What folds, zips around without coughing up carbon and is juiced by electricity? You probably won’t get this one, so we’ll tell you anyways. We’re talking about the cute little Urbanlit-e 1603 Electric Bicycle, a Chinese creation that is sure to grab hearts world over. The bike is as light as its clean, and weighs in at just 19kg. Also, it folds neatly into a tightly tucked package that you can pack into the trunk of your car. So the next time you get stuck in that gridlocked street while on your way to work, you can just unfold this one from your trunk and ride away from the honking coughing mess of cars. The Urbanlit-e has a range of 35km and takes around 5 to 7 hours to charge up fully.

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Paper recycling has given birth to quite a few products in the past and is continuing to do so, this time around, its wallpaper. The fine wallpaper on your wall could just be made out of the newspapers you sent for recycling last month! New York-based company Weitzner Limited has come up with the Newsworthy, upcycled newspaper wallcovering made from 100% recycled newsprint. Look closely and you might just spot some month-old headlines too! The technique involves the use of weaving 100% real newsprint strips by hand on a loom. The material is then paperbacked, making it ideal for your walls.

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Eco-friendly vehicles of the future will now have something more to make them closer to reality. Out go the days of gasoline guzzling carbon emitting cars that we’ve been using for decades. The world is now rolling out a red carpet for these clean green cars that are receiving technology boosts day by day. Sanyo now has a sparkling new factory that will chisel out lithium-ion batteries for EVs at the Kansai Plant. The plant, spanning an area of 42,831m2 will produce an astounding number of 1 million cells a month in the beginning. To construct this plant, Sanyo spent a whopping 13 Billion yens.

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The wind sure is blowing hard, especially in Europe, which is making the best use of it. This could be a year in the record books for Europe if the rate of wind power developments continue as it is at present. 118 offshore wind turbines totaling up to 333 MW showed up in Europe in the first half of the year itself. Adding to that, 16 offshore wind farms with 3,972 MW are being constructed. By June 30th, Europe had 948 offshore wind turbines in 43 fully operational offshore wind farms pushing up the continents wind generation capacity to a sweet 2,396 MW. Siemens had 55% of the offshore wind turbines connected to the grid, while Vestas and REpower had 36% and 9% respectively.

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The world has been waiting anxiously for EVs to hit the roads. Vehicles like the Nissan Leaf and the “Volkswagen E-Up!” have been on the wishlist of many for a long time. Here’s yet another EV to join the ranks, the Think City electric car, a vehicle we’d love to see drive down our roads some time soon in the near future. Well, the Think City might not have shown up on the shelves yet, but it sure is receiving some major upgrades, like the more powerful batteries that have just been snuggled into its belly lately. Supllied by Indiana-based Ener1, the cells, a lithium-manganese pack, offers up to 25kWh that will help double the car’s previous range expectations. The car will now go up to 100 miles on a full charge instead of the meager 50 miles it used to earlier deliver. And that’s not all. The car takes the same amount of time to charge up too, 4 hours using a 240volt plug.

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Nothing gets more eco-friendly with a touch of nature to it than the Grass Roots Collection, iWave Audio’s eco-friendly range of gadgets with the feel of nature. Accessories like ear buds, cases, headphones for iPhones and iPods are part of the line, sculpted out of reusable, environmentally friendly and recyclable materials. After all, what could get greener than using a headphone with a wood finish to it! The products are a perfect pick for the environment conscious, who make it a point to reduce their carbon footprint by buying greener products like these.

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Why crowd your lovely backyard, drying all those clothes your washing machine has been spouting out everyday, when you could simply use an awesome energy efficient clothes drier instead! Designer Nico Kläber came up with this smart and innovative technique to dry clothes. Known as the DryMate, this drying appliance uses vacuum technology to dry up you wears, resulting in a lesser use of energy at lower temperatures. Besides being green and energy efficient like we love it, this one makes sure you don’t need to stoop down to low while popping in your clothes and pulling them back out. The drums lower air pressure has the water evaporating at temperatures lower than 100 degrees Celsius.

