Eco Gadgets: Battery Wizard recharges disposable batteries for 10 times more life

Eco Factor: Battery recharger charges dead disposable batteries ten times.

Rechargeable batteries, though expensive are great for the environment because it reduces the amount of batteries that clog the landfill after a single use. Battery Wizard is a unique device that lets you recharge disposable batteries up to 10 times thereby reducing the amount of batteries reaching the landfills by a factor of 10.

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Eco Bikes: Chinese man invents amphibious bike, hopes to get it patented

Eco Factor: Amphibious bike made from recycled materials.

We’ve seen DIYers in China invent amphibious bike to take their pedal-powered machine to the open waters. While that bike didn’t seem practical enough for a land ride, another inventor from the same land has come up with an amphibious bike that is a little more practical

Eco Gadgets: Recycled chandelier gives new look to broken glass

Eco Factor: Chandelier made from broken glass bottles.

Canadian designer Eric Sauvé is giving a new look to broken glass, by converting all those sharp glass bits into a stunning chandelier to grace your indoors in a sustainable fashion. With a diameter of 80 cm, the chandelier can be coupled with any energy saving light bulb to illuminate your interiors.

Eco Gadgets: LCNB Bank boasts the world’s first solar-powered drive-through system

Eco Factor: Drive-through system powered by solar energy.

LCNB Bank has installed what is being touted to be the world’s first solar-powered drive-through system. Built by E.F. Bavis and Associates Inc, the system is equipped with a solar panel that charges a 12V battery to carry out the operations.

Eco Tech: Carbon nanotube springs could herald a new era of energy storage

Eco Factor: Energy saving springs made from carbon nanotubes could save energy for a longer period of time without any loss of performance.

Researchers at MIT have suggested that carbon nanotubes, if used as springs could store energy in a more durable and reliable way that any other storage system available on the market today.

Eco Tech: Omega Hydroponic Garden saves energy and water

Eco Factor: Energy-saving hydroponic indoor planting system.

Hydroponic indoor gardens are great for those who want a touch of green in their homes without adding to the mess with soil. However, most hydroponic indoor gardens aren’t that good when compared to the amount of energy and water they use.

Eco Architecture: Bio-fuel producing vertical tower to be helped by robotic arms

Eco Factor: Tower equipped with algae-filled eco pods to produce bio-fuel.

The demand for fuel and the criticism growing food crops for fuel has faced, architects have started envisioning structure that will be equipped with algae to produce bio-fuel. Emergent Architects recently showcased their concept structure that would generate a little quantity of bio-fuel and today we have Höweler + Yoon Architecture and Squared Design team up for a vertical tower that will do the same.

Eco Tech: eBay pledges to reduce 15% emissions by 2012

Eco Factor: Sustainable facilities and state-of-the-art data center to help reduce carbon emissions.

eBay has announced its first greenhouse gas emissions reduction project, which will help the company reduce over 15% emissions by 2012. The target will be achieved through an ongoing commitment to energy efficiency and conservation.

Eco Boats: Fuel-cell powered DreamBoat concept

Eco Factor: Concept boat runs on fuel-cell.

DreamBoat concept is a collective work by designer Matthieu Tarrit and his two friends, Alexandre Lecointre and Julien Marie. It’s a 12-meters motor boat propelled by two electric engines connected with turbines hydrojet. The energy is supplied by Fuel-cell conversion; the hydrogen is reacted with oxygen to produce electricity for the 2 electric motors. The boat has been designed to offer the maximum contact with the ocean. Its windows offer a panoramic vision on the waters.

Eco Rides: Wind Solar Energy Bike – A complete green ride

Eco Factor: Concept bike can harness renewable energy in a number of ways.

For many people the biking experience is exhausting, especially when the tough climbs are ahead. Therefore, designer Chen Chun Tung has put forth a wonderful idea in the form of his “Wind Solar Bike” concept. The most interesting feature of this design is that it can harness energy in four ways that will be stored in the battery for your use when you are not able to pedal anymore. Right below the main pipe lays a solar energy plane that can be expanded to gather more solar light. The Spoiler, a combination of solar cell coating and wind power electricity generator, harnesses both solar and wind energy and also produces driving up force along with reducing the weight of the bike.

Buy Green: Solar Chargers

Power all your gadgets with the best solar chargers on the market.

Getting our gadgets off-grid is becoming increasingly easy thanks to a market boom of high-tech solar chargers. But finding a charger powerful enough is part of the challenge to ensuring you'll actually want to skip plugging your device into the wall. It's important to keep in mind wattage (has it got the muscle to charge your devices?), charging time (does it take five hours or 20 hours of sunlight to fill a battery?), and of course price. Once you've found the right charger, how about small scale renewable energy for shrugging off dirty power wherever possible. These five options range from small and simple—perfect for charging cell phones—to chargers robust enough to recharge laptops. Simply place them in direct sunlight, soak up the energy, and then plug in your gadgets to repower batteries.

SolarGorilla From PowerTraveller

Why We Like It: The foldable design of the SolarGorilla from PowerTraveller makes it an excellent choice for portability, shrinking it down to roughly 10 inches square and about an inch thick. It also comes with a slew of attachments for various plugs on the market, so chances are, it will work for your electronic.

Eco Factor: The relatively high watt rating for this device combined with the compact fold-up design makes this off-grid power source easy and effective in any location. It's also powerful enough to refill not only small devices, but even laptops, meeting a range of needs.

