CleanTechnica

Australian solar physicist John Cook of Skeptical Science has created a nifty little iPhone app that includes numerous climate skeptic arguments as well as the science-based counterarguments to those (since we are all tired of the misinformed myths about climate science but normally can’t cite scientific articles and data off the top of our head).

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Clever boffins over at Imperial College, London, have announced their intention to kill off the battery once and for all.

They’re working on a $4.5m project to develop a lightweight material capable of storing electricity.  The carbon fibre based polymer resin is already patented and will be light enough to form the casing of anything from MP3 players to car bodies.

In addition, unlike batteries the substance’s performance won’t degrade over time because the electricity storage and release doesn’t rely upon a chemical reaction.

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Wipro, the second largest IT company in India, has beaten many of the giants in electronics and unveiled a toxic free computer.

In so doing it becomes only the third manufacturer in the world, behind Apple and HP, to make a toxic free desktop.

Only Acer laptops are similarly toxin free.  All other manufacturers, including Dell, Toshiba and Samsung, continue to make PCs which are environmentally damaging.

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If you’ve ever spun a yo-yo, you’ll have no trouble getting the hang of Easy Energy’s new YoGen handheld charger.  According to its North American manufacturer Fame LLC, the tiny powerhouse was a big hit at the 2010 International Consumer Electronics Show last week in Vegas.

YoGen was designed to power portable electronics by pulling on a rip-cord, an activity familiar to yo-yo fans worldwide.  The device, which has innards that look like clockworks, basically consists of an alternator that transfers enough sustainable kinetic energy to charge cell phones, iPods, Gameboys, cameras, and the like.  It might seem like all fun and games, but a gadget like this might play a big role in future U.S. military logistics.

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Energy efficient light bulbs are cool already, but they are getting a whole lot cooler. The new LED EcoBulb by Seokjae Rhee raises the green bar with innovative features to save more energy.

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You don’t have to get a credit check to buy electricity from a utility. Now you don’t need one to buy your very own solar power supply either. A company in New Jersey is offering a solar PPA to homeowners to buy cheap power off their roof with no credit check.

Not only does this put paying a solar bill on an even playing field with paying an electric bill, but US Solergy is offering this arrangement for 25% of utility rates in the state. After a small down payment, their residential solar power purchase agreement enables homeowners to buy their electricity for $0.05 per kilowatt-hour in a state where utility electricity costs $0.20 per kilowatt-hour.

How can they do that? Isn’t solar more expensive than utility electricity? Well, no, actually, solar is cheaper. Read the rest of this entry »

A new initiative by New York City, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Alliance for Clean Energy New York (ACENY) is making it possible for residents of New York to buy Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) through three easy steps on a simple, new website. The website is called Green Power NYC.

The program is starting off fairly limited, but is clearly helpful to consumers and the environment and is looking to grow.
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Puff is attached near the exhaust pipe of your vehicle. Its color changes dynamically, visualizing the amount of pollution your car is producing. Green indicates the lowest rate of pollution, red the highest.

Modern artists have often tackled environmental and ecological issues head on, such as through incorporating litter and refuse into sculptures, while other artists (such as photo, video and film artists) have sought to document industrial waste and/or have taken strong oppositional/advocacy stances in their works.

In recent years, many artists have sought to move beyond these “reactive”, commentary, and  documentary approaches and create objects and devices that serve practical purposes (if still a bit fanciful in appearance). One such artist/designer is Karolina Sobecka, whose car emissions monitoring device, ‘Puff’ , provides colorful feedback to the car owner on how “cleanly” (or efficiently) he/she is using/burning gasoline.

This author recently contacted Ms. Sobecka and asked her about this device (‘Puff’) as well as her other designs, and her artistic/social/environmental goals.

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What with the Vice President promoting the PACE model of super affordable city financing for solar; and the econo-apocalypse-related drop in solar panel prices, you’d think that solar was in the bag by now, but group buying on top of all that will still buy the cheapest solar for your roof.

For example, in the Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Desert Hot Springs and Coachella area, you could now get all your electricity free for the next 25-40 years for $10,000! That’s about $90,000 lower than you would have paid your utility for 25 years.

One Block off the Grid’s completely unique model of group buying combined with the financing of their partnering banker SunRun (which offers one of the few solar financing options to remain viable in the downturn) has made group purchasing the cheapest way for going solar ever.

The solar company 1BOG selected for this neighborhood; HelioPower is able to install that neighborhood for $5.49 a watt—the lowest rate 1BOG has ever negotiated for their group discount.
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Zerofootprint has created a new “TalkingPlug” that will help you to better monitor the energy usage of different appliances and electronics. How? By making your electrical sockets smarter.

Zerofootprint already helps corporations and governments in evaluating and reducing their carbon emissions through various methods. It also helps households through innovative technologies such as this one. This new TalkingPlug is for corporations or households (or anyone with electrical sockets) and will have an initial price tag of about $50. The price may go down considerably if it can make the product on a larger scale.

How does it work? What are its advantages compared to Google’s PowerMeter and other similar up and coming technologies?
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