Aroma Aeromatic Oven
Real Goods $129.00
Amazon $89.99

Wow, what’s up with the $40 price difference from Amazon to Real Goods? They seem to both be the same model. This convention oven is good for cooking healthy meals with low energy for a small household. It grills, broils, bakes, frys, toasts, steams, roasts and even crisp bacon while saving energy and without adding fat. Will cook food almost as speedy as a microwave by circulating hot air at fast speeds to uniformly cook food which seals in the natural juices. Includes a 58-page cookbook with instructions. Tempered glass bowl is dishwasher safe.

Solar Shoji Japanese Lantern $29 from Acacia

Hang these gorgeous Japanese solar-powered lanterns from porch, trees, or other outdoor fixtures. Doesn’t require wiring as the white LED light is powered by solar-charged AAA batteries one down side to these models is you’ll need to turn them on and off manually. The material is a teardrop shaped nylon shade that collapses for storage.

Nellie’s Dryer Balls
Gaiam.com $18.
Amazon.com $15.50

These dryer balls may lower your dryer’s energy use by reducing drying time by up to 25%. They also state it will soften many fabrics naturally by lifting and separating fabric to make it softer, and should decrease the amount of the dryer’s lint. Most reviewers at both Gaiam and Amazon raved about how well these balls worked, however a few reported problems with the balls falling apart after only a few uses and not working as well as expected.

Weza Portable Energy Source $299.99 at HealthyHome.com

Ever want to get away from it all, be totally off grid but still have a few creature comforts? Now you can be in the middle of nowhere, in the dead of night and still be able to charge your cell, watch a DVD or TV, connect a laptop, GPS or even turn on some lights.

This new energy source will work with a step-action crank effect that with about a five minute workout will give you enough power to use a satellite phone for 20 minutes. It can even jump start your car.
For devices that require more juice like watching TV you will only get enough power for enough time to catch a few commercials. Ok, that might not be so useful but if you fully charge the internal battery from an AC or DC source, like your car and you will be good to go for much longer. I’m not sure how long of a charge you’ll get if you foot-pump it all night long but presumably you will get more time the longer you crank the pump.

It’s 299.99 price might deter some people but a bigger problem for me would be its 18.6 lb weight especially if I had to lug it far into the wilderness with all my other gear. If that isn’t a problem for you it might be worth a look.

Computers are power hungry monsters, often using between 300W and 500W of power! Given that an energy saving light bulb uses around 15W of power, computers can be responsible for expensive energy bills. I know that when I was a student at university, 6 computer scientists in one house each with at least one computer, led to an expensive electricity bill!

The Aleutia E2 was designed with low energy consumption in mind, needing only 8W of power! That’s just 2% of the power compared to a conventional PC using up to 400W of power! The computer uses solid-state memory cards rather than hard drives for storage, no energy guzzling CD or DVD drives, and uses energy efficient memory and processors. Admittedly the PC runs at 500MHz with 1GB of RAM, but it can run all conventional applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice on Ubuntu Linux.

The Aleutia team have recently released a Windows XP version, as well as a Wifi-enabled one, and an Aleutia E2 model with 32GB of storage as an SSD card. It’s only the size of about 3 CD cases stacked on top of each other too (Only 11.5cm x 11.5cm x 3.5cm). It’s not quite fast enough for YouTube, Google Earth or BBC iPlayer, but it does everything else. Absolutely fine for word processing, email, blogging, etc.

The motivation behind the Aleutia PC’s design was to find a rugged, reliable, low energy and cheap PC that could be used in the developing countries such as Africa. Energy supplies are hard to come by in that neck of the woods, hence the Aleutia PC was designed to be run from a solar panel! The Aleutia E1 was the first generation of Aleutia PC, but the E2 has attracted the attention of eco-technology-loving-folk such as myself. It’s an exciting product that doesn’t cost the earth too!

This article was written by Dan Harrison of EnviroGadget.com and Daily Eco Tips. Dan is enthusiastic about low power computers, green issue, and encouraging people to do their bit for the planet in small easy steps.

Accutire MS-4350B Programmable Digital Tire Gauge $11.95 Amazon

You probably heard all about Obama’s recent comment on how if everyone properly inflated their tires it could save as much oil as would be gotten from off-shore drilling. A good article about the politics of the Obama’s latest statement and the conservatives reaction can be found here at Huffington Post.

The government site fueleconomy.gov has a number of fuel-saving, money-saving tips like how keeping your tires properly inflated can save you up to 12 cents a gallon. Interesting to note: off shore drilling and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge drilling combined, 20 years later, would only save you 6 cents a gallon.

If you just got inspired by all this latest news and are looking for the right gauge - then consider the Accutire MS-4350B Programmable Digital Tire Gauge. It is programmable so you can record your car’s recommended optimal tire pressure settings for front and rear tires. Its large, blue, backlit LCD screen makes for easy viewing. What else can you say - its a tire pressure gauge. A number of people complained about this model having issues with not getting a good seal but that has apparently been resolved.

For more info, check out Car Talk’s great page on everything you ever wanted or needed to know about your tire pressure.

Freewebs Sunny Cooker has an interesting article on how to go about making a sun powered oven-cooker for basically free, essentially just using cardboard, aluminum foil and a patient knack for following detailed instructions. This would be perfect for adventurous epicurean green cooks, homeless people, frugal types and maybe freegans cooking up a yummy pot of fresh dumpster diving treasures.

With the ever increasing prices of heating oil and natural gas some people are starting to look into the feasibility of geothermal heating to heat their homes. In the US this technology isn’t as advanced and popular as in Iceland or parts of Europe but as energy prices go through the roof maybe its time we start thinking about what’s under the basement.

Once you start to get below 6 feet in the ground the temperature —stays between 50˚F and 60˚F year round so it is cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter in most areas. The basics of Geothermal heating and cooling is very simple; just circulate fluids through the ground to cool the fluids and then that cool fluid will then cool the air that circulates through your house via some type of ducts. The same principal is used for heating in the winter, the fluids and then the air is warmed in a similar manner. However, the heat generated is often not as warm as what most people prefer so a compressor is used that increases the temperature somewhat. Here is an excellent link, The Case for Geothermal, that goes into this explanation in far greater detail.

Here is a European based site, Geothermie.net which has some good information on how you might or might not be able to use it for your home.

However, in many parts of the US, like New England, the cost is steep upfront, like up to 15-30 Grand. However, overtime it may be cost effective and certainly will add to your home value.

Here is a link to the Geocomfort site that can get you hooked up with even more info as well as a local dealer.

USB Cell Price: £8.79 (approx. USD 17.49) from usbcell.com
Keep batteries out of the landfill with USB Rechargable Batteries. All you do is pop it into your computer’s USB port, and let the charging begin from power already flowing through your PC.

Why do the really cool green gadgets tend to just be prototypes or some design student’s thesis project? Seems like something like this FlowerPod should find a ready market with the sky high energy prices and increased eco awareness.

The FlowerPod is a digital flower that blossoms when it reads your home is using electricity the way you should be. But as soon as you start to disregard your usage, leaving the computers and TV’s on all day and night, your beautiful flower will wither into a dead one. You will do all you can to show you really have a green thumb…and house!
Check out the details at the GreenerGadgets competitions website