Green Daily

The jury may still be out on whether Ethanol and biodiesel are the solution to the world's oil addiction. There's some evidence that diverting food crops to fuel production is raising the prices of food, and it's questionable whether you could grow enough fuel crops to power all the vehicles currently relying on gasoline. But what if you could fill up your car with Ethanol produced in your backyard, not in a field in Iowa?

The EFuel100 Micro Fueler is a contraption that will let you do just that. Basically, you add some water, sugar, and yeast, let it sit for a few days and you've got ethanol that you can use to power your car. The Micro Fueler can also take alcohol, and co-founder Thomas Quinn says he sometimes makes ethanol from discarded alcohol picked up from bars and restaurants.

Between supplies and electricity, it costs about $1 to produce a gallon of ethanol. But the up front costs are a bit higher than that. A Micro Fueler will set you back about $10,000, although with government subsidies, you can probably chop a few thousand dollars off that price.

[via Gizmodo]

Sure, changing the light bulbs in your house to compact fluorescents can cut your energy bills a bit and save you a few bucks. But if you're a municipal agency like the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority, with 60,000 lights to replace, those savings can add up fast.

The MTA is in the process of changing the lights in the New York subway system to LEDs. So far, the agency says it's changed 47,000 signal lights. When the upgrades are complete, the change could save the city up to $4.8 million per year, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And the LED lights are 150 percent brighter than the old light bulbs to boot.

The MTA is also replacing incandescent bulbs at subway stations with compact fluorescent lights.

[via Good Clean Tech]

Solar powered gadget chargers may be all the rage these days, but what do you do if your iPod runs out of juice while you're spelunking? Well, I certainly hope your solution isn't to pull a pedal powered generator out of your pocket, because that just seems kind of dangerous if you're in a cave. But if you're sitting at home and trying to think of ways to get a bit of exercise while keeping your phone or MP3 player charged, this Chinese pedal powered doohickey could be just what you're looking for.

This little charger packs what looks like a pretty hefty battery, and it even has an LED flashlight on the front in case the power goes out. I wouldn't normally bother to point that out, but there's a big shiny picture on the product homepage showing off the flashlight, so I guess it must be important.

If you get tired of pedaling with your feet, you can also place the charger on a table or desk and use it as a hand crank. This ¥14,800 ($141 US) generator isn't the only pedal powered gadget charger we've seen. But it's certainly the blue-est. That's got to count for something, right?

[via EcoFriend and TFTS]

Organic LED technology is still in its infancy, which means that while OLED lights are potentially far more energy efficient than anything else out there, right now they're extraordinarily expensive to produce. In other words, don't expect to walk a store and buy an OLED lamp anytime soon.

But if you've been wondering what an OLED lamp might look like, you can stop pulling your hair out and look at the pretty pictures of a prototype designed by lighting artist Ingo Maurer. Basically, Osram, an OLED manufacturer gave Maurer 10 small panels and asked him to design a lamp.

OLEDs use less voltage than traditional lights, operate at low voltages, and don't use mercury. The light is also dispersed evenly over the entire panel instead of emitting from specific points. The press release says the lamp, called Early Future, is "being produced as a limited edition." It's not quite clear if that means you'll actually be able to buy one at some point, or if by limited, the company means the lamp will be one of a kind. Either way, you might want to start putting some money in the piggy bank or raiding your kid's college fund if you actually want to pick one up. You might be better off just marveling at the images and waiting a few years until OLEDs are as common plastic shopping bags.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's dream of decreasing New York City traffic and increasing public transit funding by charging drivers entering Manhattan a fee appears to be dead.

After months of lobbying from Bloomberg, New York City Council members approved a plan last week that would have charged drivers entering Manhattan $8 between 6:00 in the morning and 6:00 in the evening. But this afternoon state lawmakers rejected the proposal. Today's development effectively kills the proposal, since New York City will miss the deadline to qualify for $354 in federal funds for traffic aid.

