Green Technica

Celebrate Earth Day With Some Green TV

admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:06:28 +0000

Earth Day is April 22, 2010 and what better way to celebrate than learn more about green technology innovation on a green television show.

tVTango has a guide to all Earth Day related TV programs that air during Earth Week 2010.

63 Green TV Episodes, Marathons and Specials for Earth Day 2010.

Green Google

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:57:05 +0000

Google is developing a new mirror technology for cheaper solar power. Their aim is to make the alternative form of energy cheaper than the energy generated from coal.

They have other green initiatives and clean energy programs.

Renewable Energy Advances » Google Plans New Solar Mirror Technology :: iBlog.

Green Building and Home Improvement

russturley — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:36:58 +0000

Here’s a great article about remodeling your home and keeping green tech and environmental thoughts in the foreground. One of my favorites from the article is water diverters.

water diverters (diverters which hold the water while the hot water reaches your tap to save wasting all that water whilst waiting for the hot water to arrive)

I know that I put a lot of water down the drain waiting for the water to get hot in my back bathroom. The water diverter could be the ticket.

Check out the other great tips at the link below.

Home Interior » Blog Archive » Green Building and Home Improvement.

Dual Flush Toilet Conversion

russturley — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:53:09 +0000

I’m going out on a limb here, but you probably have a toilet in your residence. Whether it’s an old unit, one built before 1994 using approx. 5 gallons per flush, or one of the more efficient models that only uses 1.6 gallons per flush, you’re wasting water. Why? All flushes are not created equal. We have this saying around the house, “If it’s brown, flush it down. If it’s yellow, it’s mellow.” What that actually means is, we’re sacrificing the cleanliness of our toilet to save a little water. Now with four boys, ages 11 to 4, we don’t have to enforce this motto too often, but we do end up cleaning the toilet more often. Those times when there is solid waste to flush, it does the job perfectly well. But when there isn’t, we are wasting water.

Enter the dual flush toilet. You may have seen one in your friend’s new house or in a remodeled bathroom, but few have them in their homes. You have a perfectly functioning toilet and it would be environmentally irresponsible to just trash it because you want to save a couple bucks on water each month. But, what if there was a way you could make that old toilet, regardless of year, into a dual flush toilet. Well, there is.

It’s called the One2Flush from Being Water. In about a half hour, you can turn your water wasting toilet into a water and money saving toilet. The One2Flush replaces your flapper assembly, so it requires that you take the tank off your toilet. ( It may sound complicated, but check out the video blow to see what’s involved.)

What about the return on your investment, or how long will it take to recoup the cost of the One2Flush unit? With an average savings of 12,000 gallons and the cost of water at about $2.81 / 1,000 gallons, you’re looking at a 1 year return on investment of 112%!!. Why? The price of the One2Flush is only $30! Compared to the cost of purchasing a complete dual flush toilet, from approx. $150 to $300, you can see that this technology is going to save you money and save a lot of water.

Stop the Electricity Vampires

russturley — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 06:33:45 +0000

Electricity vampires are those electronic devices that suck power when they’re not switched on. They use some power even though they are supposedly off. Some studies have shown that approx. 5% of all electrical power in the United States is wasted by units that are not in use. Let’s stop these vampires in their tracks with a smart power strip like the one pictured here.

The PC TrickleSaver Energy Saver is specifically made to turn off your computer peripherals. The device is plugged into the USB port of your computer and when the computer is off, power is then cut off to the peripherals stopping the vampires in their tracks. Other electronic devices in your house can be plugged into other smart power strips to save even more money by shutting off other power suckers.

Savings of CFL Over Incandescent Bulbs

russturley — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:30:05 +0000

We hear that compact fluorescent bulbs save money. When you’re at the home improvement center and you see prices on the CFL bulbs around $4, how many of you make the choice to get the cheaper, old school technology to save some money right then and there. If you chose the higher initial price, will it work out in actual savings over the life of that high price bulb?

Luckily your employees over at the U.S. Department of Energy have a study that shows exactly how much you’ll save. They make some assumptions in the study like 100 watt replacement bulb, lasts 4.5 years and is on for 6 hours a day. That may or may not match your use case, but it’s a good place to start.

Here’s how much you’ll save replacing just 1 bulb:

Breaking down our savings for just one year, we’ll save $23.33 in just 1 year for each incandescent you replace with an equivalent CFL. Multiply that times the number of bulbs you have in your house and you’ll see that it does make good green and economic sense to buy the CFL.