green your electricity

The cost of energy in terms of money and also environmental risks is going up. 50% of the energy generated in the US is from coal. The percentage of energy sources from other other parts of the world is more of less around the same figure. However there are some ways in which you can save energy and here are some useful tips on how to improve your energy usage:

Audit yourself
A home energy audit is a way to inventory your home's energy use, where energy is lost and where it can be saved. You can do an energy audit yourself or get a pro.

Reduce your use

• Replace your light bulbs with CFLs or LEDs
  
• Turn off lights and other devises when they're not needed
• Eliminating electronics that sleep on a standby setting - remember 'vampire power'
• Clothes driers gobble up a lot of power, so line drying can be a great energy saver
  

Put your house on a diet
Homes consume an enormous amount of energy, especially in heating and cooling. Keep your house cool with natural ventilation instead of air conditioning as much as possible. Use in-room, ceiling, or whole-house fans to move air throughout the house. Blocking sunlight during hot hours of the day can help lower your cooling load. If your house uses electricity for water heating, wrapping your water tank in an insulating blanket can save on power.

Buy wise
After cooling and heating, appliances and other plug-in devises are the next biggest users of energy in your abode. When looking for new appliances, seek out the most energy-efficient models. Most new appliances come with a yellow EnergyGuide label which shows its consumption in terms of kWh per year. Also look for Energy Star rated products. Electronics like computers and audio equipment can be big power suckers, too. Look for EPEAT and Energy Star rating for these.

Homemade juice
Installing an home alternative energy system is becoming more and more cost effective as technology improves and assistance programs spread. Photovoltaic, or solar electric, systems are the most common. Depending on your available space, local climate, budget, and local utility, a solar electric system can provide all the energy needed for a typical home.

Charge up your toys
For all the portable electronic gizmos in your life, consider feeding them green power with a solar charger. Some look like notebooks, cell phones, flowers, or are built into backpacks. Your MP3 player, laptop, PDA, cell phone, and camera can all be charged with portable solar, and you'll never find yourself searching for a plug.

If you build it…you will save
A home or building designed and constructed around energy efficiency can realize enormous savings. Everything from the positioning of the house, use of daylight and natural ventilation, lighting, appliances, renewable energy system can push a building to net zero energy consumption. If you are considering building a home, do serious renovations, or an addition, make sure that energy efficiency is a key design criterion. The Energy Star rating system has a home certification program and LEED now has a rating system for residential homes.

Sign up for green power
Getting green power may be as easy as checking a box on your energy bill. It often costs a bit more but not much and it helps support the industry for clean, green power. Before you sign up, though, ask where they're getting their power from. If it's a source like waste coal or waste-to-power, you might be better off buying your credits elsewhere.

Think lifecycle
We all use energy. Even an off-the-grid house is filled with embodied energy. Everything from the power it took to manufacture the solar panels to the fuel burned in transporting the micro wind turbine from the factory - embodied energy or lifecycle energy, is in everything we buy and use. Manufacturing, advertising, packaging, shipping, etc. are all part of a product's energy history. Look at the bigger picture - be energy smart and rethink your choices.

(Sourced from www.treehugger.com)

the mobile green-pack

I'm on the market for a cellphone and like with any product I check out the internet first for user reviews, performance updates, price comparisons etc. The past two years has seen an explosion of eco-friendly cellphones and for obvious reasons I'm gravitating towards one of these.

Cell phones are probably one of the most frequently updated item of gadgetry. The average Indian changes cellphones every 18 months. Cell phones batteries are also a source of lithium, cadmium and other harmful chemicals. Not to mention all the metal and plastic bits on a phone. Out of all modern technology, cellphones are probably my favourite, next to digital cameras of course! My criteria for a green cell phone:

• the phone should be manufactured with recycled material as much as possible
• the production process of the phone itself should not be carbon intensive
  
• good battery life, features and ease of use
  
• should be easily recycled at the end of its use
• extra points for recyclable packaging
  
• should be affordable and look cool
  

So I've shortlisted a few. Take a look!

