A new report from the Electric Power Research Institute looked at the energy consumption of the three most popular video game consoles, the Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony Playstation 3, and discovered that the Wii was the most energy efficient, using one-sixth the power used by the other two.

The researchers played one hour of Madden NFL 11 on each system and then recorded the power consumed. The Wii used 13.7 watts, the Playstation used 84.8 watts and Xbox used 87.9 watts. The reason for the huge disparity between the Wii and the other two is that the Playstation and Xbox feature much higher quality graphics and more powerful processors.

Panasonic has launched a new household LED lightbulb in Japan that apparently lasts 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs.

The new LED bulbs are in the EverLed line, and they’ll be siold in Japan starting October 21, with monthly production at 50,000 units. No changes to lighting equipment used for incandescents are required.

If used an average of five and a half hours per day, the new bulbs can last up to 19 years, according to Panasonic. That’s 40 times longer than incandescent bulbs. The bulbs use 1/8 the power of regular bulbs.

The book and newspaper publishing industry is one of the planet’s most voracious polluters. Last year, those industries efforts resulted in the harvesting of over 125 million trees.

A new report by the Cleantech Group, called “The Environmental Impact of Amazon’s Kindle” is a study of the emissions that devices could produce and prevent. According to the report, a single Kindle displaces the purchase of 22.5 books each year which results in an estimated carbon savings of 168 kg of CO2.

It also says that if the full storage of the Kindle is used then the device prevents almost 11,185 kg of CO2 from being released, which is a significant amount that could really help ease the environmental damage of the publishing industry.

Air conditioner efficiency is marked on the side off all units as a number called the EER (Energy Efficiency Rating). The Energy Efficiency Rating is a ratio of the BTUs of the unit to the amount of power it consumes in Watts. That means that an air conditioner with 10,000 BTU capacity and an EER of 10 consumes 1000 watts of power. That’s quite a lot of juice.

The government mandates that all window units have a EER of at least 9.0. That said, there are a number of affordable units available with ratings of 10.5-11. These more efficient units will also have an Energy Star label on them because they exceed the minimum standard (9.0 EER) by at least 15%.

Keep these factors in mind when and if you must buy an air conditioner. There are a lot of alternatives to air conditioning – check out this article on How to Cool Your Home Without Air Conditioning for some great ideas and tips.

Here’s the latest eco-video from our good friends at Grist. OK, we aren’t really friends so much as acquaintances. And by acquaintances I mean we’re rabid fans who stalk Grist staff and have a holy shrine with all their pictures on it.

Their latest video is a quick and sassy look at why and how to recycle batteries. What mainly caught our attention though was that although the video is titled “Cell Out: How-To Dispose of Batteries” it doesn’t really tell us how to dispose of batteries beyond stating that some companies will accept rechargeable batteries for recycling and then goes on tell us how to make a battery out of a lemon like we might shove one into our TV remote. (I’m so sorry, we still love you like mad!)

Upon looking into it more closely it seems that battery recycling isn’t exactly a straightforward situation even though it’s extremely important. Consider that household batteries are responsible for between 50 and 70 percent of all heavy metals found in landfills.

As they say in the above video, rechargable batteries can be recycled. What they don’t tell you is what to do with the non-recharble batteries. Normal household batteries can’t be recycled but that doesn’t mean they should be thrown in the trash (or the blue bin like Umbra does). They can go to  a special waste disposal program that differs in each community. Just google where to dispose of batteries in your location and then stockpile them for an occasional battery dump. Or better yet, rely on rechargables with one of these handy solar battery rechargers.

On Wednesday Stockholm Water Prize was awarded to Bindeshwar Pathak for his work developing eco-friendly and inexpensive toilets to bolster public health.

Pathak, a sanitation expert who founded the Sulabh Sanitation Movement in India in 1970, has worked “to improve public health, advance social progress and improve human rights in India and other countries,” stated the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) jury in a citation.

“The results of Dr. Pathak’s endeavours constitute one of the most amazing examples of how one person can impact the well-being of millions.”

