I didn't know it could get better than my first love, the public library. But I'm completely sold on America's Book Shelf , a book exchange program that was just launched on Earth Day. 

 

Here's what you do:

 

1. As a site launch promotion, ABS is offering free year-long memberships to the first 10,000 members. You go to the Web site and list 15 books you're willing to exchange.

 

2. Your books are now part of the virtual library. If a little bookworm across the country is dying for your copy of The Little Prince, ABS sends you a postage-paid envelope to send it to him.

 

3. Here's the only drawback -- you don't get the book back. The person that requested your book will just keep it on his or her bookshelf until it's requested again.

 

ABS owner Bill Denkler says, "For every 65 books shared through AmericasBookShelf.com, we can help save one tree from the pulp and paper mills." The company also buys wind energy and uses completely recycled office supplies. 

 

Now who wants my Faulkner that I never read? 

 

Via: Treehugger

 

 

All that hot air coming out of the tail-end of your computer is waste. Most power supplies are around 50% efficient. But not all. Running a more efficient power supply can keep your computer cooler, help it live longer, and reduce your electricity bills.

80 plus is a program that is payed for by some electric utility somewhere. They certify power supplies that are more than 80% efficient. Right now, very few power supplies have been able to make the 80 Plus grade. But it's worth searching one out. Running an 80 Plus power supply can reduce your power consumption by 85 kWh per year heat output by 50%.

The question, really, is why we're not all already using more efficient power supplies. Basically, it's because we buy our computers from Dell, who is looking to give you the cheapest PC possible. Power draw and heat output don't generally make the top ten when Dell asks consumers what matters to them. But maybe soon efficiency will be a bigger issue, and we'll see more 80 Plus certifications on new computers.

There's a 300 W power supply from Seasonic available now for around $50. And hopefully you'll see a lot more coming around soon.

Via: WorldChanging

While we all understand the green benefits of pouring ethanol in our tanks, the folks at Saab realized one of its drawbacks -- it only has 75% of the potential energy of gasoline, leaving gunning-hungry drivers needing 20% more to keep up the horsepower.

 

 

Standard ethanol is a 85/15 ethanol/gasoline blend, and Saab realized its high octane rating -- 110 -- would work with a turbocharger. It created the BioPower engine, the first ethanol turbo. The engine runs with both gasoline and ethanol, but when it runs on gasoline it only gets 148 horsepower, and on ethanol it gets up to 184.

 

What's it all mean? If you want to start gunning green, you'll be able to get up to 140 mph, but the car's still a bit heavy on the checkbook at $35,000.  

Wood! It grows on trees! It's the most common building material in the world, it can be harvested sustainably, it's beautiful, it's nice to touch and look at, and it's completely ignored in consumer electronics.

But in the past few weeks, we've seen quite a few new electronic devices housed in wood, and so we went on a search. A long search, it turned out, for all the best, coolest and most useful products in wooden computing.

We found that wooden computer products did indeed exist, and have for some time, but that it's not something one comes across in America. In fact, most of the websites we're linking to here are in other languages. But the pictures, they're worth more than the words, so check it out. Beautiful designs made of sustainable materials. Mouse, keyboard, monitor, case, even the mouse pad, all now available in wood.

Tons of pictures after the jump.

This month's issue of Wired magazine is all about the old environmental problems and a whole new set of environmental answers. It's the first issue of Wired I've bought in a long time, and the most hopeful piece of literature I've seen come out of the environmental movement...ever.

The cover, featuring an eerie picture of Al Gore, espouses “The Pro-Tech, Pro-Growth Fight to Stop Global Warming.” The magazine includes feature stories on Neo-Greens , people who understand, care and vote with their wallets, and one particularly ecogeeky article on “The Next Green Revolution .”

The thesis of this article (written by World Changing Editor Alex Steffen) is that technology isn't anti-environmental intrinsically, it's anti-environmental because most of it was conceived before we had a clue how the planet worked. The answer to our problems, thus, is not avoiding technology, but embracing and restructuring it.

“You don't change the world by hiding in the woods, wearing a hair shirt, or buying indulgences in the form of save the earth bumper stickers. You do it by articulating a vision for the future and pursuing it with all the ingenuity humanity can muster.”

Thanks Alex, for writing a possible mission statement for EcoGeek that includes the phrase “Hair Shirt,” we definitely could never have done that on our own.

