Using a small and efficient space heater instead of central heating can save a lot of money by allowing you to heat localized areas while appropriately neglecting others. There is no point in heating your living room when you are sleeping is there? Well, maybe you’ve been kicked out of the bedroom, but that advice column is for another website.  The point is that eliminating the energy wasted on unused space is a great way to cut utility bills and, more importantly, save electricity.

A small unit mounted on wheels can be easily moved from room to room along with you while still being powerful enough to heat large areas.  For example, the Honeywell HZ-315 weighs just under 3.5 pounds but can pump out 1,500 watts of efficiently distributed heat.  This model also costs only $25 (USD).  Honeywell space heaters come well recommended but really are indicative of what is available in general. Your local home supply store should have a variety of makes and models that are roughly the same power to cost ratio.

With the central heating turned off and your cozy space heater cranked up, you’ll be saving utility money every second you sleep.  I estimate that your space heater will pay for itself after a single month of winter use.

Could there be a more fun way to travel than being suspended from a two passenger vehicle 15-20 feet above the ground, while being transported throughout the city? Okay if you’re afraid of heights maybe it’s not the best way to travel, but it could be one of the most environmentally efficient rides you’ll ever take.

SkyTran has announced a system that allows users to travel in two-passenger cars on a system comprised on passive magnets. Since the tracks themselves will provide the power to the transport units they will require no moving parts or engines, which will let them come in at under 1000 pounds per transporter and will therefore require very little energy to run.

The system would be built with two tracks that run parallel to one another, while a separate track underneath those lines would allow track cars to emerge and slow down for users to board. They would then return to the upper tracks and proceed at full speeds.

SkyTran is claiming that the system would cost $10 million per mile of track, a number far below the nearly $40 million per mile needed for light rail and $50 million per mile required for interstate highway construction.

The system seems great, but it does bring to mind the Simpsons Monorail Episode and given the lack of interest in these types of systems in the past the SkyTran may soon go the way of the monorail.

Hey, look at this cool paper bottle from BrandImage! It may be leading the revolution against plastic.

The “forever in a landfill” environmentalist slogan is quickly becoming cliché and lost on the general public. Each day, Americans continue to throw out 60 million plastic bottles. Only 14% of which actually get recycled.  So, forget landfill slogans.  We aren’t getting it done.

Try this on for size: there exists an island of garbage out in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas?  Texas! Due to some interestingly dull oceanographic factors, nearly all of the refuse jettisoned into the Pacific meanders its way over to become trapped in the same area.  Also, plastic is incapable of degrading. Not only has this resulted in a pile of trash larger than I am even capable of comprehending, but it will apparently never go away. Ever.  Plastic does, however, break down physically into smaller and smaller bits until it resembles tasty krill. Krill is what a very large portion of sea life eats.  So, you see the problem.

Plastic is an amazing substance that makes our activities more convenient and saves perhaps billions of lives through food packaging and medical equipment. Plastic has a variety of wonderful properties and high up on that list is the fact that it doesn’t break down.  It doesn’t whither or turn bad.  It doesn’t chemically react with food or medicine or anything really.  But there is the problem.  A substance that cannot be broken down by any environmental exposure and cannot be eaten by anything will fill its little nook in the world FOREVER.

A few decades of intense marketing for plastic made it out to be the end-all miracle material (which, it may be), but many great designers and high-end businesses are finally breaking out of that rut and embracing paper.

We are beginning to realize again that there is no loss of class in paper products.  Even glass is seeing a packaging decline. Many fine mid-range wine makers have begun adopting boxes in addition to or instead of glass bottles.

The 360 Paper Bottle, for example, is a far more sustainable approach to water bottles and packaging in general. It is totally recyclable paper made from 100% renewable resources. The lining uses biodegradable PLA film. The end result is entirely food-grade material. The 360 Paper Bottle meets all criteria for all liquid categories and is sturdy enough for a variety of applications and multiple reuse.  The paper bottle design has had a good critical and market response, including having received an IDEA (International Design Excellence Award) for this design.

Eco experts and enthusiasts will always stress the value of reusing, so keep in mind that filling the same bottle every day is far superior an option than even the most environmental paper alternative. However, we still applaud this great paper design and hope that it sparks the about-face of old industry packaging standards across the board. If we can get all packaging to be made from eco-friendly materials in the first place, then the collective hazardous waste and energy consumption could go down dramatically.

A major cost of even the most modern offices is still paper.  Though stationary and Xerox has been mostly replaced by so-called paperless technologies, your company will always receive mail and always generate some form of intra-office paper. But that doesn’t mean that the recycle bin is the best we can do. There will never be a truly paperless office as long as we keep drinking coffee and microwaving burritos. And of course there seems to be no getting around one particular paper product: toilet paper. If you could take all that paper from the recycling bin and place it in the restroom… then you’ll have a very uncomfortable solution.

Tokyo-based Nakabayashi is developing a way to turn your paper waste into fluffy, soft paper for your waste.   Nakabayashi designs and manufactures paper products and machinery from book-binding to child car seats. Their latest creation turns reams of used up copy paper into rolls of toilet paper right in the office.  So go ahead,  express your exact feelings for your boss’s new policy memo!  It may make you and the environment feel better.

The magic toilet paper machine processes two rolls per hour from approx. 15 lbs of paper (about 1,800 sheets of A4-sized paper).  No reviews currently available as to the nether region friendliness of the toilet paper. But at $95,000 (USD) per unit, one would hope it to be triple-ply heaven. Sadly, I think we have to assume otherwise.

