One of the easiest ways to make your car more efficient and save gas is to ensure you tires are properly inflated.

The Accutire is a digital pressure gauge that allows you to easily tell whether your tires need inflating. It features programmable memory so you can input the recommended pressure for comparison. It allows you to input information for both front and rear tires

It measures 5-99PSI in 0.5 pound increments for accuracy, and a large, blue backlit LCD screen.

Ensuring your tires are properly inflated can improve your gas mileage up to 3%, which saves 20 pounds of CO2 for every gallon of gas saved.

This is a cheap way to save money on gas, and the gauge will only cost you $11.99

Popularity: 18% [?]

In the truly weird invention files, this is a folding urinal.

This is the Mister Miser, and no, you’re not seeing things, it folds right into the wall! Perfect to save space in any less-than-huge bathroom.

So what’s green about this invention?

It uses a mere 10 ounces of water per flush, about 5% of a standard toilet, or about 66% of a standard urinal. That’s a lot more efficient! (even if that’s still ridiculously wasteful compared to the waterless urinal.)

You can get it for $295 from Mister Miser.

via Treehugger

Popularity: 13% [?]

This is the Stade De Swiss, in Berlin, Switzerland. It’s the largest solar-powered stadium in the world.

It contains a total of 10738 solar cells, thanks to a recent addition of 2808 cells. All these cells generate an impressive 1.3 megawatts, and get this, it’s expected to generate a whopping 1.134 gigawatt-hours of electricity.

All this electricity is designed to power the stadium, but could power as many as 350 homes. It will help to reduce 630 tons of CO2 annually.

This kind of dedication to green energy is impressive, and I congratulate the owners of the stadium for embracing the technology. Considering the amount of power taken up by stadiums, this is a big step forward.

…and who knows, with that kind of power they could even generate another source of revenue for the stadium and supply green power to the neighborhood.

Their website is not exactly in English, but check it out here

via MetaEfficient

Popularity: 14% [?]

Well since it’s rather difficult to get your hands on the Eneloop solar charger outside Japan, there’s an easy to get alternative that accomplishes the same thing.

While it’s not nearly as beautiful as the Eneloop charger, and it doesn’t have the brilliant USB connection, but it will still charge a battery using all green energy, and you can actually buy one.

This charger fits most types of batteries as well, it can charge D, C, AA, and AAA batteries. Both NiMH, and NiCad are supported. All these are charged with the on-board 7V solar cell.

It measures 19 x 8.7 x 4cm and weighs only 260 grams, definitely portable enough to carry around in your backpack to ensure your camera batter never dies.

I’m happy to say you can get this one easily online from amazon for about $25

Popularity: 26% [?]

It seems nanotechnology is finally pulling it’s weight.

Gone are the days of theoretical structures, nanotubes that had great theoretical uses, and promises of tiny robots making us perfect. Now, nanotech is making real progress, and the findings are incredible.

We recently saw the nanowire, which could deliver free energy in theory, but now a company is claiming their “nano-paint” will generate free electricity.

Industrial Nanotech is the company behind this nano-paint, dubbed “Nansulate” is intended to be a form of thermal insulation. They claim their product will generate electricity when it is properly applied inside a structure’s walls
Obviously these claims are quite interesting, however we’ve got to be quite skeptical when it comes to claims about free energy. Energy from nothing? They better have something concrete to back it up.

As it turns out, Nansulate doesn’t exactly produce free energy; it harvests energy from the surrounding environment, similar to the nanowire. It’s placed inside a structure’s walls, and uses the temperature differential between the interior and exterior of the building to generate electricity.

there is almost always, day or night and anywhere in the world, a difference between the temperature inside a building and outside a building gives us an almost constant source of energy generation to tap into.  – Company CEO Stuart Burchill

Now of course, there has to be some source of energy to generate this temperature differential, and it remains to be seen just how much the differential has to be to generate usable electricity, but these claims certainly are exciting.

Could the days of perpetual motion machines and fraudulent free energy “science” be over, replaced by environment nano-harvesting? Well we’ve seen two plausible methods already,who knows what we’ll see in the near future.

via Treehugger

Popularity: 21% [?]

The Navitas bicycle trailer is a new concept in portable green power.

Designed by Paul Smith, a final year design student at the University of Derby in England, the Navitas is “a pure concept in sustainable transport” explained Smith.

The trailer is a bit of a transformer. It’s wheel splits apart into 3 sections which serve as a wind turbine, and a compact solar panel provides another source of power in case of low wind.  These work together to charge the 24v on-board battery.

The trailer provides power output via a 12v cigarette lighter, and a USB port, allowing you to charge all your USB devices. Charge your iPod on the go!

Surprisingly, there’s no standard outlet, however power inverters intended for cars could be used in the cigarette lighter to provide standard outlets.

It clips easily to the seat post, and as an added eco-bonus, utilized all-LED brake and hazard lights.

This is a fantastic concept, however a method to charge the battery, even just a small charge, without  disconnecting and setting up the whole trailer should have been included, I wouldn’t want to stop just to charge the battery.

This is only a concept, and not currently available for sale, but it certainly seems marketable, and if it ever hits store shelves, we’ll be sure to let you know.

Get more information from the design poster:

via MetaEfficient

Popularity: 68% [?]

Electric Cyclery, out of Laguna Beach, California, has come up with a great idea for a combination bike: mix an ultra-portable folding bike with a powerful hybrid electric motor.

