Eco Green News, Technology, DIY Project and Hacks

New customers of the Tesla Model-S Sedan take a ride around a parking lot at the SpaceX rocket factory in LA, during the unveiling party for the new Tesla Sedan. Tesla Model-S is the latest offering from the Silicon Valley electric car maker.

Luxim Plasma technology has a bright future. Being 10x more efficient then the standard incandescent bulb, 2x as efficient as LED bulb technology and almost 2x as bright as a standard compact fluorescent bulb, these 140 lumens/watt bulbs could see their way in to our homes in the not to distant future.

The bulb works by using an amplified RF (radio-frequency) signal to ionize plasma gas, creating an superbright 30,000+ lumen glow.

[Luxim]

Wired reviews some green gadgets in honor of St. Patrick’s day.

Chris Fenton is on the beading edge of Eco Tech, with his homebrew DIY laptop built in a wooden case. While his laptop can’t compete with the latest Dells laptops, it is on par with the with computing power of a late 1980’s.

SPECs: a whopping 256 kilobytes total memory, 16k of RAM, Picaxe 28X-1 Microcontroller, 24 x 8 serial character display, in a Beautiful, hand/laser crafted wooden case.

[ChrisFenton]

Philips leads the way in LED lighting technology, with its upcoming US release of the Master LED bulb. The 7 Watt bulb has the life expectancy of 45,000 operating hours, 30x more then the standard incandescent bulb.

All this energy efficiency comes at a price, the bulbs are already being sold in Europe for $50. Philips claims you will payback the initial cost of the bulb in less then one year (In a 18-24 hour continuous use application).

The New 2010 Toyota Prius has some cool new features. Along with an improved fuel economy:

• 1.8-liter 4-cylinder gasoline engine
• Horsepower increase from 75 to 98; 134 combined.
• 50 mpg
• Solar sun roof
• LED Headlights
• Solar-cell array to power the ventilation system

Greener Gadgets 2009, a gathering of innovators, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and eco designers hits New York City for its annual design competition.

After the dust cleared and the discussions subsided, it was decided that the twittering Kill-a-watt (Tweet-a-Watt) design my Make Magazine was the winner.

Top 13 projects:

• Wattblocks, submitted by frog Design
• Bware Water Meter, submitted by Ariel Drach
• Fastonauts, submitted by Sara Paculdo
• Indoor Drying Rack, submitted by Rob Podell [3rd Place]
• Tweet-a-Watt, submitted by Limor Fried, Adafruit Industries & Phillip Torrone, MAKE magazine [1st Place]
• Social Environmental Station (Environmental Traffic Light), submitted by Hernando Barragan
• Power-Hog, submitted by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer, Mathieu Turpault [2nd Place]
• Thermal Torch, submitted by Gunnar Kramp
• Standby Monsters, submitted by Rachel Turner
• RITI Printer, submitted by Jeon Hwan Ju
• Recompute, submitted by Brenden Macaluso
• Blight, submitted by Vincent Gerkens
• Laundry POD, submitted by RKS Design Team [4th Place]

H2O Multifunction Clock runs off of a replaceable H2O Water battery, which keeps the clock ticking for 2 to 3 months before needing a fill up.

“magical electrochemical reaction between the electrodes and water produces electrical energy”

All the parts in this ecological alarm clock are recyclable.

[Gadgetshop HQ]

Something that you can do to help the earth is to build your own compost pile. This can be done easily with some chicken wire or reused materials. Just make a small 4×4x4 box in your backyard. Making a small opening at the bottom is a good idea so that older compost can be raked out from the bottom to use in the garden. Leave an opening in the top, or make a lid, so that new materials such as leaves, cut grass, vegetables, and coffee grinds can be added to the compost. Be sure that your compost bin has holes so that your compost can get fresh air. Of coarse, if you are not the do-it-yourself type, you can always purchase a compost bin and still get the same benefits.

Fluorescent light bulbs save energy and are an easy change to make in your home. It makes sense to make the change. It is easy and cost effective. The bulbs come in all shapes and sizes and are sold at most stores. The following information is from the Energy Star website.

If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars.

• ENERGY STAR qualified bulbs use about 75 percent less energy than standard incandescent bulbs and last up to 10 times longer.
• Save about $30 or more in electricity costs over each bulb’s lifetime.
• Produce about 75 percent less heat, so they’re safer to operate and can cut energy costs associated with home cooling.