Saving electricity in the home is a good thing. We all benefit. Cutting back on the power you waste can save plenty of money on the electric bill too. But we’re only human and could use a little reminder sometimes. A reminder that isn’t some treehugger starring in a PSA on TV.

The Wilting Flower from English designer Carl Smith will remind you. It’s a little known fact that people pay more attention to a flower then they do to a preaching hippie. Plus, the flower looks like it’s bathed. This little wilting flower changes from blue, to red, to yellow, to purple, then turns off, as our power demands increase. But as it changes, the petals slowly close and the flower keels over in its vase. In other words, you are a murdering bastard and it hopes you feel bad.

The folks over at ElectraTherm have a 50-kilowatt machine that uses industrial waste heat for fuel, providing even more options for green energy. They’re calling it the ElectraTherm Green Machine, not to be confused with that Huffy Green machine you had as a kid.

Get this. With this unit, you can actually get back the money you spent within three or four years. That’s with electricity costing approximately three or four cents per kilowatt-hour. They use an organic Rankine cycle to heat liquids, then the liquids are transformed into a vapor, at which point it will move the turbine thus generating electricity. Looks like heat-to-electricity can be successful on a small scale, since this is capable of powering up to 40 homes at once.

If you are concerned about how much energy you are using, but are forgetful and need some encouragement, this little switch will give you a visual representation of how much energy you are using. The switch lights up only a little when you’re not using much energy and it shines brighter when you’re wasting too much.

What with energy being invisible, it’s easy to waste more then you intend to. So a visual reminder is just the thing. Not many other details on this one for the moment. Like how much of your house this will take care of, etc. It might be good if it were vocal though, “Turn off some lights you wasteful pig. What did you buy me for if you aren’t going to listen to me.” Nagging always gets things done after all, as any married person knows.

There certainly seems to be no shortage of power strip products lately as just about everyone seems to have found a way to build a better set of outlets. The Eject Powerstrip is designed to conserve electricity by making it easier for people to unplug their unused devices and lessen the electricity “leakage” when they are not being used.

The powerstrip has a foot pedal next to each outlet that will eject the electrical cord plug when pressed with your foot. According to the designers of the Eject Powerstrip, they’ve eliminated some of the biggest excuses why people don’t unplug their unused devices. Laziness, inconvenient access and open outlets accessible to small children topped the list. This “green” powerstrip would not only make it easy and convenient to unplug, but when the pedal is pressed it also cuts off access to the electricity through the outlet so that the little tikes can’t get hurt.