LED Lamp Runs on Mud
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11.13.08
Dutch designer Marieke Staps has built a lamp with the LEDs powered by soil. She writes:
"Free and environmentally friendly energy forever and ever. The lamp runs on mud. The metabolism of biological life produces enough electricity to keep an LED lamp burning. The mud is enclosed in various cells. These cells contain copper and zinc that conduct the electricity. The more cells there are , the more electricity they generate. This technique offers a wealth of possibilities. The only thing the lamp needs is a splash of water every now and then."
Commenters on Make and Next Nature noted that this is not quite true, and that nothing is free:
Now, an LED lamp powered by copper/zinc cells with a mud electrolyte is kind of cool, but there are no magical biological organisms involved, and the lamp will inevitably stop functioning once the chemical reaction has run its course. In any case, they've been making little digital clocks powered like this for a long time, so it's not exactly a huge leap forward.and
The anode and cathodes (copper and zinc) are depleted over time and will need to be replaced. These materials are manufactured using “non-free” energy. In a round about way you could argue that the energy released via the process that erodes the metals is “stored” in them when the metal is processed from ore.
Whatever, it is very pretty. Mstaps via PSFK photo by Rene van der Hulst.
Other Lovely Lamps on TreeHugger:
Sun Jar: Storing Sunshine
Knock Off Your Own Homage to the Sun Jar
IKEA Lighting The Way To Warmer LED Lamps
Follow @TreeHugger on Twitter & get our headlines with @TH_rss!
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
- Zero Waste—The Newest Eco-Fashion Innovation?
- Fire Up Your Metabolism and Burn More Calories with Herbs
- Green Glossary: Bagasse
- Green Glossary: Lyocell
- Is Your Kitchen Garden Toxic? 5 Ways To Fix Polluted Soil For Safe Homegrown Food
- Create a Go Green Plan: Follow Wa$ted!'s Salon Example
This is ridiculously inefficient I'm sticking to my potato light.
Some old same old:
see (the comments on) the articles: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/the_new_power_p_1.php
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/09/pee_powered_bat.php
What do you mean "whatever"? This is a form fraud just to make a buck! Not only that, what is it doing here? There is no environmental benefit to this thing at all. Eventually it will be just another piece of junk on the way to the landfill.
It's running on copper and zinc.
Well that's one way to greenwash coal power.
A lamp powered by the energy put off by countless life-forms...
It's the MINI-MATRIX! D:
By the way I think some quotation marks would improve the title:
LED lamp "runs on mud"
By a second way, I would like to propose a new tag: "snake-oil"