The Guide To Efficient Living
Sales of electric bikes have spun into high gear this year — some merchants reporting a 6000% increase in sales. This is good news, because, for short trips, the efficiency and convenience of electric bikes is hard to beat. You may have heard that in the U.S., 40% of all trips are made within two miles… [Continue Reading]
In June, the Vancouver City Council unanimously approved the adoption the the highest green standards for private sector development in North America. Effective immediately, all new re-zonings for development in Vancouver will be required to achieve or exceed the level of LEED Silver, and they will have to achieve LEED Gold on January 1st, 2010.
Most cell phones don’t even come close to being green — their chargers are energy inefficient, they contain hazardous chemicals, and they not are designed for upgrading or easy recycling. Recently though, some the big players in the field like Nokia and Sony Ericsson are making moves towards green design. As far as assessing which… [Continue Reading]
A company called Ultra Motor has released a new electric bike called the A2B. This bike looks great – I like the functional, minimalist style. The A2B is designed for urban or suburban commutes. According to Ultra Motors, the A2B offers unassisted power on demand for up to 20 miles at a cruising speed of 20mph.… [Continue Reading]
A company called GreenCore Air has released an air conditioner than can be powered by a single 170 watt solar panel. The GreenCore air conditioning unit can heat and cool a 600 square foot room. It runs on DC power, so there is no need to put an AC inverter between the solar panel and… [Continue Reading]
Continuing our coverage of green computing devices, let’s take a look at the greenest monitors currently available. These monitors are energy efficient, and they eliminate most hazardous chemicals from their design. Some even incorporate recycled plastic into their casings. EPEAT is the most comprehensive green certification for monitors — the EPEAT certification incorporates Energy Star… [Continue Reading]
ADC (Advanced Data Centers), a company based in San Francisco, is set to build the country’s greenest data center. Because of its efficiency, the project stands to save its owner from $1.8 million to $2 million in energy costs. ADC says its new center will be 25-30 percent more energy efficient than the industry standard.… [Continue Reading]
Earlier this week, we reviewed the greenest desktop computers, so now let’s take a look at the greenest notebooks! Notebooks are typically much more energy efficient than desktops. They are, however, no greener than desktops in other regards — they typically contain the same hazardous components, and they are not easily recycled. However, a few… [Continue Reading]
At MetaEfficient I’ve been waiting for years to review some exciting green computers, and now finally in 2008, we’ve seen the introduction of some truly green PCs. Although the components of green PCs cost about 10% more than regular PCs, they retail for about the same price. You can jump ahead and see our list… [Continue Reading]
We featured the innovative Dockside Green community previously on MetaEfficient. Recently, the entire community was certified to be built to Platinum LEED (leadership in energy and environmental design) standards. It was awarded the highest LEED score in the world.
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