FreeRice.com is a brilliant mix of technology and charity.

FreeRice is an online game that that uses it’s advertising revenues to donate food to charities. It’s a vocab game, pick the right meaning of a word and you’ll donate 10 grains of rice to a needy country. Pretty simple, but surprisingly addictive, the first time I played the game I managed to donate about 1000 grains. Little effort for me, but a huge effect to those who need it (and it’s a pretty fun game too).

This is a brilliant use of the internet, the game doesn’t cost you a thing. With a viral site such as this, I’m sure they’re seeing lots of traffic and lots of money, which means lots of donations. The site started on October 7th, 2007, and has already donated almost 200,000,000 grains of rice! That’s an average of about 11 million grains per day!

Go on, play a game. You can help those who need it and it won’t cost you a penny.

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Dubai has been the center of a huge building boom in the past couple year, and sustainable energy is not being forgotten.

This beauty is the Burj Al-Taqa (”Energy Tower” in English). It’s a 322-meter, 68-story, green tower currently being built in Dubai. So what’s so special about this green tower? Well, it’s just how green this tower is.

The Burj Al-Taqa is completely off-grid. Through a combination of thermal air conditioning, wind, and solar power, it is able to generate 100% of it’s own electricity, plus a bit more (which will be used to extract hydrogen for fuel-cells).

Air conditioning can be a large problem in Dubai due to the scorching sun. The tower manages to reduce energy usage for air conditioning by using a form of natural air conditioning. The tower’s design forces hot air out of the tower, while at the same time pumping fresh, seawater-cooled air in. This keeps energy usage down, provides a cool interior, and also allows for the warmth of direct sunlight through the windows.

Beyond the tower’s efficiency, it generates all the power it does use. The tower features a wind turbine on it’s top, as well as two roof-mounted solar arrays generates a majority of the tower’s power. In addition, the tower has an additional solar array on a rotating shield that changes to match the position of the sun.

This rotating shield, in addition to generating electricity, serves to block out the majority of the sun’s rays, improving the air conditioner’s effectiveness.

This tower uses numerous other energy saving techniques to reduce energy usage such as super-efficient windows, hanging gardens inside transparent ducts, and a specially designed shape that minimizes the building’s surface area exposed to the sun.

This green tower sets a fantastic example for future skyscrapers, and proves that with enough design and engineering, skyscrapers can be sustainable. It is not proven yet, but construction is underway in Dubai, and we’ll see how effective the finished building turns out to be.

By the way, this building will take #22 on the list of the world’s tallest buildings. Go green go!

via Inhabitat

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I think i saw this on an infomercial at some point, but seeing in from Earthtech makes me want to believe it’s claims.

(although some of these badly photoshopped pictures do make me a bit suspicious, check out the lettuce, it has the same design in every picture!)

Well they say you should always eat food grown locally, but this product allows you to grow your own! This is the AeroGarden, a hydroponic, indoor, herb & vegetable garden that allows you to grow things like lettuce, tomatoes, and chili peppers, all without soil!

The garden uses seed kits placed in the garden. It has built-in full spectrum energy efficient lighting, micro-processor controlled watering and nutrient delivery, and a timer to automate lighting.

The AeroGarden claims that each seed kit produces about four months worth of vegetables, but also claims that you can begin harvesting your crop just 21 days after planting.

The AeroGarden comes with an herb seed pack, allowing you to grow cilantro, chives, Italian basil, red rubin basil, dill, mint and parsley. You can purchase vegetable packs separately to grow cherry tomatoes,  salad greens, petunia flowers, and chili peppers. Each additioal seed pack is about $20.

Sure, it’s fast, and it allows you to grow your own food, but the best thing about the AeroGarden? You know all your grown vegetables are organic. You will not have to worry about weeds, insecticides, or other poisons sometimes found in produce. You control the whole process!

(Hook this up to the Portable Power Pack for 100% green vegetable growing!)

The AeroGarden sells for $199 (sale: $148.95!) from Earthtech.

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We’ve covered dozens of solar powered gadget chargers in the past, all charging your popular gadgets through USB cables or other special cable. So far however, we haven’t seen a solution to provide an actual outlet.

The Earthtech Portable Power Kit is marketed as a gree way to charge your laptop, and it does do a great job of this. A fully charged battery will run a 25w laptop for about 6 hours.

It’s much more than just a laptop charger however. It provides both a 12V DC outlet, and a 115V AC outlet for charging any other device or appliance. TV, Phone, Computer, Radio, etc. All can be powered by the battery.

Here’s a list of examples of operating times when running off battery power:

Approximate Operating Times for 115 Volt Products:

• Cordless Telephone (5 Watts): 40 Hours Operating Time
• Home Security System (5 Watts): 40 Hours Operating Time
• Clock Radio (8 Watts): 20 Hours Operating Time
• Portable Stereo (10 Watts): 15 Hours Operating Time
• Flourescent Work Light (14 Watts): 12 Hours Operating Time
• 5” Color TV (20 Watts): 8 Hours Operating Time
• Laptop Computer (25 Watts): 6 Hours Operating Time
• Table Lamp (40 Watts): 3.5 Hours Operating Time

Approximate Operating Times for 12 Volt DC Products:

• Cell Phone (6 Watts): 36 Hours Operating Time
• Fish Finder/Depth Sounder (6 Watts): 36 Hours Operating Time
• Bilge Pump (36 Watts): 6 Hours Operating Time
• Portable Cooler (30 Watts): 5 Hours Operating Time
• Car Vacuum (85 Watts): 1.2 Hours Operating Time

Pretty impressive times!

This can be incredibly valuable for emergencies, or just a small way to offset some of your electricity usage to a more green source.