Sony Ericsson Green Heart:

Sony Ericsson is probably one of the greenest companies around. First, it has announced a new environmental warranty. And second, it has unveiled a new green concept phone called the GreenHeart.

The environmental warranty is essentially a green light for easy recycling. Now, when any Sony Ericsson product is taken to a designated collection point, the company will recycle this product in an environmentally sound way. This warranty is valid globally, regardless of where the product was originally purchased.

So far, over 500 collection points have been opened up in India, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Singapore USA and Mexico. And the company plans to expand the program so that every country in which it operates will have easily accessible collection points for recycling.

Now on to the more exciting news about GreenHeart. It is the new concept phone that would feature some very cool green elements. It is a full concept with all life cycle in mind it includes features such as bio-plastic housings, recycled plastic keypads, zero charger with 3.5mW standby power, HTML based e-manuals, a game style educational application ‘Ecomate’ and environmentally conscious packaging.

Nokia 3110 Evolve:

The company recently knocked off Sony Ericsson on the Greenpeace list of most sustainable electronic companies. Nokia, is focusing on phones that have green features. Phones with these features beep when they're fully charged so that they can be unplugged. They have a light sensor that detects natural light so that the phone can save energy.

The Evolve comes with a media player, a 1.3 megapixel camera, bluetooth as well as external memory to store music and photos. What I like best is that the phone comes with a AC-8 charger that minimises the 'vampire power' consumption in case you forget to unplug it from the power socket. The packaging is smaller and uses 60% recycled materials. The body is made up of unpainted bio-sourced materials that reduce fossil fuel usage.

It looks pretty basic but it is incoporates environment-friendly innovations. If the Green heart and Blue Earth turn out to be too expensive I might just go with this one. Nokia is unfailingly user-friendly which is always a bonus.

Samsung Blue Earth Cell Phone:

Hitting the UK in the second half of 2009, the Samsung Blue Earth phone is a touchscreen smart phone that can apparently generate the power it needs to make a call any time from the solar panel built into the back.

Most of the phone is constructed from PCM, a plastic extracted from recycled water bottles and both the handset and energy efficient charger ditch harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate. Additionally, the phone comes in recycled packaging.“Samsung’s ‘The Blue Earth Dream’ demonstrates our small but meaningful commitments for the future and our environment,” said Mr. JK Shin, Executive Vice President and Head of Mobile Communication Division of Samsung Electronics.

It has a built-in pedometer that can calculate and tell you how many trees you are saving by walking instead of driving. At first glance, the solar power feature is pretty darn exciting. But it is questionable of how powerful that solar panel must be to charge up an energy-intensive touchscreen phone for 24/7 use. Perhaps it's simply that it can get enough juice from the sun to make a call, but not run much else on the phone. Also, are people really going to leave their phone in the sun long enough and often enough to charge it? At any rate, it's an excellent addition to a cell phone so that needed back-up power can be gathered when it's bright out.

Motorola Renew:

It is being touted as the world's first carbon neutral cell phone. The MOTO W233 Renew is made from plastics comprised of recycled water bottles and is100% recyclable. Through an alliance with Carbonfund.org, Motorola offsets the carbon dioxide required to manufacture, distribute and operate the phone through investments in renewable energy sources and reforestation. The phone has earned Carbonfund.org’s CarbonFree® Product Certification after an extensive product life-cycle assessment.

When designing the packaging, Motorola was able to reduce its size by 22% and the box and all of the materials inside are printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. In addition, a postage-paid recycling envelope in box makes it easy to return your previous mobile phone for recycling at no cost. Renew was designed for eco-conscious consumers as well as the millions of people who put making phone calls as their number one priority in a mobile phone. With nine hours of talk time, CrystalTalk technology and messaging capabilities, Renew makes environmental responsibility affordable for consumers everywhere. Renew will first be available at T-Mobile USA in 2009.

ZTECoral-200-Solar:

This is a fairly basic cellphone in comparion. It is designed to be used in locations where electricity and charging outlets are not readily available. While it is marketed as environmentally friendly, the only thing green about it is its ability to charge up with the sun. Solar can be used in any type of handset if you have a solar charger powerful enough to charge the phone's battery. But is this solar cell strong enough?

