Providing grassroots, social power for grassroots, social events, Rock the Bike’s ‘Biker Bar‘ system boasts a clever—and fun—way of generating juice for any off-the-grid gathering. The Biker Bar consists of an 8 foot trailer and a rotating shaft that captures the energy of attached bicycles—and any ordinary bikes will do the trick. The company claims four “regular” bikers are capable of providing a steady 300 watts of completely clean AC electricity, with peaks of up to 1000 watts; enough to create what they call a “pedal powered stage,” with speakers, mixers, and even lighting.

British start-up company Onzo has developed a device that monitors your power consumption in real-time. The Onzo smart energy kit is a powerful energy management tool that collects and logs data about your home’s electricity use. It consists of a sensor, display and integrated website. The idea is to empower consumers to make positive decisions about how they use energy.
Onzo has a strong emphasis on design. From the user-friendly interface to the self-charging sensor, it is clearly developed to be as easy and intuitive to use as possible.
At their website, Onzo shares their mission: To help consumers and utilities reduce [...]

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) recently launched a new initiative designed to address the design and management of cities across the UK.  The Sustainable Cities initiative gathers data from two years of research by a team of 30 experts and the English Core Cities group.  The goal to make cities low carbon has grown to a massive project addressing affordable housing, energy security and job generation.  The group has identified climate change as a direct challenge to the efficency of managing a town or city and have created this initiative as a framework of priorities for [...]