This is what they came up with: The Biontague. It’s rather unfortunate name came from the names of the two things that were merged: the Montague Paratrooper Folding Bike and the Bionx PL350 electric conversion kit.

The result is an ultra portable bike, at 43.2 lbs, which folds to about a third of it’s size. Perfect for city commuters.

The Bionx has an average maximum speed for bike of about 20mph, however you can always peddle faster. The range is pretty impressive at 60 miles, and you’ll get a full charge in only 3 hours.

The biontague also features a nice control panel. It includes an odometer, charge guage, current power consumption/generation, and electric assistance mode indicator. Hell, with a killer sound system it’ll be just like a car!

You can get this for $2275 from Electric Cyclery, but add $100 to that if you want it shipped out to you (although shipping is only in the continental US I’m sorry to say).

via MetaEfficient

Popularity: 42% [?]

In the last post we talked about Sanyo’s Eneloop rechargeable batteries. These batteries come fully charged, do not lose charge over time, and can last over 19 years!

We should your batteries run out of juice, just pop ‘em into the charger and you’re ready to go.

…but why use traditional power when there’s an even greener way to recharge them?

Enter the Eneloop Solar Charger.

This charger uses the sun to produce power, and can charge an eneloop battery in as little as 2.5 hours, must faster than even a traditional wall-powered battery charger.

In addition to charging batteries, the eneloop solar charger provides the first solar powered USB port. Providing DC 5v, 500mA output, the solar charger can charge any device you would normally charge through USB.

The solar charger is available now, but extremely hard to find outside of Japan. If you do find it, expect to pay about $170.

via engadget

Popularity: 28% [?]

Disposable batteries are one of the great modern wastes. You buy a couple AA’s, use you camera for a couple hours, and throw them out. Then all those chemicals end up in a landfill.

Well thankfully rechargeable batteries are available, and getting a couple packs of these not only saves a whole bunch of money in future battery costs, but reusing batteries is much better on the environment.

Before you go out and buy just any rechargeable batteries, you should take a look and Sanyo’s Eneloop batteries.

Eneloop batteries solve the biggest problem of rechargeable batteries: self discharge. Normal recrageables can not retain a charge indefinitely, and slowing lose charge even when not in use. This is why most must be charged before use.

Eneloop batteries are sold charged and ready to use right out of the box, as they do not fall victim to the problem of self-discharge. Eneloop batteries can hold on to a charge for more than a year, and can be re-charged up to 1000 times without losing performance. At one charge per week (much more than I normally charge my batteries, by the way) these batteries will last up to 19 years!

Just think of how many disposable batteries you’d have gone through in 19 years, that’s a lot of batteries kept out of landfills.

As an added benefit, eneloop batteries use PET packaging, which is fully recyclable.

Get more information about eneloop.

These batteries are pretty cheap as well, you can get an 8-pack on for $19.99 on amazon, or a 4-pack for $9.70.

You can also pick up an eneloop charger with 4 batteries for $19.36.

I highly suggest getting some rechargeable batteries, not just for the environment, but for you wallet as well! If a single rechargeable battery can last 19 years, you’re going to be saving a whole lot of money you’d otherwise be throwing out every time your digital camera dies.

Popularity: 22% [?]

It comes right out of the tap, you can get it bottled, it makes up 65% of a human, and it’s essential for life. It’s water, and getting clean water is essential to your good health.

Most people don’t worry a lot about their water, and when it comes to off-grid, more people are worry about solar or wind systems. Water is often forgotten.

The PureMaster V-750 is a home water filtration system, giving you pure filtered water, not in a jug or a bottle, but right through your normal taps.

The PureMaster uses 7 different stages to filter water.

The first is a prefilter, filtering out larger contaminants and particles which could clog the later filters.

Next, the redox potential stage chemically alters inorganic particles into harmless substances such as chlorine.

The next five stages are actual filtration. Two of these are “macro filtration”, which use granular activated carbon to filter out larger contaminants and impurities. The next two are “micro filtration”, which also use activated carbon, but on a smaller scale to target smaller contaminants. The final stage is “sub-micro-filtration”, providing even finer filtration using activated carbon.

The PureMaster boasts no reduction in water pressure from using the system. The “EvenFlow MaxContact”, besides being cool corporate-speak, is a fine screen after the filtration stages.

It’s designed to provide greater water distribution by allowing the water to filter through the entire diameter of the filtration system. Not only does it allow for no reduction in water pressure, but it allows the filters to be more effective at filtering out contaminants.

The PureMaster product page provides a list of the contaminants it filters out:

Completely removes or significantly reduces Chlorine, Chloramine/Chloramines, sediment, cysts, copepods, VOCs, SOCs, THMs, PAHs, trace heavy metals (i.e. lead, mercury, or iron), MTBEs, atrazine, benzene, xylene, pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, tastes, odors and hundreds of other potential contaminants and harmful chemicals from the water entering your business or home

The PureMasteruses NSF certified filter media, and will last for about 7 years, or 750,000 gallons of water.

While this does not make you off-grid, it certainly allows for filtering of water from sources such as rainwater collection.

The biggest benefit of this system is that it provides filtered water to all your faucets. You’ll be getting filtered water not just in your kitchen, but in your shower, in your laundry, in your garden hose, and even in your toilet as well.

You won’t have to worry about re-filling jugs, and most importantly, you won’t be tempted to turn to bottled water, which as we all know, is almost as bad for the environment as driving a convoy of hummers around.

Equinox Products provides phone consultations as well to make sure you’re getting the right product for your needs.

You can order it or get more information from the product page.

Popularity: 29% [?]