There's a slight chance that some action could be taken on the measure this evening if Governor David Paterson has his way. The governor supports congestion pricing and has reportedly called leaders of the state legislature into a meeting. But Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver said there's simply not enough support in the state legislature for the measure to pass.

This comes as a pretty major blow to the concept of congestion pricing. New York was the first major US city to consider charging a fee to drive into the city, something which London has been doing for several years now.

OK, we know you don't particularly feel guilty about listening to the radio. That little Sony Walkman you've been carrying around since 1987 doesn't exactly eat through batteries like Cookie Monster gobbles umm.. cookies. But wouldn't you feel even better about your gadgets if you never had to put a single battery in them?

That's where these solar powered headphones come in. They've got a built in radio, and built in solar panels. So just position them on your head, go out for a walk on a sunny day, and listen to all the radio you want, guilt free.

Of course, all you get for your £19.95 (about $40 US) is a radio. If you want an MP3 player or tape cassette you'll have to look elsewhere. Actually, you might have to look elsewhere for a little while anyway. The headphones appear to be out of stock at the moment.

[via GoodCleanTech]

UK solar power company Solar Technology has released an update to its Freeloader line of portable solar charging stations. The new SuperCharger sports a larger solar panel than the original model. In practical terms, that means you can fully charger the Freeloader's portable battery in about 4 hours using nothing but the sun's rays. You power an iPod for about 18 hours, or a typical cellphone for 44 hours off a single charge.

The SuperCharger is also weather-proofed, which means you can charge your device under any conditions. You know, as long as there's some sunlight. The SuperCharger will set you back £20 or about $40, but you'll need a Freeloader to make use of it. You can also get a "Globe Trotter" bundle with a Freeloader, SuperCharger, and carrying case for £50 or about $100.

[via Engadget]

In case you hadn't noticed, there's a growing trend of stores, and even entire cities banning single-use plastic shopping bags. If you want to prepare for this impending sea change, you could just start taking your backpack to the grocery store, or you could shell out a few bucks for a reusable tote bag. Or you could take a few minutes to answer a ridiculously easy quiz from organic food producers, Earthbound Farm.

The quiz asks you to answer 10 questions about sustainable and organic farming, and what Earthbound Farm is doing to help the environment. Most of the questions have obvious answers, but the few that don't include links to web pages with the answer. Earthbound Farm is obviously running this promotion in order to raise awareness about their own brand, and not just the benefits of environmentalism and organic farming in general. But hey, free tote bag!

[via Eco Joe's]

Ikea plans to stop offering plastic shopping bags to customers at its US stores by starting in October. Last year the retailer with the big blue box stories and the big blue shopping bags began selling reusable bags for 59 cents a piece, and started charging 5 cents for every single use plastic bag in an effort to cut down on the number of plastic bags used.

Ikea now says 92 percent of its customers went without the plastic bags, which paves the way for the company to stop offering them altogether. The move will likely be easier for Ikea than some retailers, since Ikea locations tend to sell large items like furniture along with smaller items like tasty Swedish cookies and Lingonberry preservers. Cookies aside, it's likely that most Ikea customers aren't going to try to cram their new couch or kitchen table in a plastic bag. And since Ikea stores tend to have large parking lots, you can probably just pull the car up to the door and drop your items into the back seat.

But Ikea isn't alone in banning plastic bags. Whole Foods is also phasing them out, and cities and countries around the world are getting into the act as well. I even saw a sign at my local grocery store in Brooklyn encouraging people to buy or bring reusable bags because it might not be too long before plastic shopping bags are extinct.

[via Environmental Leader]

If the $25,000 Powercube 600 we showed you yesterday is out of your price range, perhaps the Sola Unagi briefcase solar power generator will fit your budget better. This briefcase-sized (and shaped) solar power generator can be yours for about $1150, with discounts if you buy in bulk. It's also much lighter than the 1 ton Powercube, at just 10 kilograms.

