A Unique New Device to Keep Your Showers Shorter

Waterpebble is a revolutionary device designed to take the effort out of saving water.

Water Pebble is a world’s first. Paul Priestman a director of design company Priestmangoode was inspired by a sign in a hotel bathroom to, “Please Use Water Sparingly” and he started developing the concept on his return home. The Waterpebble is unique in the way it works to help reduce water usage.

This clever device monitors water going down the drain when you shower. Memorizing your first shower and using it as a benchmark, Waterpebble then indicates, via a series of ‘traffic lights’ flashing gently from green through to red, when to finish showering. Each time you shower the Waterpebble automatically fractionally reduces your shower time helping you to save water without needing to think about it. Set it and forget it! The Waterpebble encourages you to use less water each time you shower.

Press the reset button. 3 lights will flash

Place in the shower near the plughole. Shower as normal. The lights will flash green, amber and red as Waterpebble memorises your shower. Then each time you shower, Waterpebble lights up to indicate:

Green – start , Amber – you’re halfway through, Red – time to stop

Every shower, your water usage is reduced a little. Waterpebble can be reset at any time. They claim the battery will last for around 4 to 6 months with average use. The battery cannot be replaced which we view as a downside however they do recycle the units if you send them back.

For further information see waterpebble.com.

See their video at Waterpebble

Clean Energy From Ocean Waves

SyncWave Systems has a very different design to harness the oceans waves in a highly efficient way. The Animation/Simulation featured below is for a preliminary version of the SyncWave Wave Energy Converter (WEC). The animation is extracted directly from a 6 degree of freedom nonlinear physical simulation of the WEC in waves as noted below.

NEW Dimmable Fluorescent Flood Lamp

CFL Floodlight

Now available, Dimmable Fluorescent Floodlights that are similar in size and light output to standard incandescent floodlights that save up to 75% in energy costs. These new energy efficient Dimmable Fluorescent Flood Lamps are also good for wet location use, and may be used in recessed cans, ceiling fixtures, track lights and outdoor fixtures.

They have and 8,000 hour average rate life and last up to eight times longer than incandescent flood lights. Dimmable from 100% to 20% for lighting preference and added energy savings. Another added benefit of Dimmable Fluorescent Flood Lamps is that they produce significantly less heat than incandescent Flood Lamps significantly reducing cooling costs during the summer months. If you are interested learning more or want to buy some see their site at AMConservation.

ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations

ChargePoint Station

They represent the first step in the evolutionary change to Electric Vehicles  to become main stream in the USA and abroad. ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations are manufactured by Coulomb Technologies and have the most advanced, feature-rich networked charging station capabilities available in the world. Combined with their ChargePoint Network Operating System (CPNOS), the ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations are the complete solution for a smart charging infrastructure for plug-in electric vehicles with their  ChargePoint Network.

ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations perform bi-directional energy metering via an embedded utility-grade electronic meter. The ability to precisely measure and report electricity use enables a sustainable, flexible business model that meets the needs of drivers, corporations, fleet operators, utility companies and municipalities. It has multiple flexible driver payment methods like “free” charging, pay-per-use, by subscription, and by kWh (where allowed).

For more details see Coulomb Technologies.

If you upgraded windows, doors, hot water heater, insulation and even your roof in 2009 you may be eligible for a US Federal and possibly a state tax credit.

The US government is offering a federal tax credit of up to $1,500 on energy-efficient home upgrades through Dec. 31, 2016. But many are set to expire by Dec. 31, 2010; these include eligible insulation, roofs and windows and doors. Also check your local state for additional state tax rebates.

Simple No Cost Actions for Winter

Check your hot water heater’s temperature. If you have a dishwasher you can heat it up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 degrees Celsius). If you don’t have a dishwasher you can keep it lower. Try lowering it to 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). In some homes, those savings have amounted to more than 10-12% of the total energy usage.

Use a hot water heater blanket. If your water heater is in an unheated space like an unfinished basement, wrap it in an insulation blanket to prevent heat loss. They cost about $40 and can be found at your local home improvement store.

Clean or replace your filter every month. A dirty filter makes your furnace work harder, which uses more electricity. Your home improvement store sells permanent filters that you can wash so you don’t have to replace the filter each month. Changing your filters can save you up to $60 a year on heating costs.

Dust and vacuum those radiators and vents. Dust acts as a great insulator and will actually stop the heat from getting to where you need it.

Don’t empty the bath until the water has cooled down. The heat will dissipate into the air. It will also add needed humidity in those winter months.

