Hummer horse carts, cheap(er) wind power, and make-you-own toilet paper machines… this week’s green tech finds.

• Sony adds to its green cred: The VAIO W Series laptop and Aspen phone both feature power saving and recycled materials. (via Stuff.tv)
  
  
• Trash to energy in Milwaukee: Developer Alliance Federated Energy announced Project Apollo, a trash-to-syngas project planned for the city’s North Side.
  
  

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A bit of a weird, carnivorous motif running through this week’s green tech finds… check out the fly-eating clock, and nuclear wasted-eating material modeled on Venus fly traps…

• How green is the iPad? Apple has the spotlight this week with the launch of its new tablet computer. MNN and The Daily Green take a look at its green features.
  
  
• The Fly-Catching Clock: If common items like clocks and coffee tables could also catch pest (from flies to mice), and digest them into biofuel, would you find that revolutionary… or gross? British designers Jimmy Loizeau and James Auger created some designs along these lines to get people thinking about “using living things as fuel.”
  
  

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Glitter-sized solar panels, green electronics, and cow fat… your green tech finds.

• Lubing your engine with cow fat: Green Earth Technologies‘ G-OIL, a “bio-oil” created from cow fat, has been named the official motor oil of green racing series American Le Mans.
  
  
• Design your own electric vehicle: Trexa has created a concept platform for electric vehicles, which could allow specialty vehicle developers to create cars much like tech developers create iPhone apps (via Auto Blog Green)
  
  

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From players’ salaries (and egos) to stadiums and arenas, pretty much everything about professional sports is big… including the carbon footprint. You likely only need to take a look at huge, climate-controlled facilities with acres and acres of parking to figure that even single events are responsible for massive greenhouse gas emissions. Genuine reductions in that footprints will likely require major shifts in how fans experience the play of their favorite teams… for now, though, a number of pro franchises are doing what they can with LEED building standards, renewable energy installations, and fan education.

The Golden State Warriors basketball team will join that group tomorrow with the unveiling of a 9,641 sq. ft., 143.5kW solar installation on its practice facility in downtown Oakland.

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Will 2010 be a good year for green tech? Looks like it from the first finds of the new year…

• Green tech at CES: It’s that time of year again… the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show opened today in Vegas, and CNET is keeping on top of green tech on display.
  
  
• The sun doesn’t shine all the time: That’s one of the criticisms of solar power… but start-up Sun Catalytix thinks it might have a solution to storing energy produced when the sun is shining: mimic photosynthesis.
  
  

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Solar power in Michigan? Really?

While it’s probably not the last state you’d associate with solar power (that’s Alaska), Michigan likely appears far down on your list of places ideal for a large-scale solar power installation. Attorney Sam Fields, his son Connor, and two other partners hope to prove you wrong with their 700-panel array in Galesburg.

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Your last green tech finds of ‘09… enjoy!

• The obligatory New Year prediction: 2010 will be a banner year for clean technology, according to investment bank Jeffries, and Greentech Media. Places to watch include Finland and South Korea.
  
  
• Tetris meets SimCity meets urban planning: That’s the basic idea between new strategy game City Rain (and that’s a screenshot above). (via sustainablog)
  
  

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Because green technology never takes a holiday… here are this week’s finds.

• Salting away solar power: Nevada Power has announced a 25-year deal to buy solar power from the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, which will be “the nation’s first commercial solar power plant using salt storage to distribute energy after the sun sets…”
  
  
• Satellites tracking groundwater: NASA’s GRACE satellites beam back data on deep water stores… and the recent data isn’t encouraging… (via Blue Living Ideas)
  
  
• Interactive greenhouse gas emissions trends: The AP’s interactive map of global warming gas emissions by country is just one element of the stellar coverage they provided during and after the Copenhagen Climate Conference. (via EcoGeek)
  
  
• Water footprints: Carbon gets all the press, but producing energy, regardless of the source, takes a lot of water… (via GreenTech Pastures)
  
  
• Those speedy French: According to Cleantechies, France is about 30 years ahead of the US on high-speed rail development… c’est dommage!
  
  
• Data centers, waste heat, and cathedrals: Helsinki’s Upsenki Cathedral will host a server farm for tech company Academica, and the waste heat produced will be channeled into the city’s district heating system. (via MNN)
  
  
• Leak those leaks… via your iPhone: Seen waste, pollution, or inefficiency at a public space or business? The EcoSnoop iPhone app lets you report it to the world… (via Treehugger)
  
  

Happy holidays! Of course, share any finds you have with us below…

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eisenbahner/ / CC BY 2.0

Solar systems at elementary and secondary schools create opportunities for reduced energy bills and student education… but they’re also expensive. Even when a school system recognizes the long-term potential for savings, the money just may not be there for the up-front investment.

The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and Solarpower.org are trying out an innovative method of raising for school solar systems: get bloggers involved.

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If you follow green gadgets at all, you may have already heard of Finland-based Suntrica’s solar-powered charger for personal electronics. Numerous blogs wrote about the company and its products last May after the company won second place in the CTIA’s E-Tech Awards‘ “Green – Consumer Hardware” category, and nearly all framed Suntrica’s solar chargers as cool, cutting-edge, green consumer technology.

After listening to a presentation today from company VP of Sales Kenneth J. Jönsson as part of the Finnfacts cleantech blogger tour, I realized the company was meeting one of its marketing goals — receiving recognition from consumers with green values. That’s great… and I’ll definitely enjoy using the charger Suntrica gave to me. But I was even more intrigued by some of the other markets for which the company wanted to create value.

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Something a little different this time around: I’ve been in Helsinki, Finland this week checking out cleantech developments with a group of other bloggers ( and many thanks to FinnFacts for bringing us here!). While I’ve been a little slow to get posting on the stories I’ve heard (stay tuned here and at sustainablog for those posts), several of my colleagues fought off the jet lag well enough to get started. A few posts from Finland:

• Karl Burkart at MNN and Ian Thomson at Cleantechies.com provide a bit of background on the Finnish cleantech sector.
  
  
• Jen Boynton at Triple Pundit gives us five fast facts about Finland, and offers some advice to Metso Corporation about sustainability and biomass as a fuel source.
  
  
• Hendrick Morkel at Arctic Start Up takes a look at Eniram’s efforts to cut shipping fuel use and emissions.

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