Natural Fuse
June 30, 2010
“Natural fuse” is a micro-scale carbon dioxide overload protection framework that works locally and globally, harnessing the carbon-sinking capabilities of plants. Generating electricity to power the electronic products that populate our lives has consequences on the amount of carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere, which in turn has detrimental environmental effects. The carbon footprint of the power used to run these devices can be offset by the natural carbon-capturing processes that occur as plants absorb carbon dioxide and grow. “Natural Fuse” units take advantage of this phenomena. They are now distributed in households in London, New York and San Sebastian.
Each Natural Fuse unit consists of a houseplant and a power socket. The amount of power available to the socket is limited by the capacity of the plant to offset the carbon footprint of the energy expended: if the appliance you plug in draws so much power that it requires more carbon-offsetting than available then the unit will not power.
The problem is that even low-power light bulbs draw more power than can be comfortably offset by a single plant. Therefore, all the units are connected together via the internet so that they can communicate and determine how much excess capacity of carbon-offsetting is available within the community of units as a whole. (text by Haque::design+research)
More info HERE
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