Category — Green Energy

One of the biggest energy guzzlers in many homes is the water heater. With an average family of four, daily showers and household chores can deplete the contents of a fifty gallon water heater in no time, resulting in high utility bills. If you’re looking for a greener, more energy efficient water heater, here’s a green alternative that may work for your household. AirGenerate’s AirTap™ water heater uses mostly air and a small amount of electricity to heat the water. The unit attaches atop any standard electric or gas water heater and acts as a heat pump to pull the heat from the surrounding air, compress it, and send it into your water heater to heat the water inside. According to AirGenerate, their AirTap™ heat pump water heater uses 2.5 times less energy than standard water heaters. Along with energy efficient water heaters and other household appliances, don’t forget one of the simplest steps in conserving energy and water—taking shorter showers!

Did you know that you can convert your car to run on pure vegetable oil? It’s true, with all the buzz about bio-fuel development, there are vegetable oil converter kits readily available for diesel engines right now. Vegetable oil converter kits typically include a heated secondary fuel tank, in addition to your tank for diesel, and all the wires, hoses and controls needed for a successful conversion to vegetable oil as fuel. One of the biggest benefits associated with vegetable oil as fuel is that burning vegetable oil produces ZERO carbon emissions. For those trying to reduce or even negate their personal carbon emissions, this is a big plus. Another benefit of running your car on vegetable oil is that waste oil will work. Properly filtered waste oil from restaurants is just as effective in a vegetable oil powered engine as new vegetable oil. And, what’s even better is that most restaurants will gladly give away their waste oil and the five gallon containers it comes in, as it saves them from incurring disposal costs. Remember, vegetable oil fuel conversion kits only work with diesel engines, and your engine must be relatively new (made without rubber seals), because vegetable oil is a solvent which will eventually dissolve rubber. Vegetable oil fuel converter kits range in price from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. For more information about converting your car to run on vegetable oil, visit Grease Car.

You may have seen recent news articles about jatropha curcas, a tree which grows in several countries, including The Gambia, India and Indonesia. The seeds produced by the jatropha curcas tree contain up to 40% oil which some scientists think shows great potential as bio-fuel. It’s not just cars that could be potentially fueled with jatropha oil, which is actually poisonous to humans. According to a June 8 report by the Los Angeles Times, jatropha fuel will be tested in New Zealand this summer as jet fuel in an Air New Zealand 747 jumbo jet. Some believe jatropha fuel is a better bio-fuel alternative than bio-diesel, as it can be produced without the negative impact on the environment that bio-diesel is often criticized for. The seeds of the jatropha tree are pressed to obtain the oil, which can be done by machine or even by hand, similar to the pressing of olive oil. For more information about jatropha fuel, visit Jatropha World , an India-based organization dedicated to the promotion of jatropha as bio-fuel.

iSol Plus is an ideal solar solution for all of your portable devices. Buy iSol Plus and say goodbye to dead cell phone, iPod, PDA or PSP batteries. You can charge your gadgets wherever you are under the sun (10-20 hours). And if it rains, you can charge it with your laptop via a USB cable (2-4 hours).

Source: Silicon Solar - iSol Plus - $ 43.95

Specifications:
- Solar Panel: 5.5V 100mA
- Rechargeable Lithium Battery: 3.7V
- Dimensions: 4.5 in x 2.5 in x .6 in
- USB charging cable: 5V 500mA
- DC Outputs: 5.5V 500mA / 7.5V 350mA / 9.5V 300mA

Features:
- Charge using the Sun or USB connector
- Major brand mobile phone adaptors
- Comes with suction cups
- Charging and discharging indicators:
Charging in the sun
Charging with USB cable
Charging portable device

I’d like to dedicate this week to solar solutions for your home. Did you know that enough sunlight falls on the earth’s surface each minute to meet world energy demand for an entire year ? I didn’t either, but it makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that it’s not being used. The biggest obstacle is that solar power installation costs are not affordable by most. The other day I saw a white van parked on my street with a solar biz logo, so I went up to the driver and asked him how much it costs to solar power an apartment or a house. He quoted me a $30,000 starting price. Even with utility companies’ incentives and tax breaks, it’s still not a solution for everyone. In the meantime, there are some less expensive solar products for your home.

Second runner up to the Centennial Bulb is “The Eternal Light”, located in Fort Worth, Texas. First turned on in 1908 at the Byers Opera House where it spent most of its life. The opera house became a movie theater in 1920 until it was torn down in 1977. The bulb still burns to this day at Stockyards Museum in a glass case.

In third place is “The Bulb” from Mangum, Oklahoma. Turned on sometime between 1926 and 1929 and housed in a fire station built in 1912. “Mangum feels no need to measure itself against others, and has been content to keep its bulb to itself. There are no webcams here, no glass display cases. The bulb doesn’t even have a name. Locals refer to it simply as “the bulb“.

Source: Roadside America

One. And it’s still burning.

This bulb has a pretty impressive history. It’s been illuminating a firehouse in Livermore, CA since 1901. The greenest bulb in the world was made by Shelby Electric Co. who went out of business in 1914. It has become quite a celebrity in its old age, attracting tourists since the 70’s… It even claims an online presence with a website draws about a million visitors a year and features a bulb-cam set up to film it continuously. Livermore firefighters used to swipe it for good luck before leaving on duty and now they don’t dust it for the same reasons. The secret to the bulb’s longevity lies in the fact that it has almost never been turned off in its 107 years and the air-tight seal never let any oxygen in, creating a cold-burning vacuum.

For a full story and facts, check out these links:

LA Times: At 107, Livermore centennial lightbulb is still a real live wire

Official site: Livermore’s Centennial Light

2007 Record: Guinness Book of World Records

Print: Ripley’s Believe it or Not

Wikipedia: Centennial Light

This month’s Vanity Fair annual green issue features HL23 - Neil Denari’s new project at 23 Street in New York’s West Chelsea Arts district. Above is only a digital rendering of the avant-garde structure that is set to be completed in 2009. The futuristic 14 floor luxury green condominium tower is built for lower power use and Denari is striving for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) gold certificate by the US Green Building Council. Various building and zoning challenges put aside, the architect designed a building with one condo per floor and three unique facades, “a rarity in Manhattan’s block structure”.

Enjoy a laugh with this hilarious message from Greenpeace on energy efficient light bulbs, found on Green Energy TV.