Conservation Gadgets

Going green sometimes requires a helping hand. As part of our week-long series on our renewable energy future, NHPR’s Internet sherpa and new media coordinator Brady Carlson is with us to review some of the latest gadgets to help us conserve energy.

Something that Brady learned through managing NHPR’s Public Insight Network (a group of listeners who share their observations and personal experiences) was that a lot of people feel like there are serious obstacles to some of the green changes they'd like to make in their lives. A lot of people said they'd really like to have their own solar panel, generate their own clean energy instead of using fossil fuels, but the up-front costs are just too high and the tax credits aren't enough to make it feasible. Or they want to buy a hybrid, but don't think the time is right to get a new car. And there were people who said they'd already made a lot of green changes – they recycle, they compost, they switched to CFLs, etc.

Brady's goal was to find conservation-friendly gadgets and resources that people could use right now without a major investment of time and money, or any major lifestyle changes. (which is what we all really want anyway, right?)

Brady's suggested conservation gadgets:

Portable Solar Chargers

Maybe you're not at a point you can power your house on solar, but maybe you can power your tech gadgets. Portable solar chargers are becoming pretty useful – they're compact and, of course, portable, and for 30 to 50 bucks you have a solar charger for your cell phones, BlackBerries, MP3 players, even laptops. Is this alone going to solve the energy issue? No, but for Internet sherpas, or even just tech-savvy people, turning your tech energy over to solar is a good step in the right direction.

Veos

Laundry is one of the most energy-intensive chores we do. The Veos is a design for a fabric softener dispenser, so it goes into the machine with your clothes. It harvests the kinetic energy from the clothes being spun and tossed around. When the wash is done, you pull the Veos out and hook it into your grid and use the energy. This isn't going to reclaim all the energy you use in the laundry - so clothesline advocates may not be Veos users – but if you use a machine and want to do so, this may be for you.

Thermal Leak Detector

New England has a lot of old, drafty houses, so conserving energy for us starts with being efficient with the energy we're already generating. Thermal leak detectors help you figure out where you're losing energy by comparing temperatures at different places on your wall. They're like stud finders – you point them at the wall, and they let you know where the temperature change is significant. If you find a big difference, there's a good chance it's a spot where you might need more insulation. I've read that the detectors aren't as simple as point-and-shoot and that you do have to spend more than a little time to really get a handle on your energy, but these cost around forty bucks, so the price is right and with a little learning you can start to see where you can make weatherization really count in your house.

Veggie Trader

Many of us who garden often have more than we can use. In this case, we either can it, which is time consuming, or we let it rot, which is wasteful, or we find someone to share it with. Veggie Trader lets you interact with other gardeners in your area who have extra veggies so that you can make the most of your garden. How is this conservation? Because eating local food means you're not buying food shipped in from somewhere else, so that saves energy. And it's community-building at the same time! Great quote from one of the operators, who said someone told them: “I wish I had this last year so I didn’t have a yard full of raccoons getting drunk off my fermenting plums.”

(Photo by solar charger Shawn Brandow via Flickr/Creative Commons)