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Besides just sheltering you from the hazards of nature while you wait for a bus to take you home, a bus shelter in the City of Corona will also play –sun-juice-drinker and act as a little power station. Unveiled recently, this solar bus shelter is green and eco-friendly, using a roof rigged with highly efficient solar panels, which will be one of the first grid-connected solar system for bus shelters, designed and installed by Solade Concepts, a firm based in Corona, California. Using six SANYO HIT-210NKHA6 210-watt HIT Power® solar panels with six Enphase Energy M210-84-240-S12 micro inverters and a LED lighting system, this bus shelter will soak in the sun’s rays during the day, store the energy, and use it to power up the shelter at night.

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Well the environment conscious and nature lovers probably have a tough time shopping, selecting from brands and trying to figure out just how dark a carbon footprint did the apparel in their hands leave during production. Figuring this out isn’t going to be rocket science anymore, thanks to a new software tool that will help manufacturers compare and find out how much impact the manufacture of a particular good has had on the environment. At the Outdoor Retailer trade show in Salt Lake City, the Eco Index will be unveiled. Though it will be a while before consumers actually get to see the ratings the brands have got, taken that the companies seem shy to immediately bring out their facts of production.

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Ever wondered what more use that sloppy roof of your home could be, except working well for Christmas decorations and playing home to mice and pests? Well, you can rent your roof space out now too, and have a bunch of hi-tech solar panels fitted on there. This can help you cut down on your electricity bills too! Isis Solar has had a brainwave, and has come to the rescue of people who have been receiving constant shocks looking at their growing electricity bills, unable to fit on an array of solar panels owing to their £10,000 cost. You can now simply have these panels on your roof, though you need to agree on the terms and conditions for the scheme, one of which states that the cells need to remain there for a good 25 years. Through this initiative, Isis Solar could be richer by £1,100 per roof each year, owing to the fact that the company earns 41.3p per kilowatt-hour of electricity.

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One of the many companies that showed up at the Plug-In 2010 conference, Schneider Electric showed up too with its electric vehicle charging solutions, that the firm hopes can take on a higher level in a world that is welcoming electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Business director of final distribution, Rich Korthauer, proudly pulled the veil of a range of Square D smart charging stations by Schneider Electric. Among these were Level 1 and Level two chargers for home use, and Level 2 chargers for commercial use. Part of the range was the Level 3 fast chargers that juice up your EV quickly.

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Ever tried growing a potted plant at home that has always wound up dead, due to the unavoidable reason of “not knowing when the little green thing needs watering”? Well, that is now an event of the past, thanks to this illuminating pot for your little green buddy. Known as the Tulipe pot, this one lights up every time your plant is thirsty and needs watering. It does so when sensors detect that the temperature, light or moisture is not at optimum levels and glows bright red to show its water needs. Designed by 22 year old Natalie King, the pot isn’t on store shelves yet, though hopefully for King and our dying plants, it does show up soon enough.

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You can now know exactly just how much energy you use in your home, with a lot more detail and information, thanks to Microsoft Hohm and Blue Line Innovations. Using an online profile, the free online service, Microsoft Hohm, enables users to keep a tab on their energy use, while at the same time, the PowerCost Monitor by Blue Line Innovations, closely monitors all the energy used. Link up the Hohm and the PowerCost that comes for around $268 and you can now have more detailed information on daily routines, conservation efforts, as well as seasonal changes too!

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The stuff we usually come across in a museum usually leaves us jaw dropped, be it rare pieces from history or wax statues. The experience gets better when the museum building itself is as awesome as the exhibits inside. The guys at MAD Architects thought the same probably, while designing this beautiful and stunning museum building for the city of Xiamen, China. At first look, the building does remind one of a bunch of poisonous mushrooms on which you’d probably find a fairy sunbathing. The organic molten metal building will float above the city below on five legs, and will use solar panels on its roof to power up. The warm climate in the city of Xiamen makes the solar panel array on the roof even more applicable and efficient.

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The dawn of electric vehicles looms gloriously ahead, and the world is busy preparing for it. To keep these vehicles charged up and at our disposal, without the use of that stinky and polluting gasoline, charging stations are being designed. One of these is a design by Adam Long a student at University of New South Wales, known as the Rapid Charge. This is the first of its kind to have a universal coupling to SAEJ1773 standards, recognizing the battery used in the vehicle and adapting to its charge curve. The Rapid Charge, unlike other EV chargers, also provides 3-phase high current power supply that charges up cars to 80% in just 10 minutes.

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