Energy is something that everyone has to struggle to think about daily, because of wasted fuel and high costs, but what if it did not have to be that way? What if the heating and cooling brain in the consumer’s living space, the thermostat, could program itself?

Welcome warmly, or coolly depending on the weather, the Nest Lab’s newest creation:  the Nest!

The new company from Tony Fadell, the designer for eighteen iPods at Apple, launches the sexy wall item, the Nest Learning Thermostat, in November for $249.

The Nest, for all intensive purposes, thinks about how the user likes their temperature. All that is required is for the energy-minded to continue to turn the thermostat up and down according to when they leave the home, or go to sleep, or the seething summer heat requires A/C, or the frigid pre-November snow asks for more warmth ASAP.

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Imagine my surprise when I sifted through an “all green” shop and found The Seven Year Pen.  The pen’s name speaks for itself:  it lasts for seven years!

Now it is true that the sleek and fun designs caught my eye, and my writer’s heart leaped at the sight of one pen in particular, the shiny black and silver surface donning three white skull and cross-bones and there in bold print the words:  NEED COFFEE.

The sexy look, the innovative presentation sets The Seven Year Pen apart in and of it’s own right.  But then I read about the pen’s purpose.

The Seven Year Pen is made by the Swiss and offered by a Brooklyn based company called Seltzer Goods who sell recycled and environmentally friendly products.

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The geniuses over at ThermaCELL have come up with an amazing device that lights the way (pun intended here, people) toward a fun outdoor experience:  the Mosquito Repelling Outdoor Lantern scares away the bugs!

This incredibly small and light lantern’s base fits in the palm of the hand, yet provides enormously bright LED-powered light while it deters insects for a 15 x 15 foot radius.

Does it work?  Well, yes it does!

This lantern is small, gives off a good amount of light on my deck but is not overbearing and is the best thing that I have ever witnessed for getting rid of the vampire-sickly mosquitoes and their friends.

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This App of a friend is actually a network of confidants that make up the GasBuddy.com community and work together to note every gas station’s price as they are viewed.

The skeptic might chime in and say that a web site or App cannot be updated frequently enough to help out a cruising two or four wheeled consumer.  But the “GasBuddy” App is that kind of a friend, and your “GasBuddy” is exceptionally helpful and kick-ass!  I will now define this “kick-ass” bud further.

You see, some friends will give you the shirt off their back, and some friends will laugh on as you fall up a large flight of stairs moving a ridiculously heavy recliner-couch, while they sip cold beverages from tin cans in their underwear. The “GasBuddy” App is a story about one of the shirt-off-the-back friends.

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GE might make the big turbines, but there’s something to be said about having a smaller and user-friendly version for homes and small businesses. Enter Southwest Windpower. While the company had already created a mini-turbine called the Skystream 3.7, they just unveiled the newer more efficient Skystream 600.

Unlike the original, the 600 version has larger blades, enhanced software and an improved integrated inverter. According to a press release, the turbine will also be the first to fully integrate into the smart-grid. These improvements will produce 74 percent more energy for commercial and residential use than the 3.7 and provide an average of 7,400 kWh of clean energy. Of course this is averaging 12mph winds and depending on the consistency of the wind, could provide up to 60 percent of the necessary energy for average households.

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The “green-thumb” flash USB drive comes at the advent of a lot of other cardboard technology, like the cardboard computer. Developed by Colin Garceau-Tremblay for his design class, the idea behind using cardboard was due to the frequency at which these drives were lost. It’s no surprise either, these drives are quite small and often fall out of the user’s backpack or pockets never to be found again.

Besides being lost, many people often put aside their old USB flash drives when a newer and larger version appears. The problem with simply tossing the old USB drive in the trash is that most casings are generally made of either plastic or metal to withstand both heat and water damage. Unfortunately, what makes these materials appealing to customers and creators of these USB drives also makes them detrimental to the environment.

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We all know the things that Apple has done to keep a green image. For example, they’ve removed various toxic chemicals from their products such as: lead, chromium, cadmium, Decabromodiphenyl Ether, arsenic, and mercury – all of which are known carcinogens. Besides this, Apple has also been recycling their e-waste since 1994 and currently operate recycling programs where 84 percent of their products are recycled. Now they are looking to improve their front end by patenting a solar-powered iPhone.

The iPhone is one of the most popular phones in the US selling around 14.1 million units in 2010 alone. With their history of being green and innovative, it comes as no surprise that Apple is not only introducing a solar powered phone, but also one that approaches solar cells from a different angle.

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Now that the holiday season is just around the corner, many people are beginning to do some serious shopping. For those looking to shop greener, the app Climate Counts for the iPhone allows you to choose from the most eco-friendly retailers.

One of the best things about the app is that it is available for free on the iPhone app store. Climate Counts grades companies based on their sustainability efforts on 22 criteria to determine if companies have:

• measured their carbon footprint
• reduced impact on global warming
• supported (or suggested intent to block) progressive climate legislation
• publicly disclosed their climate actions clearly and comprehensively

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In the US alone, styrofoam makes up about 25 percent of the landfills and unfortunately, the material itself does not biodegrade easily. While more and more companies are researching  biodegradable products, none of the ideas are as interesting as Eben Bayer’s EcoCradle.

Eben Bayer is the CEO of Ecoactive Design,  a company looking for novel ways to eliminate non-environmentally friendly materials that many people don’t think twice about. Bayer focuses on commonly used and overlooked items that people throw out without a second thought. Currently the company has only two products, Greensulate and EcoCradle.

The EcoCradle looks to replace the plastics in styrofoam with more natural and biodegradable substances like mushrooms and agricultural waste. The styrofoam replacement can be grown in five days and then tossed into the garbage or compost pile.  Unlike many other plastic substitutes, EcoCradle can also be broken down by anaerobic processes, which means it does not require oxygen to biodegrade.

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Who says that wind turbines have to be thirty feet tall and extremely expensive? Last year Google hosted a wind turbine design contest and the winner was Clarian’s Jellyfish.

The Jellyfish is a 36 inch vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) that can be plugged in directly into your electrical sockets and can generate roughly 40kWh a month on a moderately windy day. There is no fancy setup necessary and with only one moving part, maintaining the turbine is easy enough for regular home owners. It is also comes equipped with WiFi and WiMax in order to create a point-to-grid system.

The power that these small turbines generate is not much (40kWh a month can power a room that contains CFL bulbs), but harnessed collectively and tied interactively with the local utility grid there can be significant environmental and system reliability benefits. Chad Maglaque, the creative genius behind Jellyfish, states that these turbines are the PC of renewable energy stating “We could have 10,000 of these sitting in a city, networked—it’s like a virtual utility…”

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