blackle.com

Just how much electricity would be saved if the Google background were black instead of white? Find out. Go to Blackle.com where Heap Media created a Google Custom Search to keep track. According to some numbers it is approx. 756 mega watts/hour per year would be saved. Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. The whole thing started back in January when a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to Googles widespread popularity. There has been much debate about the potential savings of the site and the folks at Heap Media figured that even though it may be small, every savings add up. Taking it a step further and making Blackle.com your home site can serve as a gentle reminder to conserve energy in the small things.

Cool new carphone charger

Next month (October) UK mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse is set to launch a mobile phone charger that stops consuming power the minute the phone is fully charges rather than staying connected and continuing to pull electricity from the socket. According to the company, 95% of energy used by all mobile phone chargers is wasted. The new charger could save consumers millions and cut CO2 emissions by 250,000 tonnes – the same amount of energy it takes to heat 54,000 homes for an entire year.

PaperBackSwap

Want to settle down with a good book for free? Check out paperbackswap.com. A site that lets users post their books, swap them and request books from each other for only the cost of mailing. The site is pretty user friendly and seems to have a lot of popular books. Essentially, the more you use the site the more points you earn and the more books you can swap for free. The site is free but has a note that at some time in the future it may need to charge a nominal fee for the service to help cover costs. Try out new authors, reduce paper use, get a good read, all for the cost of postage. Not a bad deal.

Who is Armory Lovins?

Amory Lovins, is our person to watch of the week. For more than three decades Mr. Lovins has been working tirelessly to impact the way the world consumes energy. Mr. Lovins has published 29 books, hundreds of papers and has consulted U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, briefed 19 heads of state, in 50+ countries. His work has earned him recognition from the “Alternative Nobel,” Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, nine honorary doctorates, honorary membership of the American Institute of Architects, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Meyer, Time Hero for the Planet, and World Technology Awards.

Mr. Lovins cofounded and is Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org), an independent, market-oriented, entrepreneurial, nonprofit, nonpartisan think-and-do tank that creates abundance by design. Much of its pathfinding work on advanced resource productivity (typically with expanding returns to investment) and innovative business strategies is synthesized in Natural Capitalism (www.natcap.org). This intellectual capital provides most of RMI’s revenue through private-sector consultancy that has served or been invited by more than 80 Fortune 500 firms, lately redesigning $30 billion worth of facilities spanning 29 sectors. RMI spun off E SOURCE ( www.esource.com) in 1992 and Fiberforge, Inc. (www.fiberforge.com), a composites engineering firm that Mr. Lovins chairs, in 1999; its technology permits cost-effective manufacturing of the ultralight-hybrid Hypercar® vehicles he invented in 1991. Mr. Lovins was also on the jury team for the first annual World Clean Energy Awards held in June this year in Basel, Switzerland. Look to see more of Mr. Lovins in the future.

His 28th book, Small Is Profitable www.smallisprofitable.org, an Economist book of the year, was published in 2002.

His most recent book was released in 2004 www.oilendgame.com

Get a free PDF copy of Armory Lovins book "Winning the Oil Endgame"

Lifestraw

Safe drinking water wherever you go? Lifestraw is a personal, mobile water purification tool designed to turn most of the surface water into drinking water offering relief from waterborne diseases of major public concern such as typhoid, cholera, dysentery and diarrhea. Headquartered in Switzerland, the Vestergaard Frandsen Group was founded in Denmark in 1957 and spends most of it’s time in complex emergency responses and disease control textiles with operations worldwide. Besides Lifestraw, VesterGaard can also provide plastic sheeting for Malaria prevention and durable insecticidal mosquito nets for complex emergencies. The device has a lifetime of 700 litres or up to 1 year.

This is one of my favorite products out there because it's simple, user-friendly and addresses the urgent need of clean, potable drinking water. Right now the product is only available for institutional purchases but the company appears to want to provide to consumers in the future. You can make a donation to provide Lifestraw to crisis locations around the world through various non-profit organizations and you can also apply to become a distributor of the product.

Freecycle

Freecycle is a non-profit,501(c)3 organizations that is all about giving and getting free stuff from people in your area. Through your local Freecycle community you can keep good stuff out of landfills and have your slightly loved stuff end up in the hands of someone who will give it a good home. Don’t you worry. Essentially, it is a craigslist.com but all the products are free. Got something that needs a new home? – Sign up for your local group and send an email offering the product to the members of the group and designate a recipient. Need something? Check the offerings from your local group and request to be a recipient of the product and then wait and see if you get lucky.

Freecycle started May of ‘03 down in Tucson, AZ in an effort to promote waste reductions and preserve the desert landscape rather than creating more landfills. Joining is free, and each group is moderated by a volunteer.

The Green Zebra in SF

Living in San Francisco? The Green Zebra is the green version of the local entertainment coupon booklet. A coupon book and resource guide the Green Zebra guide provides savings for anyone who wants to shop sustainably. Just like the out-on-the town coupon booklets that we are all familiar with, the Green Zebra guide can also be used as a fundraiser for schools or organizations and has a really easy and profitable fundraising program. The Green Zebra is an awesome concept that exposes the broader community to sustainable products in their area. Now we just need to convince them to take it outside of SF! If anyone knows of anything similar outside of SF let me know. Check it out.