Only a concept now, but this charger — that’s also an iPhone stand — is easy enough that some Chinese company could quickly put out a solution in a few months.

[Petit Invention via Into Mobile]

The building is made up of 14,000 equilateral triangles. Some are solar panels, some are windows and others just fill out the structure. The net result is a building that manages to mask the black behemoths you’re used to seeing.

I love how the exterior influences the interior lighting, not to mention how great it all looks when lit up. [Inhabitat]

Frederik Krebs came up with this combination of solar panels and LED lights which, while definitely a work in progress, could bring cheap light to some of the world’s poorest regions. I call the lamps a work in progress because despite being durable enough to last several years, they run at a mere 1 per cent efficiency. But with the expected final cost of $US7 a piece, they’re full of life-changing potential.

Some prototypes of the lamps are currently being tested in Zambia. As seen in the picture, the solar panels are left laying flat during the day and then rolled up (and secured with a snap button) into a cone-shaped lamp. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the results of the prototype tests and a final product, because no one should go without artificially lit nights. [IEEE Spectrum via Pop Sci]

On the final day of Gizmodo’s tour of Japan courtesy of Toyota Australia, our hosts took us for an inside peek of Tsutsumi. The plant is special for a few reasons. One, it’s in Aichi in Toyota City. We kid you not, there is actually a place called Toyota City, and it’s a real city with suburbs and the rest, not just some lame attempt at making a Toyota plant sound cool. Toyota City is about an hour outside of Nagoya. The plant is also special for it’s sustainability initiatives. When we say sustainable we really mean it. Aside from that, the plant is also special for it’s green initiatives that pretty much blow everyone else’s out of the water (pretty much, some other companies are as good or better).

Tsutsumi is massive. Let’s not beat around the bush. How big? Well, we didn’t get any exact measurements, but we did get this fact: The plant has 50,000 square metres of photovoltaic solar panels. That’s the equivalent of 60 tennis courts of solar panels alone. You can imagine the size of the plant itself then. It’s the main producer of Toyota’s Prius model and also produces Camry, Corolla and other models specific to Japan.

Walking inside the massive buildings (yes plural, there are a fair few of them) is like walking into Santa’s workshop, if he were building Toyota cars. The walkways take you from the very beginnings of production to the very end. You go from seeing hundreds of workers running around with trolleys filled with parts to workers starting the finished cars and driving five metres to the end of the production line. Within a few buildings a box of parts suddenly becomes the shell of a car which then grows with the addition of engines, gearbox and other internal parts before getting seats and fittings, doors, a spray job, mirrors and wipers and then a brief test.

Each worker literally has only a few minutes to finish their job. The production line only stops in emergencies. For example, the wiper guy: He has a box of wipers for all different models. A model arrives, it moves slowly through his area while he picks the correct wipers, attaches them to their sockets, winds them tight, tests they are fitted correctly, checks a few other parts and then moves on to the next car on the line.

Issues do occur though, and when they do, the worker with the problem has a button to push that sounds a yellow alarm. It sounds the alarm and shows up on the monitors around the plant. It’s a problem that won’t stop the line. Managers have a quick consultation about the problem and often it can be resolved without stopping the production line. In severe cases there is a red alarm. Again, it sounds a different tune and shows up on the monitors. It has happened before but it’s only for serious cases. It’s a well-oiled machine now, excuse the terrible, terrible pun, so red problems are quite uncommon.

More impressive than its Swiss coordination is the plant’s green credentials. It’s one of the most impressive environmentally friendly manufacturing plants in the world. Since 1990 the plant has managed to cut its CO2 by 50 per cent. This is how they did it.

Last year it installed those 60 tennis courts worth of solar panels. The total output of the panels is 2000kW, which is equal to the average consumption of 500 households. Sure, a manufacturing plant sucks up a lot more juice than 500 households worth, but it’s a bloody good start and there is a hell of a lot more. But just in case you’re wondering, this alone also reduced the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions by 740 tonnes per year, effectively saving 2500 drums of oil if we take a drum to be 200 litres. It’s also rather appropriate, being that the Prius is a hybrid and this is the Prius production plant. It effectively makes the plant a hybrid plant. These solar panels create about half of the electricity that the plant needs to operate. The other 50 per cent comes from gas co-generation.

