If your true love dwells more on the practical side of life (or doesn’t understand the magic that is the 12 days of Christmas) then you might want to drop hints for the following five solar-related gadgets and gizmos:

1.  The Ray Solar Charger.  Ever walked into a meeting late with your laptop that can’t hold a charge, only to find all of the outlets taken?  Quirky’s Ray to the rescue.  It suctions to a desk (or a car window, or any other flat non-porous surface) and provides enough juice to fully charge a cell phone.

2. Lux solar powered jewelry turns sun into swank.  Two hours in the sun equals four hours of dazzling LED “pearls,” which should be enough bling to impress even the grinchiest grinch.

3. A sun table comes in handy when you want to sit outside and Skype or Facetime with your friends , but your computer’s battery icon is lingering in the red zone.  When fully charged, the table provides enough power to fuel a laptop or portable TV for four hours.

4. Feeling the need to share your solar milestones?  How about a SOCIAL solar charger?

The Changers charger lets you share how much electricity you create via your social networks #ElectrifyingInnovation

5. If you’re been 0% naughty and 100% nice this year then you might just get away with asking for a hybrid automower (think Roomba, but bigger, badder, and with blades).  Yes, it’s $3,000, but it’s also “the world’s first fully automatic lawn mower that is partly powered by the sun”.

Those are my top 5 picks for solar gifts this season, so. . .

What was that?

I forgot the best one of all?

YOU’RE RIGHT!  I DID!  The best one of all is the gift of light to a child in need.  Sungevity has paired up with Empowered by Light to fight energy poverty in Zambia.  For just $22 you can join the battle and make a real difference in someone’s life.  You can donate a Pharox solar light here, or if you don’t have a PayPay account you can donate over here.  It might not be as flashy as a partridge in a pear tree, but the gift of light is the gift of education, as the lights allow students to study after dusk.

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding line, and no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour.
Helen Keller

Who’s there?

Phillip.

Phillip who?

Phillip my bag with candy, it’s Halloween!

With only 19 days left until Halloween many people are scrambling to find costumes that will win them first prize in the costume parade, or at least land them on a few of their friends’ Facebook walls.  Sungevity to the rescue!  We’ve put together some energy-themed creative costume ideas so that you can be the FrankenSTAR of any Pumpkin Ball you happen to attend.  Naughty nurses, provocative plumbers, captivating Cleopatras, and sexy Steve Zissous beware!

First up: a Save Energy dress with a solar module skirt.  This one is great if you don’t have time to create something from scratch and you just want to make a quick statement with your costume.

Next we have a homemade Renewable Energy costume. I found this one on Carla Brown’s website.  In her own words, “The wind turbine was made from a recycled oatmeal container attached to my bike helmet, with a plastic container on the front and cardboard turbine blades. The solar energy panel was my armadillo costume recycled onto a piece of cardboard wrapped in shiny wrapping paper. And the geo-thermal system running down my leg was my tent poles again.” Pure genius.  Snow White sidekick not included.

Erin Claybaugh (below) took Halloween LEEDership to a whole new level when she created her DIY costume.  If you have a cardboard box, some wrapping paper, faux moss, and a few micro plant pots then you, too, can be a LEED building on October 31st.  Just consider yourself warned: transportation might be a challenge.

Baby bump alert! Never fear, pregnant ladies, we have your needs covered too.  Just turn your belly into the sun and plaster the rest of the solar system on the remaining bits and pieces of your body.  Click on the photo to see 24 other remarkable costumes for women with buns in their ovens.

Are you into things that are high efficiency?  Obsessed with phylum Cnidaria? Yeah.  You look the type.  Why not combine both passions with an LED jellyfish costume?  Click the photo for instructions.  All you need is some rope light and a wash basin.

I saved the best for last.  Everyone knows the two people who show up to the party in the cutest couple costume always steal the show.  The pre-packaged plug and wall outlet costume is a classic, but if the power coming out of the plug is from fossil fuels then it’s also the scariest costume (and oh-so-passé).  ACK!

How about a sun and a solar module to light up the dance floor?  A yellow pashmina never looked so green.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Ben.

Ben who?
Ben waiting for Halloween all year!

That just doesn’t make any sense.

Unless of course it’s a SOLAR DECATHLON!

If you follow all the solar news that’s fit to print then you probably already know about the Solar Decathlon, which officially kicks off tomorrow at the National Mall’s West Potomac Park in DC.  If not, here’s the background (straight from the DOE’s website):

The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon is an award-winning program that challenges collegiate teams to design, build, and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient, and attractive. The winner of the competition is the team that best blends affordability, consumer appeal, and design excellence with optimal energy production and maximum efficiency.  Open to the public free of charge, visitors can tour the houses, gather ideas to use in their own homes, and learn how energy-saving features can help them save money today.