Pathak’s eco-friendly toilet systems require significantly less water per flush at only 1.5 liters. Astounding considering that conventional toilets use almost seven times that amount. This factor had a particularly large impact on drought stricken regions.

A true pioneer in renewable energy, Pathak also developed systemd that convert human waste into biogas that can then be used for heating, cooking and electricity generation. Now we’re cooking with gas!

Panasonic has just released details on its upcoming home compost machine which will be sold in Japan in late April.

The home compost machine actually breaks down organic garbage in only a few hours. Adding to the cool factor is the ability to set a moisture level for your end product depending on your needs. Looking for some wet, sloppy compost? No problem. Want some dried up husks of compost. It’ll do that too.

The major drawback to this super slick green gadget becomes apparent when you look into how it works. It uses a platinum-palladium catalyst to break organic garbage down at high speed. Platinum-palladium? That doesn’t sound cheap. And it isn’t with a retail price expected to be a USD equivalent of $881.

The machine can also only compost two kilograms at a time but if that’s a problem then you’re probably wasting too much food anyway. Not to be preachy but come on. Food waste in America seems to be a little out of control.

There’s no word yet if the Panasonic Home Compost Machine will be available in the U.S.

HP and Boston Power have just released their new Enviro Series notebook battery. The environmentally-friendly laptop battery battery has a steep price at $150. Will people cough a little extra dough on behalf of the environment in the current economic climate? HP seems to be is betting they will.

But based on the HP Enviro battery information, it’s boasting more than just using less power. It also claims to be the industry’s first battery that lasts three years and backs it up with a three-year warranty.

It will run for about four hours on a single charge and promises to fade much slower over time than a typical laptop battery.

Green gadgets and electronics have been hitting the market in droves lately. From solar-powered cell phones, to the latest MacBook which is claiming to be “the world’s greenest family of notebooks.”

A large part of the environmental future of our planet depends on consumers and how they vote with their dollars. Currently, according to Forrester Research, although two-thirds of consumer claim to decide on what they will buy with social responsibility in mind, only 18 percent say they are willing to spend extra for socially responsible products.

Hopefully that percentage will rise in the future, which if it hits a critical threshold, will make the mass production of green gadgets cheaper.

One of the main obstacles in getting the general population to embrace electric cars is that because of the length of time it takes to charge a battery, long trips are impossible unless you pull over and take a five hour break every 100 miles or so.

Thanks to a recent breakthrough at MIT, we will be using lithium-ion car batteries that can be charged in less than an hour within the next two to three years. While this is still a ways from being as fast as filling up at the gas pump, it now makes longer trips a possibility in electric cars.

There is other research going on out there right now that is looking to reduce the charge time to mere minutes but what is exciting about the MIT battery breakthrough is that it does not use drastically different technology from the standard lithium-ion battery, which is why we can expect to see them in cars so quickly.

The new batteries have been nicknamed “Beltway Batteries”, after the orbital motorway in Washington DC, because it uses a bypass system that allows the lithium ions move more quickly.

The MIT scientists found that by coating the lithium iron phosphate cathodes in a lithium pyrophosphate it allows charged ions to move faster allowing the battery to expend and receive its charge faster.

The Beltway Batteries will have a use in not only electric cars but anything that uses a battery including cell phones and even solar power and wind energy generation since better batteries means that more surplus energy could be stored.

To reduce draughts year-round, Black & Decker has created a pretty cool gadget they call a Thermal Leak and Draught Detector. Using infrared sensors to pinpoint the source, a simple color-coded light tells you where the cold spots are in your home, and points to where there might be flaws or holes in your insulation. Once the Thermal Leak and Draught Detector has located the part of your home where the sneaky cold air is coming in from, you can repair the crack, or add insulation as necessary to fix the problem.
The less cold draughts, the lower your energy bills will be. Energy Star has stated that plugging the leaks and drafts in your home can save up to 20% off your heating and cooling energy costs. Heating and Cooling accounts for over half of your energy usage, but the average house has enough leaks and drafts to equal an entire one square foot hole. This Thermal Leak and Draught Detector, which sells for about $50, is a great way for your family to reduce costs during the recession.