[caption id="attachment_24406" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="No need for road rage... just use the GPS..."][/caption]

Avoid road rage, build your own house, and blow up your solar panels… all in this week’s green tech finds.

• Ethanol from waste gases: Australian company LanzaTech won the Green Technology Innovator of the Year award at the Asia Pacific Industrial Technologies Awards in Singapore for its technology that captures waste gases from steel mills for recycling into ethanol.
  
  
• Build your own green house… Lego style: German company HIB has developed a kit building system that works an awful lot like Legos, and creates a well-insulated, soundproof, and non-toxic frame for almost any style of house. (via Springwise)
  
  

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This is the second in our list of the best green jobs as our country converts to a 21st century Green economy. If you missed it, read the first entry in the list.

Energy courses through every aspect of industrialized civilization. Since everyone can agree that polluting energy sources need to be cleaned up, solar technology seems to have an absolute advantage when it comes to providing sustainable energy. Being a solar panel technician will allow you to directly improve the environment. Every unit you install adds more alternative energy to the nation’s grid.

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The Annual Greener Gadgets Design Competition will be held on February 27th. Checking out this competition and voting on your favorite designs is an excellent way to see great green design.

One notable competitor this year would be a kid’s toy line called “Fastronauts.” These toys facilitate an active play style for your kid. The toys’ rechargeable batteries recharge when your child moves with the toy. This means your kids will be getting a workout simply making the toy work. The concept sets a new standard for ergonomic and active children’s toys. You can vote on this toy at the Greener Gadgets website [www.greenergadgets.com].

Other notable gadgets would be “Blight” which could be described as beautifully metallic Venetian Blinds. Not sure about the name of the product though, the word “blight” does conjure up something that does not bode well. This design creation combines the simplicity of timeless venetian blinds with small solar panels that are capable of producing electricity. These do not create a huge amount of electricity but they do end up paying for themselves eventually. You probably want to have blinds in your house anyways, so why not get one that serves a dual purpose?

Thanks for joining us in THE GREEN BLOG.

Opening up your utility bills and getting slammed with three digit bill totals ruins at least one day a month for every home owner or renter.

The Sacramento Municipal Utility District and RJ Walter Homes decided to team up to make a model energy efficient home in Folsom, California. The result is a home with an estimated utility cost of only $25 a month for electric and gas combined. The project was such a wild success that the RJ Walter Homes entitled the house the “Home of the Future.”

The home was put onto the open market and sure enough, even in this dismal home buying market, one man was willing to pay the extra cost for the home because he realized the long term value of paying less for utilities. He also felt the quality of the house was excellent and appreciated that the home was made out of sustainable and recycled materials.

The home features a sophisticated central control mechanism that allows the home owner to adjust everything in the house with the touch of a button or a remote. The home features solar panels, water cooling and heating and features the latest insulation products.

Explore the RJ Walter Homes [rjwalterhomes.com] website.

You can view a video report about the home on the KCRA.com [www.kcra.com] website.

Start a movement in your home town by setting up a blog about your green ideas and how they could make your neighborhood more concerned with protecting the environment.

Here are some questions to help you start thinking about ideas for your writing. What kinds of green friendly stores can you find in your town/city? Is there a green resource that your community is missing? If so, how do you think this green resource might enrich the experience of living in your community? Why are you interested in green topics? Do you have any habits in your home life or your work life that you would consider green habits? How do these habits make your local community a better place to live?

If you imagined your hometown as totally green 25 years from now, what would it look like? How would the buses operate? Would there be taxicabs? Would as many people be driving their cars to work or around town? Would your house be better insulated? Would you have solar panels attached to your garage roof? Do you think your town would have only organic food in the grocery stores? Which products that you enjoy now would not be around anymore because they are not green enough?

In order to make your town more green, what steps would you take in your community? Would you start a social club aimed towards helping the community at large participate in more sustainable, green practices? If you are leading your family or more people from your community to live a green lifestyle, do you have any stories about your experiences?

These are just a few starting questions to fuel your writing, hopefully they will spark totally new ways of writing about green topics.

Building homes and renovating them is an industry that can seriously benefit from the green philosophies of recycling, reusing, and sustainable design. Whether you are talking about heating, cooling, insulation, air circulation, foundations, septic systems, windows, plumbing or anything else under the roof, there is a green option for you.

“Your Green Home: A Guide to Planning a Healthy, Environmentally Friendly New Home” is written by Alex Wilson. Mr. Wilson is well-known among industrial builders as one of the foremost environmental building experts. For the first time ever, Alex Wilson has made a guide that simplifies the techniques of green building for the general public.

The best thing about these green building elements is that they often result in increased maintenance savings from running a home. In the case of biomass systems or solar panels, these green building elements can actually generate income for a home.

You can find out more about the book on it’s website [www.buildinggreen.com].

ECOISTS: Daryl Hannah

Daryl Hannah has been leading a sustainable lifestyle for some time. She uses solar panels for her home, drives a biodiesel car, adopts animals and in general strives to be a sustainable member of the world.

Daryl works tirelessly to further environmental changes. To this end, she created a website that is fabulously ingenious. You can browse a lot of specially prepared environmental content at this website [dhlovelife.com] and come away feeling more hopeful than before.

Here is the Daryl Hannah clip from ECOISTS

ECO BIZ: Cameron Cole

Riva Krut (on left) divined that environmental consulting was a needed aspect if one wanted to help businesses become more sustainable. What better way to lure CEOs and business owners into doing the right thing for the environment than to tell them you can make them more profit and also cut down on their manufacturing costs. Please log in to THE GREEN discussion boards and let us know what kinds of businesses could benefit from some environmental consulting. Who knows what strings our Eco-mmunity could pull?

Here is the ECO BIZ episode for this week, we hope you enjoy.

For more information on Cameron Cole, you can also check out their website [www.cameron-cole.com].