Is this article overly-optimistic, Utopian techno-pandering? Or is it a more clear outline of the future of the environmental movement? Probably both. And certainly worth reading.

The “Compact Low Emissions Vehicle for Urban Transport” (we agree, that does indeed spell CLEVUT) was created by a European Union and BMW as a concept for the next generation of automobiles. The idea is to take the fuel efficiency of motorbikes and mix it with the convenience and safety of cars.

Of course, this idea has been around for a while, and has resulted in all kinds of extremely dangerous prototypes and car-shaped bobsleds. The difference with the Clever car is that they're actually trying to be smart about it. First, a unique roll avoidance system actually allows the majority of the three-wheeled vehicle to lean into turns, just like a motorcycle. Also, they've created a very strong and uniquely designed frame to deflect the impact of a collision away from the driver.

The good news is that it did pretty well in crash tests, and, with a top speed of 60 mph, it's not going to be involved in any really high speed accidents. The bad news is that it's still too revolutionary for anyone to adopt just yet. In other words, it's too cool to actually be cool.

The EU and BMW created five of them, three of which were destroyed in crash tests. So, if you want one, you're probably gonna have to become the CEO of BMW or some kind of Prime Minister. The number of innovations represented by this one meter wide, auto-leaning, 100 mpg, natural gas powered car are impressive. And, though we won't actually get to drive a Clever car, we may yet see it's offspring at a dealer nearby. Someday.

I never thought I'd say that Apple and I have something in common. But after Apple's blush-worthy meeting with investors over its shabby recycling efforts, I related, remembering my own boyfriend shocked to find a wine bottle in my trash can. 

 

 

"We recycle!" he declared, holding up the offensive bottle.

 

Apple's shareholders said as much. Apple originally had a dismal recycling program where customers had to cough up $30 to use its take-back programs. It revamped the program to make it free, but it's still well behind Dell and HP, which have had free take-back programs for years. 

 

Apple was caught red-handed by As You Sow , a socially responsible investing group that pounded the company with some hard-hitting questions at its April 27 investor's meeting.

 

Conrad McKerron, a director for As You Sow , calls Apple's new recycling program a move from "laggard" to "more on a par" with its competitors. Steve Jobs tried to win points during the meeting by pointing out that Apple has eliminated use of CRT monitors, which contain heavy metals, and that this has helped the environment more than recycling. 

 

McKerron said to Wired News that Apple is still losing to its competitors because Dell and HP have publicly stated goals for how much waste they're going to take back, and Apple does not.   

 

 

Of course, as a wood junkie, I couldn't stop there. If you want your bamboo mouse to feel at home, there is also a wooden mouse pad.  And these folks will even give your laptop or desk top wooden paneling. Hopefully they'll start using bamboo.

 

Every day we see dozens of devices, inventions and ideas that are conspiring to make this world a better place. And, usually, their eco aspects are pretty plain to see.

But, while geeks across the world are anticipating solid state drives (usually in the form of flash drives) for the traditional reasons (they are much faster than traditional hard disk drives, and (as they have no moving parts) they are more durable) we EcoGeeks look forward to them for an additional reason.

As any iPod Shuffle owner will note, solid state drives consume far less power than traditional drives. They don't move, they make no noise and they don't need to be cooled. When flash drives replace our hard drives we will work faster, quieter and more efficiently. And that is why, when a new innovation in solid state drives appears, we blog about it here at EcoGeek.

Samsung revealed a laptop with a 32 gig flash drive at CeBIT this year. Booting side by side with a traditional laptop with the spinning platters that we've all got, this thing was up and ready almost twice as fast.

Of course, twice as fast also translates to ten times more expensive. If it were in stores now, this drive would set you back about $900, a cost of $30 per gigabyte. Harddisk drives for laptops are currently closer to $2.50 per gig. So, even with the speed, the durability and the efficiency, Samsung has a ways to go before these drives go mass market.

Falling into the category of “duh” inventions is this little device that pops on the top of a nine volt battery. Suddenly, the candle seems so obsolete! OK, this isn't a complicated post, but you gotta love when we're able to make something that is tiny, cheap, useful and efficient (not only in its use of electricity, but also in the use of materials.)

Pak-Lite says you'll get more than 20 hours on per charge on a nine-volt battery. Of course, if you use this thing on a battery that's not rechargeable, it becomes more a wasteful device than a marvelous toy. So, stock up on nine volt rechargeables and visit 9voltlight.com .