Distribution is set for this month, and  Nakabayashi has a reported sales goal of 60 units for its first year.  The quota may seem modest for an international company, but the toilet paper machine’s price tag and its weight of over 1,300 lbs. will keep it out of all but the largest companies.  And even then, will most likely be a PR piece, as the machine will require around 100,000 hours of use before making up for the initial cost.  This is not to mention that there are currently no available figures on the operational costs of this bulky machine.  A machine like this will most likely eat up energy and double the amount of use required before making up for its cost. There are other questions that the Nakabayashi website unfortunately fails to answer.  Namely, what kind of chemicals this machine uses, if any.  To take that Xerox copy paper and turn it into pillow soft tissue seems quite difficult to achieve purely mechanically.

Nakabayashi’s toilet paper machine is an interesting step toward in-office recycling, but I think it is a safe bet that this particular machine is neither all that environmentally, nor economically, friendly.   Of course, we should also mention that Nakabayashi does a good job of never explicitly marketing this machine’s eco-friendliness.  So, we should take the tenuous allusions to green technology with only a grain of salt and assume that Nakabayashi is selling novelty more than anything else in this particular case.  However, we do applaud the innovation and progressive design.   Nakabayashi manufactures a variety of high-quality goods and machinery, so we can surely expect many advances on this concept in the near future.

The Mercedes SLS AMG isn’t your mom or dads electric car. Instead it’s a high profile sports car with a V-8 engine that offers zero-emissions and enough power to get even the biggest sports car enthusiast drooling.

The SLS AMG offers a high voltage lithium-ion battery pack that’s so supercharged that it requires its own liquid-cooling system. The car is also powered by four batteries that are located near the vehicles wheel hub motors to provide the full power needed by the vehicle, while also holding down the cars unsprung weight with one transmission per axle.

The SLS AMG doesn’t give up the power required to be classified as a super car. This Mercedes includes 571 horsepower output with an impressive 479 lbs-ft of torgue.

No word yet on pricing which isn’t surprising considering the vehicle isn’t expected until possibly 2015. What I can tell you is that the AMG is expected to accelerate from 0 to 62 mph in 4 seconds, not bad for a supped up car attached to a bunch of batteries and cooled by a specialized cooling system. Not to mention you don’t end up with that burning oil smell when you finally slow down.

Do you really want to get the most from the “cash for clunkers” program? Perhaps you can convince Nissan to hand over their newest prototype The EV-11, a “sister” car of the Versa.

There’s nothing really special when it comes to the cars design, in fact its rather plain. Where this automobile shines is the 100 mile electric drive capacity it offers via the 206 pound-feet electric motor and a 108 horsepower engine.

The EV-11 also features a 24kWh lithium ion battery pack which stores energy under the foot board as it’s produced by the vehicle.

Still not convinced? What if I told you that the car is also expected to features an iPhone app that will be offered free of charge, an app that allows users to check their batteries remaining capacity and charging levels directly from their phone.

The EV-11 also offers a WiFi connection for PC compatibility and a Navigation system that will alert users to the distance they have remaining on their vehicles before they run out of electric power, along with a list of the closest charging stations.

The way I see it, there are three ways to encourage businesses to go green: government regulation, spending, and shame. Greenpeace has gone in for option three with their 2009 “Guide to Greener Electronics.” The Guide ranks the world’s leading electronic companies, including manufacturers of computers, phones, TVs and game consoles, on their policies on toxic chemicals, recycling and climate change. At the top of the list is Nokia with an overall 7.5 on a 10 point scale, followed up by Samsung with a 7.1 and Sony with a 6.5. At the bottom of the list, we have lonely Nintendo with only a 1 (which is up from .8 last year).

Greenpeace’s intent with the ratings is admirable, but the rating system which scores each companies compliance to arbitrary standards selected by Greenpeace with an insightful Bad, Partially Bad, Partially Good, and Good, seems more manipulative than educational. For example, HP and Dell were both publicly deducted a full point for going back on commitments to eliminate PVC and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Take a look at the full report to see how your company scores on the badness to goodness scale.

But despite Greenpeace’s slightly ridiculous means of judging electronic greenness, the electronics industry definitely needs to clean up its act. The toxic chemicals used in the production of electronics are harmful both in the production and recycling of materials, non-recycled e-waste currently accounts for 70% of heavy metal in landfills, and the production and use of electronics accounts for its fair share of carbon emissions. So whether it takes shaming, financial incentive or government regulation, something needs to change. But in the process, I hope we can all appreciate the slightly ridiculous when we see it.

Now that you’ve seen what type of things your fellow gadgeteers are creating, get in on it yourself. The Greener Gadgets Conference Design Competition is a great way to show the world how wonderfully creative you are and how eco-righteous you are. Just don’t mention to your friends that there is cash a prize for the winners or your “Green Street Cred” will fly right out the window. If you’re not into design concepts for green technology take your skills to SecondProject.org to chose from dozens of green design contests and make some extra cash.

It seems these days everybody is having a yearly industry conference. Many industries seem to have some sort of conference every weekend somewhere on the planet. The Spotted Snow leopard Conference is next weekend in Phoenix. Check out this conference cutting edge conference. If you’re into that kind of thing, your social scene is probably based in the contacts you so aggressively pursue at these conferences. Aside from producing a hot date, these gatherings of likeminded people help drive innovation and collaboration. The Greener Gadgets Conference sponsored by Inhabitat.com is the place to go to see the latest and greatest in green gadgetry. The 2009 Greener Gadget Conference has come and gone, but don’t fret, check it out here greenergadgets.com to get a recap on the amazing technologies and concepts that are out there. Also, check out thisvideo.