Open the stove door after cooking. By leaving the oven door open slightly after you have used it to cook you will allow all the heat to move into the room versus it staying put inside your insulated oven.

Use an old towel to block the air at the bottom of the door at night. Putting an old rolled up towel along the base of your door or windowsill will block any drafts from coming through.

See our SAVING $ tab for more ideas.

Enter Ice Bear

The Ice Bear distributed energy storage system enables a powerful change in how — and, more importantly, when — energy is consumed for air conditioning. The system is designed to absorb off-peak load and dispatch it on-peak, while consuming an equal or lesser amount of energy on each building.

The Ice Bear unit is incorporated into a building’s standard AC system and is designed to absorb off-peak load and dispatch it on-peak, while consuming an equal or lesser amount of energy on each building, creating the industry’s first effectively lossless storage solution.

Using thermally efficient, off-peak power to produce and store energy for use during peak hours the following day, the Ice Bear system reduces peak energy required by conventional AC systems. AC energy demand – typically 40-50% of a building’s electricity use during peak hours – can be reduced by as much as 95%.

Decoupling daytime air conditioning use from peak energy demand, each Ice Bear distributed energy storage unit reduces an average of 7.2 kW of source equivalent peak demand for a minimum of 6 hours daily, shifting 32 kW-hours of on-peak energy to off-peak hours.

The breakthrough technology features of the Ice Bear unit includes the industry’s first effectively lossless storage with unlimited deep discharging, unlimited storage cycles, very low maintenance, no chemicals or heavy metals, and a 25-year asset life.

How It Works

Iced Coils

The Ice Bear energy storage system works with a standard commercial air conditioning system. Requiring no modification to existing ductwork, each Ice Bear unit can be applied to 85% of air conditioners ranging from a 3-5 ton system to a 20-ton system, providing 30 ton hours of cooling.

The Ice Bear energy storage unit operates in two basic modes, Ice Cooling and Ice Charging, to store cooling energy at night, and to deliver that energy the following day.

During Ice Charge mode, a self-contained charging system freezes 450 gallons of water in the Ice Bear’s insulated tank by pumping refrigerant through a configuration of copper coils within it. The water that surrounds these coils freezes and turns to ice. The condensing unit then turns off, and the ice is stored until its cooling energy is needed.

As daytime temperatures rise, the power consumption of air conditioning rises along with it, pushing the grid to peak demand levels. During this peak window, typically from noon to 6 pm, the Ice Bear unit replaces the energy intensive compressor of the air conditioner.

The Ice Bear unit, fully charged from the night before, switches to Ice Cooling mode. The Ice Bear uses the ice, rather than the AC unit’s compressor, to cool the hot refrigerant, slowing melting the ice as it travels through a series of copper coils. A small, highly efficient pump pushes ice-cold refrigerant through a modified Ice Energy LiquidDX® evaporator coil installed in the conventional air conditioning unit.

The Ice Cooling cycle lasts for at least 6 hours. Once the ice has fully melted, the Ice Bear transfers the job of cooling back to the building’s AC unit, to provide cooling, as needed, until the next day. During the cool of the night, the Ice Charge mode is activated and the entire cycle begins again.

The company is headquartered in Windsor, Colorado, with offices in Lake Forest and Sacramento, California. For more information, visit www.ice-energy.com. See their Product Video for a demonstration of it.

Obama’s State of the Union Address Highlighted Renewables’ Role in Recovery

In his first State of the Union address, US President Barack Obama highlighted the key role that renewables should play in the economic development of the USA, especially with regard to new JOBS.  His view on an investment in renewables can be simply summarized by this quote:

Obama continued with: “We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow. From the first railroads to the Interstate Highway System, our nation has always been built to compete. There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.”

The State of the Union speech also clearly stated a need to move to more bipartisan politics especially with the recent wake-up call of a recent Republican Senate victory in Massachusetts. President Obama then warned of the consequences of delaying legislation saying: “Washington has been telling us to wait for decades…China is not waiting to revamp its economy. Germany is not waiting. India is not waiting. These nations, they’re not standing still. These nations aren’t playing for second place. They’re putting more emphasis on math and science. They’re rebuilding their infrastructure. They’re making serious investments in clean energy because they want those jobs.”

Interested in a Renewable Career? See our JOBS SECTION.

As part of my yesteryear push of looking back to see how things were done, prior to all the high tech gadgetry ways to save time and money, I will write about some of the old ways to achieve the same results.  Here is a first in a series of low/no tech cost effective ways to save money.

