Designer Mike Thompson has created an incredible living lamp that is powered by algae! Spotted over at Designboom, the Latro Lamp derives energy from an algae chamber that requires just sunlight, CO2, and water to operate. Stick the lamp outside, breathe into it, and voila, you’ve created your own bio battery-powered living lamp.
The lamp is made possible thanks to a recent discovery made by researchers at the universities of Yansei and Stanford. The researchers found that a tiny electrical current can be extracted from algae during photosynthesis. The Latro Lamp features a battery that stores energy generated by the algae throughout the day and a light sensor that controls the lamp’s intensity, preventing the algae from becoming malnourished. Thompson believes this discovery could lead to an algae revolution: “As advances in nanotechnology lead to increasingly energy efficient products, plant life such as algae will become attractive sources for tapping energy,” he says.
For now, though, the Latro lamp remains an idealistic design project — after all, who realistically wants to care for a lamp like a household pet?
Via Designboom
12 Responses to “Algae-Powered Latro Lamp Transforms CO2 Into Light”
get the free Inhabitat newsletter
more popular stories >
more popular stories >
more popular stories >
“after all, who realistically wants to care for a lamp like a household pet?”
Me! Me! Me!
I know, that should be their freaking marketing campaign. It obviously sounds negative to them, but people are willing to pay for pet rocks, or chia pets, a living lamp sounds awesome and I\’d definitely pay for one!
It looks like it also makes an awesome (if kind of strange tasting) bong.
when can we buy our new living lights? or is it something you turn a old dirty bong into?
[...] Pavlína Doležalová and Jan Smékal, the spiraling tower is a 240 meter-high structure covered by air-cleaning algae. The designers envision that a network of these prickly scrapers could be strategically placed in [...]
It’s the 2010 answer to the lava lamp. I want one.
This lamp is just amazing! I\’d love to buy one of these
So awesome! I would totally buy one!
Sorry to be nelly negative, but university researchers did the real creative work of extracting electricity from algae, and Mr. Thompson’s contribution is to attach the system to a light bulb – not much of an addition, really. He did include the rather silly “add CO2 by breathing into it” bit – in reality, this is not necessary, since algae grow just fine without help from the limited CO2 they’d get from an occasional breath. Finally, remember that photosynthesis requires light, which is where you don’t need a lamp! It’s like having a solar powered flashlight! Nice image, but didn’t think it through.
[...] nation’s economy while also mitigating the danger of lake overturn, in which huge clouds of carbon dioxide are released, suffocating everyone in their [...]
[...] and Technology (IET), which claims that working from home and online shopping actually increase CO2 [...]
how much algae is in lamp