Since we’ve been on a bit of sun kick lately (hey, it’s August), here’s a solar-powered gadget that’s going to multi-task today. First, it’s going to thrill you with its ingenuity and get you thinking about how quickly personal solar-powered charging is coming along. It’s going make you think about all the times you looked down at your laptop, saw the “7 percent charged” note blinking on menu bar and thought, “Wouldn’t be nice if I could just plug this thing into something and keeping working?”

Yes, the Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger is a solar-powered carrying case powerful enough to charge a laptop. We first showed it to you a few month’s ago in a solar-powered gadget round-up, but here are some details on what’s in the bag:

The case does its thing with high-efficiency monocrystalline cells and a battery pack that stores and converts electricity generated by a 15-watt, 20-volt panel. It’s being billed as more of a “mobile office” deal, as the case will also charge cell phones and most other handheld electronics.

The Lilon (lithium ion) battery has a capacity similar to a typical small laptop battery and is stored inside the bag, so it’s good to go whenever you need it (as in, “Hello! Hello! Still there?! Damn!”). When the bags not in the sun (with direct sun, a full charge takes five hours), the battery can be juiced using an AC travel charger. An Indicator light inside the handle shows it working.

The bag itself (shell, webbing, mesh and lining) is comprised of fabrics made from recycled PET (soda bottles). It’s strong. It’s water-resistant. It has an aluminum frame and a silicon handle, and weighs in at 4.5 pounds, including the solar panel and battery. It’ll hold something as large as a 17-inch MacBook Pro and comes in four colors.

Cost for packing sunshine: about 500 bucks.

And now, this case is going to serve its second solar-related purpose of the day. Writing about the Voltaic Generator Solar Laptop Charger requires no more from me. Nope, no 1,000-word tome today on Darwin, global warming or the evils of The Man. I’m outta here. It’s gonna be a scorcher and I’m hitting the chaise lounge that’s screaming at me from my balcony. Lates.

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While not exactly embarking on a grand plan to steal Mother Nature’s secret of photosynthesis (like those crazy Chinese guys we talked about yesterday who Shanghaied the leaf), French designer Vivien Muller is also looking at leaves of green for energy-generating design inspiration.

Muller’s Electree is an indoor “sculpture imitating a bonsai,” its leaves being 54 mini photovoltaic panels. The device/artwork stores solar energy in a battery hidden in the sculpture’s base which feeds a USB port where you can recharge your cellphones, cameras, iWhatevers and other devices.

While its initial release is a limited edition of 20 “specimens” (gotta love the French), Designboom reports a “small family-run company” now produces the product and is hoping to manufacture Electree in a bigger series and at a lower price point than its out-of-the-gate $6,000-plus.

Electree comes in magnetized modules than can be assembled pretty much any which way so you can produce “une infinité de forme différentes.” (Yes, please.) This also means you can aim your mini solar pick-ups right at the Sun to increase the device’s effectiveness.

Muller also sees major growth opportunity for Electree and posits the development of what it calls the Electree City, an even larger plant – really tree-sized this time – whose leaves are solar panels. A solar-paneled shade tree. Hmmm. Maybe one’s coming soon to a park near you. “Nature has selected for a million years the most effective structures to capture energy from the sun,” says the designer. “That is why the sculpture was inspired by the plant.”

The post Mini Solar Bonsai Tree Powers Your Gadgets (No Watering Required) appeared first on EcoSalon.

From the Street…

The question will no longer be, “Who shot J.R.” but “Where’d J.R. get those photovoltaic panels for his roof?” Which is almost as catchy.

Larry Hagman is reprising his role as J.R. Ewing from the soap opera Dallas on behalf of the solar industry. The dastardly Texas oilman who famously spent a summer nursing a bullet wound (while audiences spent it thinking about his fate with bated breath) has become disillusioned with Texas tea. Here he is in an advertising campaign to promote solar energy and SolarWorld, a German photovoltaic module maker.

“In the past it was always about the oil,” Hagman says in a TV commercial that debuted yesterday at the Intersolar conference in San Francisco.

“The oil was flowing and so was the money. Too dirty, I quit it years ago,” he says in a voice so gravelly you could walk across it. A portrait of a beaming, much younger J.R. from his wilder days in the 80s fades out of focus, with the subtlety of the Picture of Dorian Gray. Images of an offshore oil rig and blackened waters flash against the backdrop of his sullied memories.

“Shine, baby shine,” he guffaws. The line is a direct jab at Sarah Palin’s “Drill, baby, drill” campaign slogan.

Before the rolling of eyes ensues, it’s worth noting that Hagman lives on an estate in the Southern California town of Ojai which he outfitted with an elaborate 94-kilowatt solar system, thought to be the largest residential solar panel installation in the world, several years ago. He also serves on the board of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), a non-profit that builds solar systems in poverty-stricken areas of the world and was awarded additional funding by the ExxonMobil and Ashoka’s Changemakers Women | Tools | Technology Challenge campaign on June 29.

SolarWorld donated solar panels for the group’s work in Haiti after the earthquake there in January. Yesterday the company said it would give an additional 100 kilowatts worth of panels to provide electricity for at least five health clinics.

The commercial will air nationally in August and can be found on SolarWorld’s site here.

SolarWorld, which is based in Germany but operates factories in California and Oregon, is just the latest of a number of solar companies to introduce a high-profile advertising campaign.

So what’s your opinion? Do you respond well to the idea of a fictional oil baron going rogue in favor of the green movement? Does it draw the right kind of attention to the cause? Is it a clever move or completely out of touch? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This is the latest installment in Christopher Correa’s weekly column, Hill/Street Greens, examining the environmental deeds (and misdeeds) of Washington, D.C. and Wall Street.

Image: AP

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