If you’re looking for a greener way to sustain your digital lifestyle, then you may want to consider the assortment of solar power products that are on the market. Here are seven such examples that all happen to be on sale. Save money and energy!

We start off with two add-on solar charging panel extensions for the ReVIVE series solar ReStore XL external battery pack. This allows you to triple your solar charging speed. It’s on sale for half price at $24.99.

Of course, you’ll need the actual ReVIVE Solar ReStore XL battery itself to use those extra panels. It’s on sale too as part of a package that includes the 6000mAh universal USB battery, a flashlight, and the rapid charge adapter panel. Pick it up for $59.99, which is $90 off the regular price.

If you want to go smaller, the 4000mAh ReVIVE Solar ReStore XL is also on sale, giving you that same universal USB charging port to support iPhones, MP3 players, e-readers and all sorts of other portable products. Get it for $49.99, down from a list price of $109.99.

Switching gears, we have the Goal Zero 19006 Guide 10 Adventure Kit. This includes the Nomad 7 solar panel and a Guide 10 power pack, which bundles in four AA rechargeable batteries too. There’s a built-in LED flashlight to boot. It’s on sale for $99.95, a savings of $60.

Keeping time can be green too. The Casio AWGM100B-1ACR G-Shock Tough solar power atomic watch is a pretty nifty product. Naturally, the watch side of the equation is up to snuff too with quartz movement, three sub-dials, and luminiscent hands and markers. Get it for $149.00, including free shipping.

Going on a trip and need some power? Consider the Instapark SPCC-30W mono-crystalline solar panel with 12V solar charge controller. This should retain 80% efficiency even after 25 years of continuous use. Buy it for half price at $99.70 with free super saver shipping.

Last but not least, we have something completely different. It’s the OWI Frightened Grasshopper Kit. It’s a little toy bug that happens to be solar powered and it’s a great “built-it-yourself educational solar hobby kit for the first time science experimenters with little or no experience.” It’s on sale for only $3.99, down from $14.99.

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The idea here is actually brilliant in its simplicity. As you rock back and forth in the rocking chair, it generates power that is then sent to the iPad docked in the right side arm. The current design uses the 30-pin dock connector, but there’s no reason why this couldn’t be altered to support other devices or possibly even the new Lightning connector for the iPad Mini or iPad 4. They say that an hour of rocking will give back 35% battery capacity to a third-gen iPad.

But the power generated isn’t just for the iPad. Located in the headrest portion are a couple of stereo speakers that can also get the juice generated from your rocking motion. This creates an all-encompassing iExperience for watching movies or listening to music. The iRock is a high quality rocking chair too, handmade from Swedish oak with five layers of paint.

Of course, all this style and power doesn’t come cheap. Micasa Lab of Zurich says that the iRock Rocking Chair will retail for about 1,300 Euro ($1,685 US) when it ships in late 2013.

[Source]

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The BikeCharge Dynamo is such a wonderfully simple yet remarkably useful device. It taps into your cycling energy and converts it into USB output power for your gadgets. The DC generator can be mounted on just about any bike and with the universal USB output, it can also charge the majority of smartphone brands. You could presumably use it to charge your iPod or your GPS device too.

But how much power is it really generating? According to the developers, you get 3W 5.0V DC output, which will let you fully charge a typical smartphone in about two to three hours. Even if you’re only cycling to the grocery store or taking a ride through the park, you may as well make the most of your expended energy, right? Thankfully, the BikeCharge Dynamo is also weatherproof and is 20% lighter than similar systems. There’s also a quick release clutch if you want to get rid of that extra resistance when you don’t need charging, as well as a built-in 1W LED light.

You can pick up the BikeCharge Dynamo for $99.99, and the installation is a simple DIY affair.

[Source]

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First, the futuristic-looking frame (3.53 pounds) is made from carbon fiber and it houses a touchscreen-equipped computer with WiFi, plus the necessary lithium-ion battery pack to power it. The wheels (1.32 pounds each) are made from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). Together, this keeps the weight down to just 46.3 pounds including the swappable battery and, thus, helps to make the e-bike more efficient. The motor peaks at 2.3kW for 250 Nm of torque.

Second, there are five “travel” modes on this e-bike. They range from getting you to rely on your pedal power alone to allowing you to cruise on electric power alone, the latter of which has a top speed of about 31mph. There are also two “wheelie” modes where the power is controlled to help you keep that front wheel in the air, offering better stability and balance.  No word on price or release date.

[Source]

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Wake Forest University researchers from the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials have come up with a fabric that they call Power Felt. The unique thing here is that it can convert temperature differences into usable electric current. What they’ve done is taken carbon nanotubes and locked them up in flexible plastic fibers. After weaving those fibers together, the resulting fabric can react to temperature gradients.

So, as an example, if you were to weave these into a pair of shorts or a t-shirt, the fabric could react to the difference in temperature from your body (warm) and from the outside air (cool), generating a current to charge up your iPhone, iPod, or whatever else. The researchers envision this being used with insulating pipes, roof tiles, car seats, and so on.

The hurdle is that the current version of this tech only yeilds 140 nanowatts of power from 72 stacked swatches of the thin material. That’s one millionth of the power that your iPhone needs when it’s idle. They’ll need to seriously ramp up the efficiency, but this is looking like a very promising development.

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We’ve all been there. You’re out on the road, doing your thing, and then you whip out your portable device only to discover that it’s out of juice. If you’ve got an iPad, Element5 has you covered. The Mini L Solarbag is exactly what you think it is; it’s a bag with a solar panel on it.

