Looking for ways to save energy in your home and get a little workout at the same time?  I give you the Pedal-A-Watt Stationary Bike Power Generator.  According to this company’s website, this little gadget hooks up to your existing bike and as you begin to pedal, it can either power a device or store energy in a battery to be used later.  You can also use it with whatever type of bike you own – either street bikes or mountain bikes will work – and it doesn’t have to stay permanently hooked up.  You can remove the bike at any time and take it out on the road or trail.  The website claims that the average pedaler will create between 125 – 200 watts of energy and here is the list of Power Consumption of Typical Appliances from the EcoConvergence website:

Small TV                             100 watts
Large TV                             200 watts
Laptop PC                             10 watts
Desktop PC                           75 watts
Stereo                                    20 watts
Charging a cellphone            5 watts
Hi Effic Desk lamp                15 watts

Even though you will only be able to create enough energy to power small objects (unless you are really hardcore!) it’s nice to know that all this energy is clean energy and that there will have been no pollution created in the process.  For a lot more information and a good FAQs page, check out the website and see what you think!

Convergence Tech, Inc.

Was roaming around the internet today and found an article put out by the U.S. Department of Energy with all the information (and more) you need in order to determine when to turn the lights off and when it’s more energy cost-effective to keep them on. The general rule seems to be to turn the lights off every time you leave a room if your light bulbs are incandescent. However, if you are using flourescent bulbs, they suggest to only turn the lights off if you will be gone for more than fifteen minutes.

The website has many tools for calculating energy savings and as much information on how light bulbs use energy as anyone could possibly want. Here is the link: When to Turn Off Your Lights

And because I seem to be in a video mood this week, here is a bizarre but amusing commercial from Thailand done by Sylvania lightbulbs: