Green Options

Researchers at the University of York have recently come up with a method of recycling that seems like it fell from the pages of a science fiction novel. They want to turn discarded television screens into components for biomedicine.

Many of us are accustomed to watching TV on high-quality plasma and LCD screens, but we pay a severe price in energy inefficiency. Toshiba has come up with a solution to our energy woes: flexible OLED paper that doubles as a TV screen.

Next month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is shaping up to be an interesting event. A few days ago, we reported that Energizer plans on debuting its solar-powered battery charger at the show. Now LG has announced the CES debut of its sunlight-illuminated 14.1 inch LCD notebook panel.

If you own a big-screen TV, you may have some inkling about the amount of energy that goes into powering it. And while LCD TV’s use significantly less energy than plasma screens, these power-suckers are still nothing to scoff at.

Fortunately, television manufacturers are beginning to realize that rising energy costs mean they have to address this problem. Sharp is presenting their environmentally-friendly way of watching TV at the IFA electronics show in Berlin. The company is also one of the biggest solar panel manufacturers in the world, and it believes that a single panel can provide enough energy to power an LCD TV for four and a half hours a day with no extra electricity from the grid.

There is a new generation of super-thin displays that produce sharper images using less power. Organic light-emiting diode (LOED) screens use more than 40% less power than a LCD display and are also twice as thin, since they do not need backlighting (they glow on their own).

Currently, Samsung Electronics and Kyocera are already using this technology for music players and mobile phones. Sony will soon be selling OLED in Japan as early as 2008:

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