Energy Seed LED Light Gives Alkaline Batteries a Last Hurrah

Photo Via Yanko Design

Yanko Design is always showing off interesting pieces. One that caught our eye yesterday is an LED street light that is powered by trashed alkaline batteries.

Sungwoo Park and Sunhee Kim realized the potential in the itty bitty bit of energy left in alkaline batteries that isn’t enough to power gadgets but is still enough to power something. They created the Energy Seed lamp that uses a handful of these dumped batteries to power the LED light. Americans purchase nearly 3 billion dry-cell batteries every year to power gadgets, many of which are tossed after a single use. The idea of using them for LEDs isn’t brand new but the Energy Seed definitely puts a modern spin on the idea.

The lamp utilizes old batteries, most of which have around 0.8 to 1.3 volts left in them. Energy Seed’s LED needs about 2 volts. Grabbing the last little bit of juice out of alkaline batteries is a great way to make them as functional as possible until they’re finally phased out completely. The concept is to gather the batteries from landfills, any size, and use them up.

Energy Seed is a cool idea, but not terribly practical, and it hopefully isn’t sustainable. With luck, we won’t have alkaline much longer. And, the big question left is what happens with the batteries once they’re sucked dry? Hopefully folks using the lamps would be thoughtful enough to properly recycle them.

Via Yanko DesignMore on LED Street LightsLED Street Lights are ComingA-Squared Michigan Installing 1000 LED Street Lights: A Less Than 4-Year PaybackMore on BatteriesGreen Batteries: Battery FAQsBattery Doctor: Reconditioning BatteriesMaking Gadgets Greener