Tag Archives: energy

Earth Hour 2011 is tonight, and you’re invited!

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Date: Saturday, March 26, 2011

Time: 8:30PM, local time

Place: Wherever you live

What to do:  Turn off your lights for one hour

“From its inception as a single-city initiative — Sydney, Australia – in 2007, Earth Hour has grown into a global symbol of hope and movement for change. Earth Hour 2010 created history as the world’s largest ever voluntary action with people, businesses and governments in 128 countries across every continent coming together to celebrate an unambiguous commitment to the one thing that unites us all — the planet.”

DO YOUR PART and contribute to Earth Hour 2011 by turning off your lights for one hour starting at 8:30PM (local time) on Saturday, March 27.  And while you’re at it, disconnect all electronics from their wall sockets and conserve energy during this time.  Even the small things count.  Since 2007 Earth Hour has become a worldwide shared experience with an important mission: to make a positive impact on our planet.

[Via EarthHour; YouTube Channel] Continue reading Earth Hour 2011 is tonight, and you’re invited! →

Turbine Light illuminates roadways with wind-power

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From TAK Studio comes the latest innovation in green roadways–the attractive Turbine Light.  Here’s how it works: These wind-powered lights line up highways and streets and illuminate when cars pass by them.  If enough energy is generated by the passing cars, the lights will shine the path to your destination.  Problem is, the keyword here is IF.  Would such implementation promote faster driving?  It would make sense for something like this to be installed in windy cities that already generate enough energy for illumination. For all the rest, what about solar powered lights, hm?

[Via Inhabitat; Gizmodo]

Snowflake-shaped photovoltaic cells emit holiday cheer

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Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have created these snowflake-shaped photovoltaic cells from crystalline silicon.  What’s so special about that is that they use 100 times less material to generate the same amount of electricity as regular solar cells.  Their unusual shape and minuscule size promise to soak up the sun’s rays and help power our devices.  Researchers can see the day when they are inexpensively mass-produced and used in the textile and clothes industries.  In theory, these cells can be placed on any flexible surface.  So for example, they can be installed in camping tents or even a pair of jeans to provide on-the-go charging of our cell phones.  Thanks to these photovoltaic cells, one day we may all be walking power sources.  Neat, huh?

[Via Engadget; Gizmodo; Inhabitat]

‘Dancepants Kinetic Music Player’

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Designed by Inesa Malafej and Arunas Sukarevicius (from Lithuania).

The “Dancepants” convert kinetic energy from your rapid movement into electricity to run your MP3 player.  In layman’s terms: you run and the music plays; you stop running and the music stops playing.  The designers say the leggings are a “100 percent interactive way to feel the value of energy on your own.”

Pretty neat way to keep you going at a fast pace when exercising or making a quick dash to your next class.  If you want your beats to keep playing you gotta shake your groove thang, shake your groove thang.

[Via Engadget; Ecouterre]

Walk and create energy

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Pavegen Systems at interbuild exhibition.  Flexible paving slabs that generte energy from people’s footsteps to power street lighting, wayfinding solutions, and other low energy applications. 

Basically, these “paving slabs” can generate “as much as 2.1 watts of electricity per hour” simply by having people walk on them.  This kind of tech is very impressive and surely stands out in the “be green” world we live in today.  Pavegen Systems is currently testing it out in East London and they plan to have them installed more widely sometime in 2010.

[Via Engadget]

Clock displays your energy usage; may promote it

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The Energy Aware Clock shows you the time (obviously) and your energy use by way of cool visualziations on its front display.  This concept device somehow wireless connects to your power meter and shows in real-time your energy consumption fluxuate with blue spikes.  Although the idea itself is interesting and could work, I feel it may cause more energy consumption, at least initially, because who won’t want to show off the awesome blue visualizations, right?

The clock is created by Swedish designers Loove Broms, Karin Ehrnberger, and Sara Llstedt Hjelm and will be shown off at Design September Brussels 2009.

[Via Gizmodo; DVICE]

Solar Power Shower

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Just connect to your garden hose to fill the base to its 8-liter capacity. In less than 2 hours of sunlight, the water reaches 140°F!  Use the mixing valve to blend heated water in the base with cold water from your hose to a pleasant 86-90°.  You and your family can take several showers consecutively before the tank needs to reheat.  It’s a great energy-saver and a must-have ‘green’ product.  It harnesses the power from sunlight to–

Wait, what’s that?  You were too busy looking at the product image.  : /

[Via Gizmodo; RedFerret]