Turn Off Your Gadgets Easily

Having moved to the US I am still surprised by the lack of power switches on wall sockets. When the wall sockets have power strips attached, the strips usually have a power switch, but often they’re located on the floor or behind a set of drawers.

This Energy Saver Bar has a handy foot switch for turning off the power strip without that awkward bending down or hunting around. For around $30 (€19.95) it’s available from Proidee.

[Via: OhGizmo]

Save $100 Per Year with A New Fridge

I’m not one for throwing out products you already have for more eco-friendly ones (like a guy I knew who threw out a perfectly good table to buy a recycled one as he felt it made him look better). However sometimes it can be worth it, if the products you have are harmful, or they’re very energy inefficient.

Energy efficiency is sometimes a hard thing to achieve for a eco-minded person. Is it better to throw out an old refrigerator to buy an energy efficient one? What about the energy that is used to create the new fridge, will using it make up for the amount your old one wasted?

Well now you can have help to work this out, at least in part. The US Department of Energy has a calculator so you can determine how much energy your fridge consumes, and how much energy & money you can save by opting for a new Energy Star model (Energy Star fridges must adhere to even stricter criteria starting April 28).

The calculator allows you to input how much you pay for electricity and the model of your current fridge. If you don’t know this, don’t worry you can work it out based on approx year made, size and configuration. If you have an old fridge, why not give it a try?

If everyone who purchases a new refrigerator in 2008 in the US chooses a model that meets the new ENERGY STAR criteria instead of a non-qualified model, consumers will save enough energy each year to:

• Light every household in Washington, D.C. for over 20 months.
• Power an ENERGY STAR qualified 32” high definition LCD screen television for 640,000 years of non-stop viewing.
• Launch the space shuttle into orbit 298 times.
• Equal the amount of energy generated by burning 25million gallons of gasoline.

Recycling your old fridge:

• Buys you coffee for nearly 80 days!
• Saves enough energy to light ten 13-watt ENERGY STAR qualified light bulbs, one after another, for 70 years!
• Saves enough energy this year to freeze ice cubes in a new ENERGY STAR fridge for more than 2 years.

Neighbourhood-wide Renewable Energy

Dutch company Qurrent is developing technology that will enable neighbourhood-wide energy networks. Winner of the 2007 Picnic Green Challenge the system will be used to pilot the concept in the Netherlands.

Because of fluctuating patterns of consumption, homes with wind and solar energy generators can find themselves with surplus energy at some times of the day but not enough at others. Surplus energy typically gets sold back to the main grid, but as with most electric power transmission, ~30% of it can get lost along the way.

If a group of homes could work together to manage their collective energy generation and use so that higher levels of demand in one home can be matched with surpluses in others, this would help eliminate waste and make it more efficient. Participating homes essentially form a “mini-grid” that shares energy internally before exchanging any with the main grid.

To do this a Qbox is installed in each house, connected to a central Qserver. This monitors the Qboxes in the network measuring energy flows in each home and optimizing them for maximum network-wide efficiency. It can also turn on devices such as washing machines and dryers so that they are run at the optimal time. A home-owner could tell their Qbox that they want their laundry done by 6pm and that it will take roughly 1.5 hours, for example. They can then go to work and the Qbox will decide when is the best time to run it, taking into account their production profiles and energy rates as well as those of their neighbours.

Sounds like a great idea although at peak times demand would still probably require energy to be drawn from the main grid.

[Via: Springwise]

Green Link Love - Other Great Green Sites 2

After my first Green Link Love post I received a few emails, two of which stood out. One asking “What is link love?” - it’s simply linking out to other sites that might be of interest to your readers. The “love” part is because it helps the other website as you provide a link and, if done correctly, can help them in their search engine rankings. This isn’t the reason for doing it of course, but it can help.

The second interesting email was asking whether it was a good idea to link out to competing websites. The way I see it is other green sites are not competition for us. If one person can make a difference by recycling or making an effort to be environmentally responsible and sustainable then they are part of a wider community that are helping make the world a better place. A website is the same, no matter how large or small, that site can make a difference and is part of a community. One that we’re proud to be part of. That said, let’s move on….

As before, for more fun green things on the web, see Adam’s increasingly popular Fun Green Roundups.

First up is the wonderfully named WEEE Man that is a depiction of a human made up of the average amount of electronic waste a UK citizen would use in their lifetime. The WEEE refers to European legislation called the Waste Electrical & Electronic Equipment directive. Full of tips, it’s worth taking a look at.

The ever expanding Green Options has turned one year old. To celebrate, the excellent Sustainablog will be featuring one of our posts every week from now on.

David runs The Good Human, a site that encourages people to be better humans, whether through working to clean up the environment, being active in political issues that mean a lot to you or just being more aware of your life and surroundings. Some great stuff on there, such as 30 uses for a dead tree, and I like the 10% discount on Simple Shoes he currently has at the moment until March 31st.

The National Geographic Intelligent Travel blog is always good value, like the world’s first solar city. Actually Marilyn sent me a link to a stunning article about how your electronic trash is sometimes shipped out to places like Ghana where adults and children melt them down to sell the often toxic metals inside. Fascinating and frightening.

There are a few websites for “green” jobs, though the market is still relatively new and there is yet a definition of what a green job actually is. If you want a job that matters, one place to look is Jobs That Matter. If you’ve tried them, let me know.

G2bgreen has a green to-do list. The tips are pretty unorganized and it is a long list, but there is some gold in there. And while on the subject, they have a list of places to go for green jobs.

Fancy some eco art? Eco Artware creates gifts from recycled , reused and natural materials. If coasters made from re-used metal traffic signs, or a bottle opener made from an old bike chain sound good to you, then take a look. Life Goggles will be reviewing some of their products over the next few months (i.e. when I buy something from there for my wife’s birthday!).

Cool Green Gadgets does exactly what it says on the tin, looks at cool green gadgets.

Finally a question for you - http://www.localcooling.com/ - Has anyone tried it or heard of it?

Well that’s it for this time. Any comments, please post them below - was this too long, too short? Needs more pictures? Would be better as an audio or video post? Just let me know!

If you want to be featured here, drop me a line and we’ll take a look.

A Cheap Electric Sports Car?

Well, not exactly cheap, but it’s not $100,000 like the Tesla Roadster. Wired reports that the electric ZAP Alias will retail for around $30,000 in mid-2009.

What may not be immediately obvious is that it has three wheels. Unlike the famous Robin Reliant, the single wheel is at the back, and not the front. A projected range of 100 miles is promised with a top speed of 120mph. 2009 looks a little ambitious looking at the video - which is a computer model.

[Via: Wired]

Spinning Streetlamps

Solar powered streetlights and signs are not that unusual, but Panasonic have installed the solar and wind powered streetlights around their Panasonic Center in Tokyo.

“During the day the solar cells on top and the turbines generate power that’s stored in a battery at the base. At night the battery is used to run the streetlights, though the turbines continue to spin and produce power even in the dark.” [Via: OhGizmo!]

Welcome To The Green City

Greenpeace UK have launched an online virtual town called EfficienCity. It’s powered by clean and efficient (”decentralised”) energy. Based on actual communities in the UK, it aims to show that nuclear and coal powered power stations are not required.

It also aims to show how local councils, businesses and people are able to play a part in making the leap to a more sustainable future. The town is very interactive, with video case studies, animations and slideshows that explain how a clean and efficient energy system works. The tidal power animation was particularly interesting. Take a look at the Efficiencity, and you can read more about it here.

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