The clothesline

Inverted Umbrella Clothesline

You may remember the visual above from your childhood days when your Mom hung out the clothes on one of these inverted umbrella type rigs or perhaps via stringing a line between the house and a nearby tree.

Well what is old is new again, at least when it comes to saving energy. My wife and I have begun doing this especially when it comes to drying heavy things like towels and jeans. The money we saved by using the dryer less often was measurable, almost 12-14% off each months electric bill. I am sure if you use a gas dryer you will get similar savings as well.

Environmental concerns and sky-rocketing energy costs have also prompted many state and local governments to pass “right-to-dry” laws allowing their use.

Advantages of a clothes line

• Saves money
• Zero greenhouse gas emissions per load(2 kg of greenhouse gas emissions from the average mechanical clothes dryer per load)
• Laundry smells “clothesline fresh” without using chemicals while saving additional money
• Less wear and tear on your clothes fabrics
• Laundry items tend to not shrink from the hot air from a mechanical clothes dryer.
• No static cling!!
• Laundry items stay softer as mechanical clothes dryers tend to remove short, soft, fine fibers.
• Laundry items may be less wrinkled as items not immediately removed from clothes dryer tend to get wrinkled.
• Laundry items may dry more quickly on dry or sunny and windy days.
• No risk of toxic fumes as gas-powered clothes dryers can potentially leak gas.
• Avoids airborne lint and reduced air quality.
• Eliminates heating up the inside of a house by a clothes dryer especially helpful during the summer months.
• Eliminates the internal house noise from the running clothes dryer

Disadvantages of using a clothes line

• Laundry items need to be hung indoors during rainy weather.
• Neighbors may find it aesthetically unpleasant so it is best to erect it in an inconspicuous place.
• Laundry items may be more stiff which is easily remedied by giving them a short dryer spin.
• Wind, temperature, and humidity can vary the drying time^.
• Environmental contaminants such as soil, dust, smoke, pollen and animal droppings can come in contact with clothing.

Drying laundry indoors

Laundry may be dried indoors for a variety of reasons including:

• inclement weather
• physical disability
• lack of space for a line
• legal restrictions
• to raise the humidity level indoors
• to lower the air temperature indoors
• convenience
• to preserve privacy

Several types of devices are also available for indoor drying. A drying rack or clotheshorse can help save space in an apartment or clothes line can be strung in the basement during the winter. Small loads can simply be draped over furniture or a shower curtain pole. The drying time indoors will typically be longer than outdoor drying because of the lack of direct sun and wind.

Legality

In the United States, Florida, Colorado, and Utah have passed laws forbidding bans on clothes lines. Perhaps these states should rethink and repeal these laws.

In Canada, the Province of Ontario lifted bans on clothes lines in 2008… a smart move!

To learn some other quick inexpensive ways to save money visit the SAVING $ page on this blog to start saving energy and more importantly money today!

Only a Very Small Percentage of Retired Phones are Recycled

While the huge number of retired phones continues to grow and the demand for refurbished phones is accelerating, only a very small percentage of displaced phones are actually making it into the recycling channels.

Nokia estimates that 74 percent of people are not even aware that their old phones can be recycled and most others don’t know how or where to recycle them. From the results of a worldwide survey done in 2008 by Nokia, only three percent of displaced phones are being returned for recycling – even less than the four percent that are being thrown in landfills. The rest remain in our respective drawers at home.

So Where Can They be Recycled?

The first thing you should attempt to do is to clear your mobile phone of all data and get it back to its original state. If you still have the manual you can easily find how to do it. If you do not , you will have to scroll through the set-up and or mechanical menus to find the option to do this. Another method that I recently did to clear my Blackberry of data before selling it on eBay, was to search the internet via your favorite browser search engine with “erase data on XXXX” where XXXX is the manufacturer and model on your phone. This popped up a number of  sites to assist me through the process. While also doing a search, key in “cell phone recycling” to get a list of places to either resell, donate or eco dispose of it.

Some sites we like are:

• Charity Guide
• GRC Recycling
• Gazelle
• EcoCell

This a small listing of many you will find if you search the Internet as mentioned above. Many of the large office supply chain stores also offer drop boxes as well as many of the cellular phone providers either at their retail locations or via programs on their websites. The bottom line is to get rid of the old ones cluttering your draw to save some space, make a few bucks or to donate to the less fortunate. Don’t delay do it today!