While the Powercube can pump up to 3500 Watts of electricity to power pretty much everything in your house, the Sola Unagi is a bit more modest, with a 400 Watt output capacity. But that's enough juice to power a laptop for up to 6 hours, a small refrigerator for up to 4 hours, or a lighting system for over 10 hours.

The Sola Unagi is designed by Fuji Africa for use in parts of Africa where electricity isn't always available, and the company is targeting it toward doctors, field researchers, universities, farmers, shop owners, and soldiers who might need a reliable source of electricity.

[via The Red Ferret Journal]

While motorcycles and scooters tend to get better mileage than your typical SUV, or even compact car, they usually still chug a little gas an spurt out a bit of gray stuff. The Vectrix ZEV, on the other hand, is 100% electric, meaning you get no tailpipe emissions (which makes sense since there's no tailpipe).

The Vectrix ZEV is pretty zippy. It's able to go from 0 to 50 miles per hour in seven seconds, and has a top speed of 62 miles per hour. You can travel about 50 miles on a single charge, so this scooter's obviously meant more for city travel than cross-country trips.

You can pick up a Vectrix ZEV for $10,000 to $12,000.

[via Inhabitat]

Odds are you know how to configure your computer to shut off the monitor or enter sleep mode if you haven't touched a key in a while. So you don't really need another program to let you configure your power saving options, even if it is a free utility. But LocalCooling might be worth checking out anyway, because not only does it display one-click power savings options, it also gives you a good idea of exactly how much electricity your computer is using in the first place.

LocalCooling does this by evaluating your computer hardware and providing an estimate of how many watts each component, including the monitor, hard drives, CPU, and graphics card are using. Once LocalCooling knows how much energy your PC uses, it can also keep track of how much energy you're saving by turning off your computer, or at least your monitor when you're not using it.

Users can also create an account to track your energy savings against other users online if you want to get all competitive about it.

[via gHacks]

Tired of spending hundreds of dollars on watch batteries? Umm yeah, I know. Watch batteries tend to last a pretty long time, and odds are you'll only go through 2 or 3 before your watch dies. But if you're looking for a watch that should never require a change of batteries, Casio has got you covered with its line of solar powered G-Shock watches.

The latest addition to the lineup is the G5500C, which features "Tough Solar" technology, which basically means that if the face of the watch is in the sunlight, it's charging the watch battery. Casio has a semi-useful pamphlet (PDF Link) explaining how the watch works with useful tips like "try to keep your sleeve from blocking its face."

The G-Shock G5500C also is also water resistant up to 200 meters, is shock resistant, offers 4 daily alarms, one snooze alarm, a countdown timer, and a stopwatch function. You can pick up a G5500C for $120.

[via Earth Loving Tech]

To promote Earth Hour, Google has painted its homepage black today. The gimmick is that Google has turned off the lights, and so should you in order to conserve energy. But here's the thing, there was actually a bit of a minor controversy last year over whether Google should always have a black homepage.

The theory went along these lines. It takes more energy to display a white screen than a black one, so we could all save a lot of electricity if popular web sites like Google featured black backgrounds and white text instead of the other way around. In fact, there's even a web page called Blackle, which essentially a custom search engine based on Google, but with a black screen.

Chicago may be known as the windy city, but it also gets a fair bit of snow. And where there's snow, there's icy roads. Most cities try to keep the roads ice-free by spreading salt. But while salt does a pretty good job of melting ice, it also damages roads and bridges and pollutes the soil. So Chicago officials are trying something new: a mixture of beet juice, briny water, and calcium chloride.

Chicago hasn't gone salt-free. The city still lays down tons of rock salt, 450-thousand tons last year, in fact. And even the beet-juice mixture includes some salt, but not as much as a 100% salt solution. While the beet-juice solution does appear to be more environmentally friendly than rock salt, it also costs more to make. And when you've got 9,500 miles of roads to keep clean, every penny counts.

[via Good Clean Tech]