The setup presumably connects to a house’s gutter system, storing rainfall it for the next uh, not-rainy day. It’s gorgeous but I think it should be made out of metal, not fiberglass, if he is going for maximum green points. You can probably cut a line in your own rain gutters and hack together a collector on your own, though. I award the idea, not the actual hardware, a thumbs up. [Designboom]

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for green technology—so long as physical effort is not required. That’s where the Power Pump mobile phone charger from Orange falls a bit short.

Should you find yourself with a dead battery when you need to make a call, the Power Pump can provide emergency power via a turbine driven by a foot pump. Apparently, you can generate around 5-minutes of juice in the same time it would take to inflate a standard-sized pillow.

The device is set to be presented at the upcoming Glastonbury Festival (a proving ground of sorts for new technologies in the UK), so it would have to make a big impression there before any real world product would be considered. The way I see it, there are already eco-friendly products in the pipeline that provide a more efficient, less physically taxing form of alternative power. [Orange via Red Ferret via OhGizmo]

Indeed, the nation so slow to embrace change has jumped on the green bandwagon in a big way. Apparently, their $US1.5 million solar array idea has expanded into what will become Europe’s largest solar plant. Plans call for the new plant to be built on 740 acres near the medieval village of Santa Maria di Galeria. When all is said and done, it should produce around 100 megawatts of power—more than enough to handle the entire Vatican city-state and subsidise the energy needs of nearly 40,000 Italian homes.

Solarworld, the same company behind the earlier array also offered to give the pope a special electric-powered Popemobile should they be selected to handle this new installation. Although the devil may tempt them to trick an out-of-touch old man by simply tossing some bulletproof glass and a spray paint stencil that says “Pope” on a golf cart. [Bloomberg via Inhabitat]

The gadgets are separated into categories, and then ripped apart for the valuable or recyclable parts, like glass, steel, aluminium, and more valuable metals like copper and gold. They use a special machine with teeth to separate copper from steel and aluminium, and then magnets to separate the latter two. As expected, the batteries are placed in hazardous waste containers, since they’re by far the most environmentally harmful piece of any given gadget, and are shipped to specialised outposts who deal with them.

Factories like this are a big step up from our previous recycling protocol, which was to mail our junk overseas where the restrictions are much more lenient (and harmful). Check out this link for instructions on how to responsibly recycle your dead toys. [Wired]

The BLUE-WILL looks to be a pretty standard gas/electric hybrid, save for the lithium ion polymer battery pack hidden under the back seats that, like the Volt, can be plugged in to your power outlets at home to charge up.

Otherwise, the company is using both recycled and plant materials in the body—you know, because details like that sound great in a showroom. I’ll be interested to see just how snazzy the concept looks in the flesh when it debuts at the Seoul Auto Show. [Jalopnik]

The remote works over three channels and has a range of up to 20 metres. One remote can also control up to eight different boards, throughout your home, meaning you can just flick a switch at night and all your power sucking appliances will go to sleep until you wake up in the morning. Alternatively, you can have three remotes around the house controlling different zones.

The downside (and there’s always a downside, isn’t there) is the cost. Each unit costs $250, which isn’t cheap. But it does offer a $250,000 guarantee for all your equipment, and compared to other surge protectors from the like of Monster, it’s fairly reasonable considering the energy saving capabilities. And if you’ve got some high-end AV gear, that kind of safety net could pay for itself.

We’ll have a hands on a bit later in the week…

[Belkin]

Instead of using traditional materials, the powers-that-be commissioned local designers Alrik Koudenburg and Joost van Bleiswijk to build them an office made entirely out of cardboard. As you can see, the results are pretty spectacular. To make things even more interesting, visitors are encouraged to decorate the cardboard with anything they choose. So, presumably, Nothing’s walls will soon be riddled with penises and “for a good time call” phone numbers. [Nothing via CR Blog via Fast Company]

While the Blue Earth features a gorgeously rendered touch screen front, the entire back is covered with a solar panel. Samsung claims this panel produces enough electricity to place a call any time you want—which is a little tough to believe, given the battery draw of a touchscreen. (To counter these energy shortages, the phone includes an Eco Mode, which attenuates screen brightness while deactivating Bluetooth.)

Even if solar power isn’t your thing (you Hummer driving, baby suffocating, evil doer), most of the phone is constructed from PCM, a plastic extracted from recycled water bottles. And there’s a built-in pedometer that tells you how many trees you are saving by walking instead of driving (that part may sound made up but it is not).

We have no more specifics at this time, but the Blue Earth should be available in the UK during the second half of ‘09. [Pocket-lint]

Furthermore, the trees inside the structure would be nourished using a windmill-powered pump system, so it would not significantly contribute to our energy consumption. Would something like this actually work? Maybe—that is until the wind kicks up and we have trees falling all over the streets of L.A. [Core77]

New wind projects made up 42% of the U.S.’s total new power-producing capacity added last year, adding 8.4GW of new facilities into the grid. That brought the U.S. total up to 25GW, one more than Germany’s 24GW.

These figures are coming in from even before the “Obama bounce” expected from the new president’s vows for more clean energy initiatives. Last week, the Senate Finance Committee approved $US31 billion in tax breaks to boost alternative energy supplies and efficiency. [Ars Technica and Scientific American]