The Power Kit was assembled by Earthtech from two different products. You can buy these two individually or as the kit to save some money.

The Battery pack is the XPower Powerpack 300 Plus, which Earthtech sells for $139.00

The Solar cell charger is the Sunlinq Portable Solar Panel Charger which Earthtech sells for $409.99

You can get these both in the Portable Power Kit for $478.95 (sale price).

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Christmas might be a ways off still, but can you remember all those lights on at once? What a waste!

Luckily, Nigel’s Eco Store has stocks a solution. These are solar powered Christmas lights. Equipped with a solar panel, these lights will shine for 3 days off a fully charged battery.

Since these are solar, you won’t be hassled with outdoor wiring, massive tangles of wire, powerbars on top of powerbars, and even the risk of electrical shock by drawing so much power.

Each string will have it’s own power source, so there’s no need to run wiring around your yard. Since you’re not tied down by wiring, you could even create whole new displays of lights where you normally couldn’t get power. High atop that tree? That’s what I was thinking.

These lights, being solar, will charge themselves in the daytime, providing power at night from the battery. No more huge balls of powerbars, and no sucking electricity all night.

These come in red and yellow, and are a great way to green up the holiday season.

These Solar-Powered Christmas lights sell for about $45 (£22.49) from Nigel’s Eco Store.

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Well if that isn’t a terribly chosen name for a cool ecogadget, I’m not sure what is. Thankfully, the “Power Monkey” is cool enough to make up for it.

The charger does charging a bit differently than other charger’s we’ve talked about. It charges a battery pack which you can then use to charge your devices. You can still use the solar charger directly without the battery pack, but you’ll be thankful for a charged pack in the middle of the night when your iPod dies as well. 2 ways to charge your devices? Great improvement!

Additionally, this solar charger comes with almost any kind of connector you’d ever need, even USB to charge your iPod.

More information and photos after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

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If you keep a flashlight on your keychain you know how convenient they can be.

…but what if your trusty flashlight runs out of batteries?

The Key Ring Solar 2-LED is a keychain flashlight with a green twist. Sure, it uses ultra-efficient, long lasting LED bulbs, but it also features a solar panel on the side for power.  Although it’s a bit bigger than most keychain flashlights, measuring 6.8 x 3.8 x 1.4 cm it’s still pretty tiny, but those with a massive amount of keys already might want to think otherwise.

I do also wonder how effective the solar panel will be, seeing as my keys are either in my pocket or in my car. Not a lot of solar exposure. Powering only 2 LEDs however, I can’t imagine much exposure is required.

This might be a bit impractical for those without a lot of pocket space, but a flashlight with guaranteed power could come in handy. I might suggest this as a backup flashlight for emergencies, rather than a keychain. Still, good to see even keychain accessories going green.

Additional Pictures (click for bigger):

via GeekAlerts

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I’ve been a huge fan of the SimCity games over the years, all the way from the super-cool 2D SimCity classic.

The latest installment of the game, to be released next month, gives would-be mayors a whole new range of green options to incorporate into their city.

While wind and solar power have been in previous SimCity games, the latest makes carbon emissions an important priority. It extends green technologies to allow you to create a low emissions, eco-friendly simulated city.

What’s cool is the effects seen by non-green choices. Polluting options are cheaper, but instead of just making the surrounding area undesirable, the game actually keeps track on your emissions, simulating rising pollution levels in the environment. The game will issue warnings if these get out of control. If your emissions continue to rise, you’ll start seeing the environmental effects. Harsher disasters, droughts, heat waves, and other natural disasters will ensue. Realistic environmental impact in a video game? Sounds great!

We’ll be sure to pick up a copy in November and review it for you.

via HippyShopper

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It sometimes amazes me just how easy it is to save a whole bunch of electricity. You don’t have to go completely off-grid to save money on electricity, in fact, many effective tips are as simple as turning something down, or unplugging something else.

Nigel’s Eco Store, one of our favorite online green retailers, has a great list of tips to reduce your energy consumption. I highly recommend reading it!

I figured I’d post some of my favorites here:

• Take shorter showers: a 5 minute shower will use only a third of the water of a bath, and having a 5 minute shower every day will save 400 litres of water a week. Nevermind giving you some extra time in the morning!
• Wash your clothes in colder water. If you can, use a laundry detergent designed for cold water. 90% of the energy used by a washing machine is used in heating the water. If you can’t find cold-water detergent, try turning down the heat a bit. A wash at 60C uses 30% more energy than a wash at 40C.
• This one amazed me: turning your thermostat down 1.5C can save up to 10% on heating bills.
• Get a Savaplug to reduce your refrigerator’s electricity usage by up to 20%.
• Use DryerBalls to save money on your dryer’s costs.

These are just a few of the great tips from the original article at Nigel’s Eco Store. Check it out!

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Laundry is often overlooked when taking energy usage into account, but it’s a huge waster of electricity. Laundry machines use lots of electricity to heat up water to wash your clothes, and the dryer uses a massive amount of electricity to heat up air to evaporate the water.

Turning down the heat for your Laundry machine, or using a cold-water detergent can help a lot in reducing usage, but what about the dryer?

The answer? DryerBalls. Nigel’s Eco Store sells these little wonders. DryerBalls are a form of fabric conditioner, but they also heat up. Providing another source of heat within your dryer, these DryerBalls can reduce the time it takes to dry your clothes by as much as 25%! That’s a 25% reduction in energy usage for your dryer, and a whole bunch of saved money.

DryerBalls are chemical free, and fully guaranteed for 2 years, even though they are expected to last for as many as 5 years.

Each pack contains 2 DryerBalls and sells for about $20 (£9.99) from Nigel’s Eco Store.

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