Compared to basically every other appliance you have plugged in at home, the Playstation 3 sucks up more juice. That’s according to a new study by Australian consumer agency Choice, which found that when a PS3 is running, it sucks up five times more energy than a refrigerator. If you leave it on all the time for something like Folding@Home, you’re looking at an energy cost of nearly $250 a year.

The Xbox 360 isn’t all that much better, using 23.57kWh per week when idling compared to the PS3’s 31.74kWh. The Wii, on the other hand, is downright dainty in comparison, using only 2.97kWh per week when idling, less than 10% of the energy used by the PS3.

It’s all a good lesson to simply turn off your console, whatever it may be, when you aren’t using it. I’m not one to disparage the good work done by Folding@Home, but if you leave your console cranking away on it all the time you’ll spend enough to go out and buy a Wii by the time a year is up.

The White House has outlined their plan to increase fuel efficiency standards to 35 MPG by 2020, a move that will save Americans an estimated $100 billion in fuel costs.

The mandate was outlined in last year’s energy bill in December, but this proposal gives a boost to the timeline by requiring the mileage of passenger vehicles to average 31.6 MPG by 2015. That’s up from today’s average of 25 MPG (which I can’t help but mentioning is identical to the mileage of the original Model T Ford).

The proposal is open for comment for the next 60 days. Although auto makers have publicly endorsed it, not everyone is satisfied. California is leading a group of states to require more dramatic increases in fuel efficiency. They want to see the average hit 35.7 MPG by 2016.

But why stop at 35.7 MPG? According to a poll of 1,013 Americans conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation, 76% of them would rather see 40 MPG reached by 2010. The advocacy group 40MPG.org says reaching this goal (even if it’s later than 2010) would “eliminate 1 billion tons of global warming pollution annually while saving consumers $3,000 to $5,000 over the life of a vehicle.” It would also eliminate our dependence on oil imports from the Middle East.

However far the proposal goes, it’s about time average fuel economy increased. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters commented that, as it stands “this proposal will save nearly 55 billion gallons of fuel over the lifetime of the vehicles affected … And it will save America’s drivers over $100 billion in fuel costs over the lifetime of those vehicles.”

In a cap-and-trade like system, auto manufacturers who do better than the average requirements will gain credits they can trade to carmakers who don’t meet the them.

Publicly, large auto manufacturers have endorsed the new proposal. GM said it will “work with [the government] throughout its rulemaking process on the yearly targets and the sensible mechanisms needed to meet this challenge.” Similarly, Ford said they “are analyzing the proposal and remain committed to meeting the requirements set by Congress in last year’s energy bill.”

I happened across this video on algae biofuel today: a company I’ve never heard of, Valcent Products, claims they can grow algae to produce oil yields of 100,000 gallons per acre. That’s the upper range of estimates I’ve seen for algae production—an absolutely phenomenal amount of oil—which Valcent attributes to their ‘high density vertical bioreactor’ system. Check it out

Spiegel Online published a series of pictures titled “Desertec: Strom aus der Wüste” (translation: Desertech: Electricity from the desert). It includes this image of how much land would be needed to power the world, Europe or Germany with solar-thermal power. The idea is similar to a post we did a year ago: How Much Land to Power The Whole World with Solar?

The red square on the left is for the whole world, in the middle for Europe-25, and on the right for Germany. Below you can see pictures of the kind of technology they’re talking about. It’s a bit similar to Ausra’s solar-thermal power system, but with curved mirrors. We’re mentioning Ausra here, because they claim they’re able to produce electricity from solar even at night (by storing some of the heat).

Still, even with losses and the massive challenge of building the infrastructure, this shows the potential of solar power. And the red squares in the first picture are just to show the scale, the real thing could be much more decentralized and located closer to already existing infrastructure (and not all of it would be in North-Africa, of course. There are many sunny deserts in North-America, f.ex.).

Of course, the transport of all the electricity to where it would be used is a serious challenge. There are ways to minimize losses, but over such long distances, there will always be some.

