These days you can’t go anywhere without stumbling over someone who’s attention is deeply invested in their beloved iPhone. I’ve managed to avoid this trend so far (I’m an android), but I’ve managed to test out a number of green and environmental iPhone apps on my old iPod touch. Whether the ubiquity of these gadgets and gizmos is a positive for the environment is a debate we will save for a rainy day. There’s no doubt that a lot of additional electronic waste is produced, but there are undoubtedly situations where these items can be helpful, e.g. cutting down on travel needs or being used as an alternative to newspapers. With out further ado, let’s get to it:
CFL Light Bulb Savings Calculator
The CFL Savings calculator is a very simple app that will allow you to calculate just how much money you can save by switching energy intensive incandescent bulbs for CFL ones. CFL bulbs represent a far more energy and money sensitive option over traditional incandescent bulbs. Choose how many bulbs you have and your location, which it uses to provide the cost per kWHr and it will calculate your savings. You can also enter the cost of each bulb and the amount of hours per day you use them. The app is great as it makes it clear what a no brainer it is to switch to CFL bulbs.
- Price: $1.99
- Free Version Available?: No
3rd Whale’s FindGreen
FindGreen has been described as Yelp for the environment. Quite simply it is a guide-book to all the great environmental and sustainable resources that surround you. The app auto locates you using GPS and with 60,000 listings makes it a breeze to find anything from yoga studios to bicycle shops or organic restaurants in your vicinity. Features include the ability to submit new listings and rate existing ones. The ‘green tip of the day’ function is also a very nice touch.
- Price: FREE
- Free Version Available?: Yes
A Real Tree
The name really says it all for this incredibly straight forward iPhone app. Quite simply, when you purchase this app for $0.99, one tree will be planted in the real world. The tree will be planted in one of 12 countries that are currently fighting deforestation. All of these countries are located in tropical regions where the climate benefits from tree planting are maximized. When you purchase a real tree, or one for a friend, the app will furnish you with a ‘virtual’ tree (as pictured) which you can display proudly on your Facebook page.
- Price: $0.99
- Free Version Available?: Nope, just buy the tree!
Amazon Kindle for iPhone
Another simple, but effective app. This app from Amazon allows you to read the books you have purchased for your Kindle, Amazon’s popular eBook reader. Whilst the small size of the iPhone doesn’t really provide an optimal interface for reading it can be useful for reading a few pages on the go. The app will sync the page that you are on with your Kindle, so it is easy to pick up just where you left off. eBooks are set to have a big future in reducing the amount of paper we use and tools like these are important for making that transition.
- Price: FREE
- Free Version Available?: Yes
Clear Standards Carbon Tracker
The idea behind this carbon tracker is that it will use the iPhone’s in-built GPS system to track your movements and use this to calculate your carbon footprint. The limitation here with the iPhone is that you cannot run applications in the background, so you will have to have this app open, or there will be a fair amount of data to enter manually. If you can get over this hurdle, it’s a great tool to help you reduce your carbon emissions. It allows you to set monthly goals and motivates you to keep them each time you open the app.
- Price: FREE
- Free Version Available?: Yes
Concentrating solar power uses arrays of mirrors to direct sunlight onto a very specific target in order to heat it up to very high temperatures. This is then used as a heat source for a conventional power station (whereby steam drives a turbine which generates electricity). It’s a very simple concept that has been around for more than a century. However, it is far from a simple technology. It requires detailed design to produce a system that is efficient as possible and the manufacture of the huge curved mirrors is quite an engineering feat.
PhotoVoltaic, on the other hand, uses a flat film of semi-conducting material. This has a special property whereby light shining on it will induce an electrical current, which can then be channelled off into the electricity grid. This method directly transforms the incoming sunlight into electricity although, as always, there is a loss.
Solar Water Heaters are perhaps the simplest of all types of solar energy. The idea is simply to place a water tank/pipes in view of sunlight, usually on the roof, and then use this water for various heating functions in your house like showers and filling radiators. The most common user of Solar Water heating is Israel where it is estimated that they save over two million barrels of oil a year.
Another type of solar power is Solar Chimneys, where in effect you have a very large, thin greenhouse with a chimney in the middle. The air inside the greenhouse is heated by sunlight causing it to travel up the chimney (hot air rises, remember?). The hot air will drive a turbine in the chimney, or something similar, which can be used to generate an electrical current.
Yes you read that correctly.
