Wiping It:
Well I don’t know about you guys, but when I get into the bathroom, and I know I am going to be there for at least a few minutes, besides reading material, I am going to be checking for crucial supplies. On this thought, I urge you to do away with the two-ply designer toilet paper! Switch to recycled. It is less expensive for both you and Mother Earth. Every ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 4,000 kilowatts of electricity, 7,000 gallons of water, and 3 disgusting cubic yards of landfill. Also, look for toilet paper which is unbleached and chlorine-free.

Washing It:
Did you know that showers are the biggest resource spenders in the home? Well you do now! Replace your old showerhead with a WaterSense or another energy-efficient model. By doing this you can save up to 3 gallons of water a minute. Listen to this: if just one out of every 100 homes was retrofitted with water-efficient fixtures, we would avoid 80,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions a year. Amazing!

Steaming It:
While almost everybody has an exhaust fan in their bathroom to reduce mold, we shall not forget that the fan is not a friend of the environment. Make the switch to exhaust fans which are thermostatically controlled and not connected to the light switch – this way they will not become over used.

Draining It:
Remember not to let the faucet run. Using a cup of water when brushing your teeth, is one way to conserve water. Use the drain stop when washing your face or shaving – and make sure the drain stop works efficiently, and is not actually swallowing water.

Flush It:
Did you know that flushing the toilet is responsible for about 30% of all water used by the average American household – in other words almost 44,000 gallons of quality water is lost per family every year. YIKES! Make the switch to a high-efficiencytoilet, so you can use 1.3 gallons or less per flesh, as opposed to the 3.5 to 7 gallons of good water which you were using with your old throne.

Given the global aloofness to environmental concern, oil will only disappear as a necessity for transportation fuel when someone replaces it with a power-packed, cheap, stored energy alternative, which is easy to handle and quick to refuel with. These, my friends, are the facts.

As far as energy cost goes, the one obvious choice for replacing diesel and gasoline is pure battery electricity. Electric vehicles can be recharged from the grid for much less than the cost of gasoline or diesel from the pump. However electric vehicles and their batteries ARE expensive.

Currently lithium-based rechargeable batteries are used. And they cost an arm and a leg. They are costly because of the combination of using a rare, expensive metal combined with an involved production process. So what’s the cost solution? How about, Rechargeable Zinc-Air batteries!

It has long been thought that zinc battery chemistries could not be electrochemically recharged. ReVolt Technologies of Norway, proudly denies this myth. They have developed zinc-air technology which is indeed rechargeable. They have developed a technology which may be used to power anything from cars to cellular phones. ReVolt claims that their zinc-air chemistry has twice the amount of stored energy than conventional Lithium-ion batteries.

ReVolt is trying to break into the U.S. electric vehicle market; they are opening up a U.S. headquarters in Portland, Oregon. Currently the company is applying for $30 million in grants from the US Department of Energy (DOE) under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), in order to speed up the commercialization process of its large format zinc-air batteries for energy storage and electric vehicle applications.