Lets not kid ourselves and claim that the red squares are small, but with the price of solar power falling (both photovoltaics (PV) and solar-thermal), it is starting to look more realistic all the time. We have so much roof surface where PV could be used, and there are many deserts where using lots of land for solar-thermal isn’t a problem.

Of course, we won’t get there all at once. But looking at how prices are falling and production capacity is increasing, we definitely think that solar power has a bright future!

See that scary man? That there is Archer Quinn, self-proclaimed savior of mankind. He’s prepping a free energy device that he plans to unveil on June 20th of this year, on which date he predicts “the oil reign and those who governed by their money and crushed the people by the taxes and control of the most basic of needs shall be put down for all time.” Yeah, pretty wild stuff. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s decided to nickname his gravity-based device the “Sword of God.” His prior experience involves some sort of “thermal accelerator” (pictured) and a myriad of other inventions, so he doesn’t seem to think breaking Newton’s laws should be much of a problem. Guess it won’t take long to find out. This should be a fun one.

I was never a fan of cutting the grass as a kid, but it was less about having to do work and more about our gas-powered lawnmower which was loud and reeked of fuel and oil. But back then, electric powered mowers were tethered to a power cable that I’m sure I would have accidentally run over at one point or another. Fast forward 15 years and battery technologies have finally reached the point where you can buy an electric mower that doesn’t need to be plugged in while you’re cutting the lawn. The Neuton CE 6.2 model features a removable rechargeable battery that’s ideal for lawns up to 1/3 of an acre or about 15,000 sq. ft. in size. (Or about 45 to 60 minutes of mow time per charge, depending on the grass type.)

Since the battery is removable, you can swap it out with a backup if it dies before your lawn is finished or if you want to use the optional trimmer/edger accessory. The batteries charge in about 8 hours and will supposedly last for about 5 years with proper care. And since the Neuton CE 6.2 is an obvious choice for those who aren’t thrilled with running a gas-powered mower, they’ll also be happy to know that the battery is 95% recyclable when it does reach the end of its life.

You can buy the Neuton CE 6.2 Mower directly from the Neuton website for $479, while spare batteries run $99.95 each.

Last week Australia launched what was called the Southern Hemisphere’s first large-scale geosequestration project. The media release further suggests it is one of the one of the most comprehensive commercial scale carbon dioxide storage projects on the world stage.

The Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (a public-private partnership) believe they can pump 100,000 tonnes of CO2 into a depleted natural gas reservoir two kilometres beneath farmland, about four hours west of Melbourne, Victoria. All this for the paltry sum of $40 million AUD. Unfortunately that money is just to test the process with naturally occurring carbon dioxide and methane. It will not, alas, be storing the byproduct of that state’s coal fired power plants.

According to the chief of the research group it will be about 10 years before we’ll be doing that. Dr Peter Cook then drops this clanger, “You wouldn’t (use carbon storage) with a 40-year-old plant, but you might do it with a 20-year-old plant.” Too costly apparently for older style plants.

Seems other commercial sized geo-sequestration projects are happening in Norway, Canada and Algeria but this Australian version, known as the Otway Project, near the rural city of Warrnambool, will have the world’s most comprehensive subsurface carbon dioxide monitoring program. To check, we assume, that none of the CO2 is escaping its underground jail.

Ecover is lauded by the United Nations for protecting the earth, and the company’s products scour many a lean and green TreeHugging homes – even ours.

Looking beyond the products’ labeling and phosphate-freeness, the Organic Consumer’s Association decided to do its own tests.

Among some of our favorite eco-brands emerged Ecover. The much-loved household product, it was found, tested positive for an alleged cancer-causing agent, known as 1,4-Dioxane.

Now before you jump into your nuclear-waste protection suits and dump all your Ecover products into a toxic waste site, what does this all mean?

Is dioxane something we should worry about?

According to Organic Consumers, it is. They attempt to debunk the myth that minute amounts of dioxane are not harmful.

If you ask the late Dr. Bronner, of Dr. Bronner soaps, he would probably say that dioxanes are dangerous. But then again, Dr. Bronner’s soap tested for no detectable traces of dioxane, according to the Organic Consumer’s Association.

