Hybrid Living

Imagine you are one of the billion people on this planet who live with intermittent power. You may live in Baghdad, or more likely you live in one of the many Squatter Cities where power is bootlegged or in short supply.

When your lights go out, which is every night, you get out your trusty kerosene lamps and light your home with the most inefficient light source known to man. If you are like most of your neighbors you will spend $60.00 - $75.00 per year to keep your home from going dark.

The GaiaLux light is a new design I’ve entered in the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. It is a simple, inexpensive, sustainable alternative to kerosene lamps. The key components are a recycled cell phone charger, a set of rechargeable batteries, and very efficient LED lights. When power is available, it charges the batteries; when light is needed the batteries can provide up to 40 hours of continuous use. What is really cool is that most cell phone chargers draw very little current when they are done charging batteries. (We have measured this.)

The benefits of this simple invention are several: First, the GaiaLux light reuses some of the 125 million cell phone chargers we throw away each year; second, it saves lots of CO2 emissions, (up to 50 million metric tons per year); third it reduces toxic emissions in people's homes, so people are healthier; and fourth, the return on investment is fantastic. The GaiaLux light pays for itself in just a few months. After that people save money for more important things, like putting food on the table and buying clothes for the kids.

Please visit the NASA Create the Future Design Contest. Entries are judged in part by the number of people who click through and read them. The contest site has some really great entries as well as some pretty “out there” ideas for making the world a better place.