The first Solar Decathlon was held in 2002, and the competition is biennial, meaning this year is the 6th anniversary of the event.  Twenty teams from all over the world gathered in DC on September 13th to transform their cutting-edge designs into realities.  Tomorrow the homes officially open to the public.

The DOE Solar Decathlon official website has lots of bells and whistles, including time lapse videos of the creation of the solar village and photos of the houses from past decathlons.

Planet Forward also has an outstanding section of their website devoted to the Solar Decathlon, complete with snapshots of each team, videos, and even a matchmaking quiz where you can figure out (in 6 simple questions) which house is the best for your lifestyle.  I matched to the indoor/outdoor New Zealand house called First Light house

Take the quiz and find out which house is right for you, then share the results in the comments.

Roughly-to-scale representation of volume of CO2 you save by going solar

Today is Earth Day, and the blogosphere is awash with hundreds of lists of green living tips that you are more than welcome to print out and tape to your forehead.  Or…you can celebrate Earth Day by sharing this one simple fact with your peeps: Going solar will shrink your carbon footprint by 7.4 metric tons a year!

What does 7.4 metric tons of CO2 look like? Well, if it were pure carbon dioxide, it would fill a space seven times bigger than the interior of your home. But our atmosphere isn’t pure CO2 – in fact, only 388 out of every one million molecules in the atmosphere are CO2. At that concentration, you would need to fill the Dallas Cowboys stadiums with air three times to get 7.4 tons of C02 – the same amount that your system is removing from the atmosphere every year!

Or think of it this way, going solar is an even bigger carbon offset than if you stopped driving completely!  Your car isn’t the biggest contributor to climate change…it’s your house!

Bottom line:  Home solar is the #1 way to go green. Do it today (and then go buy some organic tofu and reusable water bottles).  Happy Earth Day!

GE and Blogher.com are co-sponsoring an Energy Smart giveaway. All you have to do is post your bright idea about how you conserve energy in your home (hint: Solar Lease) on one of the blogs in the Blogher network. GE will randomly select 36 people who posted their ideas and reward them with a cutting edge $50 LED light bulb that will save you $85 in energy costs. Read the official rules here and post your idea (hint: Solar Lease) by February 28.

If you’re a PG&E customer, you may not have even realized that PG&E has been monitoring your winter gas usage and giving you a credit on your bill if you’re using less gas this winter than you used last winter.  February is the last month of the Winter Savings program which works like this:

If you use 10% less gas than you did last February, PG&E will take 20% off your March or April bill. For example, if your April gas bill is $100, you’ll only have to pay $80.

If you can’t quite hit the 10% benchmark, don’t worry–any amount you can reduce your consumption will earn you a one-to-one credit (eg. reduce by 5%…get a 5% credit).

Here are some of the big ticket ways to curb your gas usage:

1. Turn the heat down a degree or two.

2. Wash your clothes in cold water.

3. Hang dry your laundry or, if you don’t have enough space, clean out the lint trap in the dryer after every load.

4. Take shorter showers, or take cold showers — the choice is yours.

5. Wash your hands with soap and cold water — studies show that it’s the friction of hand washing that kills germs, not the hot water.

And remember, the PG&E credit is a bonus on top of the money you’ll already be saving by using less gas. Last year, PG&E handed out $37 million worth of credits–be sure to get your piece of the pie.

]]> http://blog.sungevity.com/2011/02/theres-still-time-to-save/feed/ 0 http://blog.sungevity.com/2011/01/heads-up-green-bargain-hunters/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=heads-up-green-bargain-hunters http://blog.sungevity.com/2011/01/heads-up-green-bargain-hunters/#comments Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:23:53 +0000 admin http://blog.sungevity.com/?p=907 Continue reading →]]>

If you like shopping online and you want to buy products with the Green Business Seal of Approval, Green Deals is for you. You can also sign up at Green Deals to receive green deal alerts in your inbox. And while you’re on the Green Deals site, be sure to check out the Green Living tip of the week–all the bamboo utensils in the world won’t create a sustainable economy, so when you’re done shopping, turn off your computer and go find that weatherstripping you bought in November but never installed.

I was feeling pretty good about my old Berkeley home’s energy efficiency…it’s well insulated, not too drafty by 1924 standards, is solar-powered, and is inhabited by family members who,  like it or not, wear sweaters and hats instead of cranking the thermostat up above 62.  Then I read about passive zero-energy homes and am feeling green with envy indeed.