Ecover on the other hand, was found to have almost twice the amount of dioxane that regular off-the-shelf dish washing detergent (2.4 parts per million, versus 1.6). This is a bit worrying due to the trace amounts of soap that one ingests with every meal, and that the chemical has been linked to immune system disruption.

On the site Buygreenstandards, dioxane is also known as diethylene dioxide, diethylene ether, diethylene oxide, and it is not to be confused with dioxin, they write.

Dioxane is a solvent classified by the EPA as a probable human carcinogen, and some research suggests that it may suppress the immune system. Dioxane is listed in the 1990 Clean Air Act as a hazardous air pollutant and is on the EPA’s Community Right-to-Know list. Found in: Window cleaners.

Ecover’s PR people responded with this:

Substantial quantities of dioxine [sic] are found in the production of synthetic fibers, such as polyester, a fabric that is worn daily by roughly 85 % of the planet’s population.

Mainly produced by two US companies, the ingredient is also used in high dosages as a solvent in mass production, including the paper and cotton industry as well as the polymer industry for the production of PET bottles.

It is therefore astonishing that the above-mentioned investigation turned a blind eye on such superabundant and well-spread sources and preferred to single out easy-to-research, mere minute traces of dioxine in detergents.

Several years ago, the European detergent industry put a limit on dioxane traces at 100 parts per million of surfactant. Ecover’s own criterion is set at half, namely 50 parts per million.

This leads to values as low as the 2,4 parts detected in the Ecover product. The threshold for reporting the presence of dioxane in tap water in The Netherlands, a country with a stringent environmental legislation, is 3 parts per million parts of water. This means that, in the unlikely event, you drank an entire bottle of pure Ecover Dishwashing liquid you still wouldn’t reach that threshold!”

We tend to be of the notion what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and that a little bit of dioxane, probably wouldn’t do any harm. It’s most likely that the testers are being overly-cautious, but then again, if you are paying higher “green” prices, one would expect a deluxe product.

Any dioxane/dioxin experts out there who can:

a) Tell us the difference between dioxin and dioxane?

b) Calm any unnecessary fears?

How much gas money would you save if you didn’t have to make a lot of left turns?

UPS, the delivery people, decided to re-structure the delivery routes taken by drivers to eliminate as many left turns as possible. Now that may sound weird, but how long have you sat in a left turn lane waiting for oncoming traffic to pass, and how many times have you dreaded crossing into oncoming traffic?

The results have been dramatic. UPS says its 95,000 vehicles shaved nearly 30 million miles off its deliveries in 2007, saving the cost of 3 million gallons of gasoline and reducing truck emissions by 32,000 metric tons.

Christopher Hawthorne, architectural critic for the Los Angeles Times, makes some interesting points about a monster Whole Foods that opened in Pasadena. He acknowledges that it is big and has lots of selection,

“But the store is even more striking for what it says about the similar discontents plaguing the organic food and green architecture movements. The way they come together in this Whole Foods–a piece of green architecture designed to hold an organic food emporium–suggests that both may need to adjust their priorities. Or at least start acknowledging that they’ve become victims of their own success.”

It is designed by KTGY Group out of green materials like bamboo and fireclay tile, and they claim to “source materials that rapidly replenish themselves and do not contribute to biodiversity loss”…. “We support growers of forest and other sustainable products that are responsibly managed.”

And obviously the food is an experience, “It’s Vegas with organic, gluten-free scones.”

Hawthorne concludes:

“But the first rule of sustainable architecture is to keep new buildings as small and efficient as possible. With its soaring 30-foot ceilings and endless aisles, 280 subterranean parking spots and all those TVs flickering day and night, this place is neither. It’s more like the grocery store version of a hybrid SUV made by Lexus or a 12,000-square-foot “green” house with a swimming pool and six-car garage accompanying its solar panels and sustainably harvested decking.

Forget about doing more with less. This green-tinged cornucopia is all about doing more with more.