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Researchers Discover Source of LED Droop, Promise Higher Efficiency LEDs

Researchers discover source of LED droop

We all know that LED light bulbs are vastly more energy efficient than incandescent bulbs, but there’s a quirk in that efficiency that most folks may not realize. As higher currents are fed to LEDs, past a certain point they become way less efficient — a phenomenon known as “LED droop.” Researchers James Speck and more »

Glowing Plant Project Promises an Organic Alternative to Electricity

Glowing Plant Project

Imagine walking down the street at night, your pathway illuminated not by buzzing, harsh street lights, but instead by the warm glow of the trees lighting the road. Or an intimate dinner with your sweetie, illuminated not by candlelight, but by the bouquet of roses on the table between you. We may be quite some more »

A Slightly Naughty Explanation of Passive Home Design

A naughty explanation of passive home design

Some readers at Treehugger didn’t quite take the hint (and didn’t know what NSFW means), so let me spell it out ahead of time: this post is naughty. If you’re at work, hanging out with your mum, or just can’t handle a bit of lascivious innuendo, don’t click play on the video embedded below. If you’re not averse to a more »

Sharp Introduces LED Lighting

SHARP ELECTRONICS CORPORATION DIGITAL LED LIGHTING

Mention Sharp and LEDs in the same sentence, and like most people, I expect, your mind drifts immediately toward LCD TVs. The company announced yesterday, though, that it’s introducing a line of “digital LED lighting products for commercial, industrial, retail and hospitality applications.” You might have noticed the lack of “residential” in that list, but more »

Daytime Radiative Cooling Tech Delivers Power-Free AC

Ultrabroadband Photonic Structures To Achieve High-Performance Daytime Radiative Cooling

Treehugger has an intriguing new article about a new radiative cooling solar structure developed by researchers at Stanford University that can provide cooling for buildings — even in direct sunlight — by reflecting energy back into space. Unfortunately, the article is a little light on actual scientific explanation, and the actual paper that it cites is behind more »

LG Working on a Waterless Washing Machine

LG Styler

According to Engadget, LG is working on a washing machine that doesn’t require water at all. Of course, exactly how that works is still a mysterious trade secret. A little less mysterious is LG’s Styler, a cabinet you can put clothes in to “freshen” them without actually washing them. The press release further explains: “The more »

DVD Finds New Life… Saving Lives

DVD

Let’s face it: most of you reading this probably gave up on DVD a long time ago as source of entertainment, aside from the rare disc not yet released on Blu-ray. Aman Russom, senior lecturer at the School of Biotechnology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, though, claims that his team has found a new more »

Artificial Leaf Generates 100 Watts of Power from Water

Artificial leaf

Hydrogen fuel cells are often touted as a panacea for our environmental problems, but the hydrogen used on those cells primarily comes from one of two places: Fossil fuels or electrical separation from water, which requires power, usually generated from — you guessed it — fossil fuels. The Air Force has apparently been working on more »

Philips Doubles the Efficiency of LED Lamps

Philips Tube LED

Philips has been at the forefront of improving energy efficiency in lighting, and with its latest innovation, the company has taken that trend to new levels. Not only is its new prototype tube LED bulb twice as efficient as fluorescent tube bulbs, producing 200 lumens of high-quality white light per watt of energy used; it’s over thirteen more »

D*Haus: The Amazing Transforming Ecological Home

D*Haus D*Dynamic ecological home

Here’s an ecological home design that’s sure to appeal to child-of-the-eighties geeks with a passion for green home tech: the adaptable, transformable D*Haus. Equal parts mathematical trick and Robots in Disguise, the D*Haus D*Dynamic is the brainchild of architects David Ben-Grünberg and Daniel Woolfson, who looked at mathematician Henry Ernest Dudeney‘s Haberdashers Formula from 1903 and said, “We should more »