalk as streetlights and planted real trees in the bio-swale median…

In reality, if you want to illuminate walkways, why not ILLUMINATE WALKWAYS!? Sidewalks are flat expanses, very capable of absorbing energy and releasing it at night. Why not pave them in gold and nano-umpa lumpas and make those babies glow at night!? Now you can really see where you’re going… but be careful not to step on the umpa lumpas, they are people too… all be it very very tiny people… maybe we need nano-soled shoes that perfectly interact with the paving surface in order to have minimal impact on the umpa-lumpa populations who make our glowing walkways possible… ah, perfect harmony…

OK, too much coffee man over and out.

Gov’t issued LED headlamps for everybody!! It’s the new GLOW-Bama Economic Illumination plan!

No, no… forget gold nano-particles on the sidewalk. Paul Simon developed the answer years ago: diamonds on the soles of your shoes

you can easily build the bioluminescence into a lichen that is spread on the slabs as of course noone will want to walk the streets and you need to repress the growth of grasses and weeds. As for light pollution, I feel sure I once read in a paper (so it must be true) the growing electric light pollution of our cities is what attracted the UFO reports of the 50’s and 60’s including mothman. With glowing pavements and trees it is certain that no-one will want to walk the streets in case they meet mothman and so at a stroke drive indoors the red light trade.