A passive home is built to maximize passive solar gain and is uber-insulated and ventilated.  Air warmed by nothing more than bodies and cookstoves stays indoors rather than heating up the outdoors.  In the summer, the design works in reverse, keeping the house cool without air conditioning.

The Landau family is building a passive home without a furnace in frosty Vermont. They’re spending an extra $50,000 more than it would cost to build a conventional house, but expect to make that money back in energy savings within 10 years.  Watch a video showing the Landaus house being built here.

Passive homes are a novelty in the United States but are old hat in Europe, where the cost of building a passive home is only 2-3% higher. (But you probably knew that already–name any energy policy or practice you want to see adopted in the U.S. and, odds are, it’s been in place in Europe for years).

Most of us aren’t building homes from scratch like the Landaus, but there’s plenty we can do to make our old houses way more efficient. And with a federal tax credit and a host of local rebates available now for home energy retrofits, there’s no time like the present.

–Erica Etelson

The holiday season kicks off tomorrow, and we here at Sungevity hope your solar-powered kitchen is filled with the delicious  aromas of the season and with the good cheer of family and friends. At the same time, we know the holidays can be challenging, especially during an economic downturn.  As you gear up for Black Friday (or sit it out in honor of Buy Nothing Day), consider a few frugal and planet-friendly alternatives to the traditional shopping frenzy:

Websites that allow people to swap and share household and personal items abound.  Some of them are set up to allow you to rent your stuff for a small fee, while others simply facilitate trading and “freecycling” of unwanted stuff. Check out:

freecycle.org

neighborgoods.net

rentalic.com

snapgoods.com

As for gifts, consider a $15 gift subscription to Green American, which helps connect consumers with low-impact products and financial services or, for a stocking stuffer, you can buy organic handkerchiefs (or make them yourself out of old sheets).

Beware of “greenwashed” products that simply slap an “eco-friendly” label on the package of a basically worthless piece of you-know-what.  My personal favorite is the digital “yoga/meditation timer”–in case you didn’t already have enough timepieces (on your cell phone, your wrist, your oven, your microwave, your DVD player and your bedside alarm clock), here’s another one that’s made in China of non-renewable metals and requires two AAA batteries–you’ll have to meditate for an eternity to figure out what’s green about this product.

Another gift option is to make a donation in someone’s name to an organization they like. Some of our local favorites are Solar Richmond, which trains and places youth in solar industry jobs and the Wild Equity Institute, which brings attention to the often-overlooked issue of environmental degradation of the urban edges of the Bay Area.

Final holiday tip: We’ve extended our offer of a $200 Whole Foods gift certificate through the end of the month.  If you or anyone you know is considering signing up for a solar lease, may as well do it now so you can stock up on groceries once the Thanksgiving leftovers are all gone.

Happy  Thanksgiving!

–Erica Etelson

Though I hadn’t planned it out this way, this turns out to be the week for non-solar related Good (aka “sick”) News.  On Monday, the  Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to ban most stores from handing out single-use plastic bags. Less stringent bag bans are already in effect in San Francisco, Fairfax, Malibu and Palo Alto. The LA bag ban is expected to cut in half the number of single-use bags families throw away each  year, from 1600 down to 800, and will save LA $4 million in litter removal costs.

Public concern about the environmental impact of disposable plastic items is at an all-time high, thanks to media coverage of the horrific Pacific Garbage Patch (an all-you-can-eat-before-you-die toxic buffet for wildlife) and to popular bloggers like Beth Terry (fakeplasticfish.com) who chronicles her tireless mission to rid her life of plastic. Beth was a keynote speaker at a Tedx event last week that focused on the Pacific Garbage Patch.

LA’s move follows on the heels of the California Senate’s failure to pass a plastic bag ban approved by the Assembly.  Campaigns are underway to pass local bag bans in many cities around the world–find your city on this interactive map.  A global campaign launches today with a fresh new tool…a sure-to-go-viral rap music video called “Plastic State of Mind“ about how plastic bags are “a convenience that will kill you.”

Every year, shoppers throw away 500 billion little bags of horror:  They’re made of oil and toxic chemicals.  They don’t biodegrade. They kill 100,000 wild animals a year. They don’t get recycled (don’t believe the hype–most get landfilled or incinerated in China or India).  And we don’t need ‘em…BYOB to the grocery store next time, and hook up with or start your own local ban-the-bag campaign.

–Erica Etelson