Bicycle Generator

This handy, portable bike generator is something you could build yourself. Or, you could just order one assembled. I'm thinking about building one, but if I ever got a big cash payday, I'd grab one of these. With the optional powerpack. That way you can store the energy in a battery and then use the battery to charge small devices. Devices which steal all the energy in the office here. Energy which I have to pay a portion of. If I could power my laptop, cell phone, media player, camera batteries, gameboy, and even charge batteries for remote controls and such, all from the comfort of a bicycle, I'm game.

- Read a little bit about the generator

- Check out a video of the generator doing it's thing and displaying the voltage on a multimeter.

Sunforce 60032 30 Amp Digital Charge Controller

Sunforce 60032 30 Amp Digital Charge Controller
From Sunforce

Product Description
Digital controller links solar panels together and prevents 12V batteries from overcharge and discharge. Unit reduces overall system maintenance and prolongs battery life.

You gotta have these. I don't care if you're a clean-energy enthusiast or you're up to your neck in mutants and zombies. You can't efficiently run a solar or wind power operation without one. I recommend one charge controller per battery, and as many solar cells as it takes to use the whole 30 amp capacity. Then your batteries will charge faster. I'm sure there's plenty of other ways to do it, but I would just use charge indicators and swap out the batteries in my system. That way I would be able to quickly charge each battery and then just store the charged batteries.

[Video] Oil races to 100-dollar mark

[Video] Oil races to 100-dollar mark
It is no longer a question of whehter oil will hit 100 dollars a barrel, but when. On Wednesday it came within a dollar and a half of this highly symbolic threshold, and analysts forsee only rising demand as China and India's growing thirst for fuel combines with instability in the world's...