The phone is really bare bones, it looks like, so it very well might be enough, especially if the phone is only used for short, infrequent calls. Again, this is supposed to be a basic phone for basic use in places where electricity is scarce. But if that's the case seems like a greener, cheaper option would be to organize better used cell phone redistribution programs and package them up with quality external solar chargers that use fewer materials in total.

I'm a little dubious about Samsung's solar panels. I would buy it only if its reasonably cheap - I admit it looks pretty good, albeit bulky and has some cool eco-features. Although the idea of Motorola's first carbon-free phone is exciting, it looks rather drab. But I'm leaning more towards Sony Ericsson or Nokia. Ultimately the availability of the phone in India will be my biggest deciding factor. This list is by no means comprehensive, it is just a small guideline to what's out there. It is also important to bear in mind the manufacturer's eco-ranking - according to the Greenpeace list Sony Ericsson and Nokia are pretty high up.

The market for green phones is not expected to take off for another 2-5years, but the reason that manufacturers have put them out there is to stay ahead of the curve. Sure, they might be more expensive than other models but if you can afford it and have the option why not choose it. Ultimately, what is the price being paid for being 'cheap'?

greening gadgetry

Heralding a social awakening about consumer choices, proper disposal methods of e-wastes and hazardous materials are the need of the hour. As electronic goods personify the ‘use and throw’ phenomenon, there is a direct link between consumer psyche and marketing of electronics. Even within the world of electronics, there are the good guys and the bad guys. There are manufacturers that are constantly pushing their energy ratings and EPEAT ratings beyond whatever is deemed necessary.

According to the EPEAT website it is a system to "help purchasers in the public and private sectors evaluate, compare and select desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on their environmental attributes". It also "provides the opportunity for manufacturers to secure market recognition for efforts to reduce the environmental impact of its products"

This kind of rating system evaluates not just energy usage of the electronic item but also over-all environmental impact from manufacturing to disposal . Most of the electronic items are made up of plastic, various metals and dangerous compounds like mercury, beryllium, silicon etc when not disposed of properly leach into the soil and affect ground water. For example, cathode ray tubes (CRTs) in computers contain heavy metals, such as lead, barium and cadmium, which can be very harmful to health if they enter the water system. These materials can cause damage to human nervous and respiratory systems. Flame retardant plastics, used in electronics casings, can release particles that damage human endocrine functions. Apart from this electronics contain metals like aluminium which are energy intensive to mine but can recycled indefinitely.

Several cities in most countries advocate recycling of electronics and electrical equipment, find out if your city has a dedicated WEEE center to drop off your old gadgets. When you buy new gadgets look for an EPEAT rating apart from energy star ratings. Most reputable brands follow the EPEAT guidelines including Dell, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, HP, IBM, Toshiba etc. You can find this information online or on company websites. Additionally you can also check out Greenpeace's guide to green electronics.

Electronics go a long way in making our life easier but each year 250 million computers are disposed in the US alone. If you have old cellphones lying around, send them to be recycled - you are simply hoarding materials than can be reused. In some instances, your mobile phone company will recycle our old phone for free. Take advantage of exchange offers when changing your phone. You can also donate your phone to a worthy cause. Similarly, you can donate your old computer to similar causes. There are currently several computers and laptops on the market where the plastic chassis is replaced by wood or bamboo. Use the gadgets you have for as long as you can. Reduce 'vampire power' which is is the energy used by devices when they're plugged in but not turned on. Prevent wasted energy first by unplugging any devices not in use or that are fully charged. Additionally use rechargeable batteries for your electronic goods which further reduces landfill wastes.

Wastage of resources by using electronics can be prevented with a little care. Thoughts I leave you with - 20-40: Number of gadgets the average user of electronics keeps on stand by, that suck up energy even when turned off. Televisions, computers, electric toothbrushes, phones, radios are more all use up energy and money when they aren’t even in use. 1%: The total percent of carbon dioxide emissions emitted each year from devices left on stand by.