Power: 10 Watts

Where: EarthTech Products

How Much: $250

Photo courtesy of Powertraveller

Solio Charger From Solio

Why We Like It: The Solio Charger delivers both an affordable price tag and tiny portable size—small enough to fit in your back pocket—without sacrificing quality. Since it can go just about anywhere with you, it's great for emergency charging. The brand has been around for quite a few years, and has been aTreeHugger favorite since 2004.

Eco Factor: Solio is ideal for charging small gadgets, so cell phones, MP3 players, and other handhelds never need to be plugged into the wall as long as the sun is out.

Power: 0.6 Watts

Where: Solio

How Much: $50

Photo courtesy of Better Energy Systems Ltd.

SolarRoll 4.5 From Brunton

Why We Like It: The portability factor is a big deal in the SolarRoll 4.5 from Brunton. Having a solar charger that can roll right up makes it easy to jump off the grid. Plus, it comes in three different watt capacities so you can choose which size works best for your needs.

Eco Factor: The SolarRoll is made to go in any location, and is super durable—a key trait for an eco-friendly product.

Power: 4.5 to 14 Watts depending on the size of the roll

Where: Brunton

How Much: 4.5 Watt roll (all you'll need for hand-held devices) is $295

Photo courtesy of Brunton

Solaris 26 From Brunton

Why We Like It: With the Solaris 26 from Brunton, you've got a huge amount of power in a very small package. While this charger folds up to a nice small size—only 11 inches by 8.5 inches by 1 inch—its maximum output of 26 watts means it has the ability to easily charge up your laptop computer, let alone smaller devices.

Eco Factor: It can fit just about anywhere, from under a car seat to in a backpack, so that charging even your netbook or notebook is a breeze without a ton of space.

Power: 26 Watts

Where: Brunton

How Much: $620

Photo courtesy of Brunton

Voltaic Backpack From Voltaic Systems

Why We Like It: We love that the Voltaic Backpack from Voltaic Systems incorporates solar charging ability into a practical backpack. You don't have to worry about how much room the charger will take up in your pack because, well, it is the pack. The backpack is perfect for charging handhelds, and the company also produces a laptop case strong enough to charge your notebook.

Eco Factor: Walk in the sun and you'll get your gear charged up while on the go. Not to mention, the pack itself is made from recycled PET bottles and is UV resistant so you don't have to worry about it fading from all that charging.

Power: 4 Watts

Where: Voltaic Systems

How much: $250

Photo courtesy of Voltaic Systems

E. Coli Can Be Used To Clean Up Nuclear Waste

Picture courtesy of Hulu.com

Researchers have found that E. coli can be used to recover uranium from tainted waters and can even be used to clean up nuclear waste.

Using the bacteria along with inositol phosphate, the bacteria breaks down the phosphate--also called phytic acid--to free the phosphate molecules. The phosphate then binds to the uranium forming a uranium-phosphate precipitate on the cells of the bacteria. Those cells can then be harvested to recover the uranium.

Photo of Escherichia coli bacteria (E. coli) from LimbicNutrition Weblog

The findings were presented at a Society for General Microbiology's meeting by Professor Lynne Macaskie from a research team at Birmingham University. Though, the process was first discovered back in 1995 but at the time was not economical.

In early research a very expensive additive was used and the low cost of uranium just didn't make it feasible. But the discovery of inositol phosphate being six-times more effective--as well as a cheap waste material--made the venture more viable.

Not too shocking. More countries are clearly looking to expand their nuclear technologies and the price of uranium is likely to increase. Another option for bringing down the cost of inostiol phosphate is that it can easily be obtained from agriculture waste.

"The UK has no natural uranium reserves, although a significant amount of uranium is produced in nuclear wastes. There is no global shortage of uranium but from the point of view of energy security the EU needs to be able to recover as much uranium as possible from mine run-offs (which in any case pollute the environment) as well as recycling as much uranium as possible from nuclear wastes," commented Professor Macaskie.

And while the cost of uranium concerns me as much as the next guy (actually, I don't really care that much) there is obviously huge environmental and health impacts to this process.

"By using a cheap feedstock easily obtained from plant wastes we have shown that an economic, scalable process for uranium recovery is possible," Macaskie ended.

Seagate claims first 6Gbit/sec, 2TB SATA hard drive

New SATA 3.0 Barracuda drive said to double bandwidth of previous Seagate drives

The new 2TB Barracuda XT is the first drive that meets the Serial ATA International Organization's SATA 3.0 specifications, Seagate said.Computerworld - Seagate Technology LLC today started shipping a 6Gbit/sec. Serial ATA hard disk drive that offers double the throughput of Seagate's previous high-end SATA drive.

The Barracuda XT (model ST32000641AS) is a 3.5-in, 7,200-rpm desktop drive with 64MB of cache. It carries a manufacturer's suggested retail price of $299.

Initially, Seagate sees only a niche market for the drive, but it said that by 2011, it expects that SATA 3.0 motherboards will be ubiquitous and that applications will require 6Gbit/sec. bandwidth.

"In a sense, it's good Seagate's in the lead to bring this to market, but adoption is really going depend on the availability of 6Gbit/sec. SATA on the host side," said John Rydning, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass.

Initially, Seagate said it expects the Barracuda XT to be used in high-performance PCs, workstations and low-cost servers with one to four drives. It will likely also be used early on in external storage systems.

The initial target audience is multimedia developers and high-performance gamers, Seagate said.

Seagate plans to demonstrate the drive at the Intel Developers Forum this week in San Francisco.