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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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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Well CFL bulbs are almost a requirement for anyone considering themselves even remotely green, they hadn’t completely replaced all the functions of an incandescent

Sure, they’re energy saving (will save about half a ton of emissions over it’s lifetime!), but up until now, they hadn’t quite mastered setting the mood; they weren’t dimmable.

Well Nigel’s Eco Store is now selling the solution, dimmable CFL bulbs!

There are two types available, one designed for use with a standard dimming switch, and the other designed to dim using a standard on/off switch. You can set the brightness (from 2%-100%), and the bulb will “remember” this level until it is reset. Pretty cool!

These are both 20W bulbs, but give off the same light as a 100W incandescent. They’ll last for about 16,000 hours.

You can get these both from Nigel’s Eco Store. The Dimmer-switch version sells for about $25 (£12.49), and the normal on/off switch version sells for about $21 (£10.99)

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Do you remember wind-up toys? I used to prefer those over the battery kind since your didn’t have to wait 6-8 hours for a charge.

Well in addition to those simple toys, wind-up power has moved into the lighting industry.

This wind-up lamp is powered by a high-carbon tensile steel spring, which basically means it’s going to last a long time. With a super-efficient LED bulb, you could get some great charge time!

In addition to a green power source (human power), it’s going to have power whenever you need it, and not when you don’t. You’ll no longer have to worry about losing your lighting in a power outage, or wasting electricity if you forget to turn it off. Great green innovation!

This isn’t available for purchase yet, it’s only a design. It’s a great idea however, and is already used in wind-up emergency flashlights. I could see this technology becoming a lot more widespread.

via Keetsa

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Britian’s environment ministry said it will begin phasing out incandescent bulbs and switching to more eco-friendly CFLs.

Britian is attempting to cut 5 million tonnes of carbon by 2012 and this is one step along the way.

The British government has been working with manufacturers and retailers to provide options to customers.

As of yet this remains a voluntary switch, but there has been talk of creating mandatory initiatives, as we’ve seen in Australia and even the US.

It’s great to see another country promoting the switch to energy efficient lighting, and it’s been surprising how well these new bulbs have been received.

LED lights are also on the rise, and are due to compete with CFLs in the near future. Stay ahead of the game and read our review of LED lights and bulbs.

via ENN

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