The carrying bag is clearly designed with the Apple iPad in mind, but the dock connector on the inside will work with any variety of iOS devices. The Swiss-made Mini L Solarbag features the BluCell solar panel on the top flap, which is presumably where it’ll get the most sunlight when you’re walking down the street on the way to Starbucks.

The eMicro battery found inside the bag is supposed to set “new standards at recharging Smartphones and iPads,” giving up to five extra hours on your iPad or three full charges of your iPhone. Element5 doesn’t say, but if this is anything like other solar chargers, getting the eMicro battery to fully charge is going to take a while. Maybe leave the bag by your windowsill when you’re at the office.

Though going green by way of this Swiss solar bag isn’t going to come cheaply. Available in black or white, the Mini L Solarbag is a whopping $400. Ouch, you’d be better off going for a Voltaic Spark at a $100 less.

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Think about what it means to be a green vehicle. These days, it’s typical to think of a biodiesel, a hybrid, or an electric car. Maybe you’re thinking of hydrogen fuel cells. However, none of those are likely as green as a bike that runs on, get this, compressed air.

I’d imagine there’s more to it than those canisters of compressed air that you use to dust your precious electronic components, but that sounds like the fundamental idea. Of course, just blowing air out the back isn’t going to provide much in propulsion, so the compressed air is being sent through two tanks to push the two-wheeler along.

This comes from a group of French designers: Charles-Edouard Berche, Ugo Spagnolo , Adrien Fuinesl, Frédéric Dobbelstein and Jean-Philippe Paries. The bike itself is kept like through mostly carbon fiber and, well, it looks pretty bad ass too. It’s a shame that we’re looking at just a rendering and the so-called Saline Bird motorcycle is little more than a concept.

The other green source of energy, I suppose, is manpower… but this looks like a lot more fun that pedaling away on a bicycle, don’t you think?

[Yanko Design]

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Imagine having the ability to turn the scum on a nearby pond into usable bio-diesel almost instantly, saving you money you would have been spending on fuelling up your car with only the upfront cost of a tiny refinery device. This is what three designers have been working to bring to reality with their “Green Refinery.”

The floating concept device roams ponds, using solar power and a chemical additive to extract bio-diesel from algae. When the tank is full, simply remove the tank and fill the resulting fuel into your diesel car. While it does raise certain questions — what chemicals does it use, do they cost less than diesel itself and how much of those end up in the output water — the design is certainly focussed on combatting the energy crisis and lowering dependence on fossil fuels. When not in use, the floating solar ring folds into the arms, which in turn fold down for easy transportation and storage.

Algae is the perfect fuel, write designers Yi Liu, Jiang Yu-ning and Luo Jing, as it grows quickly in unhealthy or eutrophicated wetland environments. By skimming the algae blooms from the surface, the device effectively kills two birds with one stone by cleaning the waters and providing a cleaner alternative to feed our scummy oil addiction.

It’s a good idea for clean-ups and certain other applications, but if adopted into the mainstream, I can’t help but wonder how much fuel we’ll really be saving by building and transporting one of these to everyone with a nearby lake.

[via Yanko Design]

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We all have a lot of electronic devices these days and we tend to leave them plugged in even when it’s not necessary. There has to be a way to cut out that “vampire power” in a fun and colorful way, right? Dexim seems to think so.

Over at CES 2011, they have something called the Visible G Charger. Compatible with your choice of iDevice, it’s a wall charger whose cord actually glows when it’s being used. What’s cool is that this glow “moves” to show the electrical current coursing through it, but it doesn’t actually consume any extra power. The cord is lined with some sort of electroluminescent coating that reacts to the electricity passing through it.

When your iPhone or iPod touch is done charging, the wall charger effectively shuts off to prevent the drain of vampire power. You can see this, because the glowing cord will stop glowing. This isn’t actually groundbreaking or world changing, but it does look neat.

[Dexim Product Page]

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Ready for another green energy alternative? You may already be familiar with solar panels and may have just equipped your home with geothermal heating, but what can you do to convert the sun’s rays into energy that is easily stored and transported?

Researchers from the United States and Switzerland have reportedly put together a prototype generator that offers an entirely different way to capture the sun’s energy compared to a conventional photovoltaic (solar) panels. The prototype has a quartz window and a cavity for focusing sunlight into a cylinder lined with cerium oxide (ceria).

When the sun’s rays heat up the ceria, it will thermochemically break down the water and carbon dioxide that is being pumped into the cylinder. The net result is carbon monoxide and hydrogen, which can then be converted into liquid fuel. This hydrogen feul can then be used with hydrogen fuel cells. Alternatively, the hydrogen-carbon monoxide mixture could be converted into syngas, a combustible gas.

“The chemistry of the material is really well suited to this process,” says Professor Sossina Haile of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). “This is the first demonstration of doing the full shebang, running it under (light) photons in a reactor.”

Now, I’m no scientist, but there are at least two big concerns about such a generator. First, it needs energy to pump in the source materials (water and carbon dioxide). Second, it still outputs carbon monoxide, which to my knowledge, isn’t really a good thing unless you have some sort of greenhouse. At this stage of the game their prototype is very inefficient; fuel created harnesses only 0.7% to 0.8% of the solar energy taken into the vessel. The good news is that ceria is really abundant, so getting that stuff wouldn’t be too difficult.

[GizMag via BBC]

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