Team Geared Up

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (Team Geared Up) - When you are packing a bag for an extended outdoor trip what is one of the main things you remember to bring? A flashlight. And when does that flashlight suddenly run out of juice? Exactly when you need it most! So how would you like to have a flashlight that lasts pretty much your entire lifetime without ever needing to be recharged? Sounds like a fairytale? Well it may not be. Newly developed micro LEDs will last up to 80 years on a single charge!!! William Henry is applications specialist at Ireland’s Tyndall National Institute who is the brains behind the project. One of the researchers on the project had one running constantly for two-and-a-half years on his desk. Now this is still a ways away from consumer level application and larger hand/head torch level lights would last only 5 years on one charge but the technology does exist. If this were applied to home lighting you could say goodbye to more than half of your electrical bill right there! via New Launches

Next up we have a Japanese inventor who found a way to use the raw kinetic energy of the ocean to to provide means of powering a boat. Yutaka Terao has developed the latest in a long running series of vessels that use the eco friendly propulsion of waves.

The Suntory Mermaid II uses a pair of movable fins mounted under the bow to generate forward propulsion using dolphin like kicks. While the maximum speed is a modest 5 knots, this shouldn’t bother the Mermaid II’s 69 year old skipper Kenichi Horie, as he attempts to sail 4,350 miles from Hawaii to Japan later this month. Let’s just hope that he remembers to turn off the left turn signal after pulling out of port.

Although the vessel isn’t breaking any speed records having this system equipped on a boat with an engine or sail could be handy if they main method of propusion is somehow damaged or lost. It would be interesting if this could also be applied to large scale vessels like yachts or even tankers. via Treehugger

-Alx-