Saving green with GenZ Battery Charger!

Yes, I am a green gadget girl. I like going green and I like gadgets and technology and equipment. Some of my gadgets require electricity and must be charged up daily (some, like my cell phone, twice a day. I even carry a spare charger in my purse.) As like most people, I plug in when I get home, and grab my gadget off the charger when I leave in the morning. That means while I'm away, my charger is still plugged into the electrical socket and still drawing, albeit minimal, electricity, costing money and wasting energy. So I was thrilled when GenZ came out with an eco-friendly gadget charger that shuts off the charger when the gadget is fully charged. My cat, Samantha, and I inspected the hardware and immediately sensed the uber-coolness of it. Before the GenZ Simultaneous Battery Charger, by my bedside, I have a strip for my laptop, bedside lamp, work iPhone, personal smart phone, and an external hard drive. Across the room, is the outlet for my ancient Palm pilot and bluetooth.

Upon setting up the GenZ, I immediately experienced cord relief when I could remove four cords and swap out for the GenZ Power. In addition, I am a sucker for pretty flashing lights (thus, I live in Las Vegas) and the GenZ has buttons AND lights. Yeah! There is even a great big red button to shut down the entire "bench" and green lights when something is charging.

Once it is charged, the entire "branch" shuts down and the green light goes off. So green! And saves me green by saving me electricity!

Even the box it came in did not go to waste.

You can get yours here.

Mobile Energy

As a self-professed green gadget girl, I was excited when I saw this gotta-have gadget featured on Inhabitat.com. It is a fold-up solar-powered personal wind turbine! Oh yeah!

Add it to the camping list of survival tools (OK, maybe not survival, but really cool tools) to charge up your cell phone, GPS unit or a built-in LED light. More.

Give me more Tesla!!

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tesla and Toyota announced today that the two companies will be collaborating on electric vehicle development and production.

A benefit to Tesla from this deal is that it will be able to take advantage of the Toyota production system and suppliers, avoiding many of the logistical problems that hampered early Roadster production and costs.

Production of the Model S is planned to start in 2012.

More information here.

Google is so green!

In an effort to reduce their carbon footprint, Google employs goats to mow the grass in their field at their headquarters in Mountain View, provide plug-in hybrid vehicles that get charged with a solar-powered carport to employees who use alternative transportation, and compost their organic waste.

Now they are striving for 100% water recycling from data center cooling systems. On average, two gallons of water is consumed for every kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. Google is working on reclaiming dirty water, filtering the water and using it for facility cooling. According to Data Center Knowledge, at least two Google data center have these water filtering plants and a third is employing a rainwater collection system to reduce reliance on the local water supply.

Joe Kava, Google's Director of Operations, said,

“Water consumption isn’t a side thought; it’s part of our larger environmental management policy. In the future this will be at the forefront of data center operations."