PaperBackSwap : Your source for swapping books online!

Here's a wonderful site for all you book worms who want to reduce clutter; swap those books you are never going to read and save some trees in the process!

“We are a group of readers who share books with each other (NOT just paperbacks) for nothing more than the cost of postage!”

PaperBackSwap : Your source for swapping books online!

Never Ending Lightbulb

A UK firm has developed a bulb that is more than 3 times as efficient as CFL bulbs and will burn brightly for decades. They claim that it will burn for so long that the building or appliance that contains it will wear out before the bulb does.

The traditional light bulb remained the way it is for so long because there wasn’t enough of an incentive to change. No one bothered to develop newer, more efficient designs because they were so cheap to produce. They waste 95% of energy and don’t last long.

That is changing now with CFL bulbs, because the green movement is providing an incentive to change. Now they are becoming even more advanced. The Economist is reporting that a team of researchers has developed a bulb that lasts, for all intents and purposes, forever. It’s also far more efficient, converting more energy to light rather than heat.

UK Company, Ceravision, have created a new bulb design that doesn’t use electrodes, so cannot burn out. It uses a magnetometer to bombard a small piece of aluminum oxide with microwaves to create an electrical field. Gas is then passed into a hole in the aluminium, in order to ionise it and create a glowing plasma. Traditional bulbs convert only 5% of energy to heat, CFLs make use of around 15%, but this new design converts over 50%.

There are other bonuses as well, both financially and environmentally. The bulbs are expected to last for decades, so will need replacing far less often. This means less carbon emissions from production, and lower costs. It also doesn’t have the traces of mercury that CFL bulbs have, so will be easier and cleaner to dispose of once it does burn out.

Never Ending Lightbulb [via TreeHugger]

Green Roofs

Check-out the photos on this site for some interesting ideas on "Green Roofs."

Photo gallery « G R E E N • R O O F S

Lightning Looking to Zap Tesla

The Tesla Roadster is impressive; it's one of the first electric cars to be desirable to TreeHuggers and petrol-heads alike. However, a bit of competition never hurt anyone, and is great for us consumers. That's one reason that the Lightning electric car is good news. The other is that it has 700 bhp and does 0-60mph in 4 seconds.The company is taking orders on their three different models now, with production planned to start in 2008. There's a luxury model, a lightweight sporty model and an extended range model with a range of 250 miles.

Lightning Looking to Zap Tesla (TreeHugger)

Encyclopedia of Earth: Wikipedia, for the Environment

The Encyclopedia of Earth... aims to become the definitive one stop destination for all things environment, climate change and sustainable development.

Encyclopedia of Earth: Like Wikipedia, for the Environment (TreeHugger)

Sunslates: Solar Powered Shingles

In Europe, where they build to last, few builders put cheap asphalt shingles on houses, and Eternit Fiber-cement shingles are common. Atlantis Energy fits them out with solar cells; a standard installation of 216 Sunslates will crank out about 3 KW and take up about 300 square feet of roof.

Sunslates: Solar Powered Shingles (TreeHugger)

Playgreen: Green living wiki

Playgreen is a recently launched wiki that allows users to contribute ideas about how to live environmentally conscious lives. If you're looking for ways to live greener (or if you're an expert in the green lifestyle) give Playgreen a read.

Playgreen: Green living wiki - lifehack.org

New and Improved Wind Power

If you've been toying with the idea of installing your own wind power in your backyard, you should read this article.

For many years, residential wind turbines have been most popular in rural locations where zoning laws tend to be less restrictive and neighbors less likely to object to them (mainly on aesthetic grounds). That may be about to change. Many in the small-scale wind turbine industry think residential wind power is about to enter suburbia with simpler, less expensive systems that perform more like household appliances than complicated renewable energy systems. And the potential is enormous; it’s estimated there are at least 15 million homes with the resources necessary to make a wind installation cost effective.

New and Improved Wind Power

Using Solar Roofs To Power Hybrids

"A company called Solar Electrical Vehicles is specializing in adding a convex solar roof to hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius, Highlander Hybrid and the Ford Escape Hybrid. The solar modules are rated at 200-300 watts, and this power is utilized to charge a supplemental battery. With the solar roof, the Toyota Prius can operate up to 20 miles per day in electric mode thus improving fuel economy by up to 29% (depending on driving habits and conditions). The system costs $2000-$4000 and the payback time is said to be 2-3 years."

Using Solar Roofs To Power Hybrids (TreeHugger)