The REVA G-Whiz is currently the most popular batter powered electric car in the world. Manufactured in India, the REVA is a smart 3-door city car that will fit two adults in the front and two children in the back. A full charge will take around 6 hours and will cost less than $1.50 meaning running costs are an astounding 2c per mile. The newest version includes higher performing Lithium Ion batteries that extend the range to 75 miles.
The Th!nk City is another 3-Door Electric vehicle running on sodium or lithium batteries. A product of Norwegian firm Th!nk, the City car is available in Norway and European markets with plans to come to the US soon. It is one of only two crash tested and highway certified fully electric vehicles. (The Tesla Roadster is the other). The car is designed so that it can be recycled after it has been decommissioned helping to further reduce its environmental impact.
Available next year, the Smart ED is the first all electric vehicle from SMART, manufacturers of the pocket sized city cars that are ever more popular in Europe, and – believe me – they look even smaller in real life. The ED follows much the same design as other Smart vehicles, but behind the fuel cap is actually a standard mains plug. The Smart ED can fit only 2 passengers and will take around 8 hours to charge the batteries to capacity.
The Tesla Roadster is without doubt the cream of the crop of electric vehicles. With a stunning design and performance to rival some of the best fossil fuel powered sports cars, the Roadster is truly a break through vehicle that demonstrates that you don’t have to make cutbacks on quality if you want to go electric. It combines a 0-60 mph time of 3.7 seconds, with an efficiency that is up their with the best electric vehicles – achieving a breathtaking 120 miles per gallon equivalent (
Whilst not technically a fully electric vehicle, the Toyota Prius with its hybrid engine deserves a mention here. The greenest vehicle by the world’s largest automaker is an important milestone and a very advanced specimen of technology. The hybrid engine means the car will run on fuel but will also use advanced techniques such as regenerative breaking (which captures a vehicles kinetic energy whilst breaking) to charge an onboard battery. When the battery has sufficient power stored up, the engine can switch to EV mode, whereby it is propelled purely by electrical energy. This hybrid engine results in 54.7 mpg rating, although the 3rd generation models will bring this up to 60.3 mpg. Its no surprise to learn that worldwide sales of the Prius reached 1.2 million in early 2009.
The Lightening GT is in a similar mould to the Tesla Roadster. The British made Lightening features a sleek design and a 0-60 mph time of under 4 seconds. A killer feature is its fast charging lithium-titanate battery which, given the right high capacity power source, can charge in 10 minutes. On standard mains power this would be more like overnight. The lightning GT is a 2 seat convertible and is available to order now for 2009/2010 delivery in the UK and is set to reach the US market ‘soon’.
The iMIEV from Mitsubishi Motors Company is due to start production in 2010. It can fit four full sized adults but has a greater efficiency than the G-Whiz, getting around 100 miles from 16 KWh and has an impressive top speed of around 80 mph.
The Mega City available from NICE (No Internal Combustion Engine) is a french made 2-seater city car. NICE also have a large truck version, the “Mega Mutitruck” and a pickup style version, the “Mega Worker”.
The Vectrix was the first high powered electric scooter available on the market. Its great design and 0-50 mph in 7 seconds made it very desirable. The company unfortunately went in to liquidation earlier this month and won’t be able to continue existing in its current form. However, Vextrix scooters are still readily available second hand and the technology could be given further life if a suitable company swoops in to buy the remaining assets.
The Cargo Scooter is a Dutch Made Electric Scooter that has been picked up by Domino’s Pizza to equip their fleet of delivery vehicles. Taking only 2-3 hours to charge, it is adept for traversing short distances quickly, cheaply and environmentally. It is available now in both European and North American markets.
Solar Power is without a doubt one of the most promising renewable technologies that is readily available today. The amount of energy from the Sun that reaches the Earth each second is enough to cover our entire energy demands many times over. One of the biggest challenges to using this energy is the fact that the incoming sunlight fluctuates massively: day/night, cloudy/clear days and winter/summer etc. Therefore in order to make solar powerful a viable choice for consumers at home, an agreement known as ‘Net Metering’ is vital. It allows consumers with solar panels to transmit energy to the national system when their panels are generating more energy than they can use, and in return they can withdraw energy when their panels can’t produce enough energy e.g. at night. The consumer would then only pay for the net energy used. In other words, if the consumer generated as much energy for the local electricity utility as it used then it its energy bill would come to a cool $0. Likewise, if the consumer used a little more then he supplied, he would just pay for the difference. There is therefore potential that someone could actually get paid by the energy company if they are efficient enough about their energy use, or have installed a large enough solar array.