Another cool thing is that the exterior of the plant’s buildings are covered in photo-catalytic paint. This breaks down airborne nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx). All 22,000 square metres of the assembly plant exterior is covered it in. Toyota has even painted one Prius with it. They would like to be able to sell Prius with this kind of paint but it’s extremely expensive and only comes in white so at this stage isn’t going to work. To put the effect of this paint in layman’s terms it has the same effect as planting 2000 trees, cleaning the air by producing oxygen in sunlight. Toyota also planted 50,000 trees at and around the factory in 2008.

Since Prius production began in 1997, the plant has reduced the amount of waste going to landfill by 82 per cent and has instituted plans to achieve complete elimination of incinerated waste. They have also begun a water-recycling programme that has cut water discharge into surrounding waterways by 50 per cent. What’s more, the water they do discharge is five times cleaner than that in the waterways anyway.

If you’re one of those people who thinks Toyota makes boring soccer mum cars, then you’re certainly entitled to that opinion. We certainly can’t say that the new Corolla or Camry sent shivers up our sports car loving spines (the Lexus LF-A might have though) but we have to bow our hats to Toyota’s energy saving ways.

The Tokai Challenger completed the journey in 29 hours and 49 minutes despite a flat tyre — that’s an average speed of about 101km/h. That’s actually not the best time in history. That Dutch team we mentioned above achieved the current record back in 2005 — 29 hours and 11 minutes. But obviously conditions like sunlight and wind can skew these numbers on a year-to-year comparison basis. [Global Green Challenge via Wired via Engadget]

My guess is that you will need all of that space to generate enough electricity to play your music for 4.5 hours at full volume/12 hours at a normal volume. Of course, it takes 20 hours of outdoor sun exposure (or 40 hours indoor) to reach a full charge. If you are not patient enough to wait, the Reverb can be powered up via a regular electrical socket — although I would suggest spending your $US2229 elsewhere if you see yourself doing that frequently. Speaking of being patient, the Reverb won’t be available until April of 2010. [Reverb via Gizmag via Inhabitat]

The case—which costs $120—is available in both iPod Touch and iPhone flavours (although iPhone won’t arrive until December) and has the following specs:

• solar panels outputs 5.5V at 100 mAh in full sun
• Optimised power management system provides continuous
charge to iPod touch’s internal battery.
• Integrated rechargeable 1500 mAh 3.7 V lithium-ion polymer
battery offers 120% capacity of iPhone 3G
• Advanced lithium-ion polymer battery cell technology prevents
overcharging and provides protection from extreme temperature
• Custom engineered USB 2.0 cable provides high capacity charging and data exchange

[iWorld]

The ReNu probably doesn’t work as you’d imagine from looking at the photograph. Sure, you see an iPod dock with speakers, just as you’d expect. But that huge back plate is actually a solar panel/battery combo that you can remove from the dock to hang near a window to store energy. It takes about nine hours to charge in direct sunlight, or 20 hours to charge in indirect sunlight, to power music for 7-8 hours.

This ReNu panel actually supports a variety of different base units, including a pure iPod/iPhone dock (no speakers included) and an LED desk lamp.

I think the basic idea becomes something like, hang or place a bunch of solar panels in sunlight, then grab power as necessary. But in case you find this ease of use scenario as hard to believe as us, all of the docks and the ReNu panel itself will plug in should the sun’s juice fall short.

The base ReNu panel alone can be preordered now for 2010 availability. It runs for $US200. The accessories start at $US90 and work their way up.

[Regen via Treehugger via DVICE]

The structure generates 130 kilowatts of solar power, enough to offset 65,770kg of greenhouse gas emissions annually. There are even charging terminals available for electric cars, but only two can be charged at a time. Seems like a pretty smart way to keep drivers comfortable and harvest some spare energy on the side. [Dvice]