This Sustainable City Lights concept is the latest in eco-friendly lighting. Each lamp post uses solar and wind energy for itself, and will use LEDs only when people are in it’s presence. When people are not nearby, it conserves energy by emitting only a soft glow.

The Sustainable City Lights open and close like a flower bud to harvest energy. Any surplus energy is returned to the main grid to use for other things. This is a not only practical, but pretty stylish as well.

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 Ravi solar charger hopes to steer you toward greener living with it’s attractive flower-like design. The Ravi solar has photovoltaic arrays attached to petal extensions. The flower aspect is not just symbolic, it actually absorbs energy from the sun during the day, storing it in an internal battery. It gets some points for coolness due to the fact that the petals glow once the battery is charged. At night, you would have a kick-ass glowing garden. You would then remove the battery packs to power all of your home appliances.

The idea is that with gardens of Ravi portable solar generators in a neighborhood, enough power could be generated to supply the community, and if that can not be managed, it would at least lessen energy needs. It’s a pretty cool idea, but it has a kind of War Of The World quality that scares me.