Since it is Earth Day, I've been scouring today's press releases for something more Captain Planet-like. Since (oh, the cruel irony) I haven't found anything (up until now, that is) to fit the description, the “Planeteer” award goes to... Fujitsu and its wind-powered laptop that doesn't actually use wind power yet... it does! Thinking I've lost my marbles? Not quite. Keep on reading because this is as fascinating as it is funny.

It appears that there's a lot of competition on the Japanese laptop market so Fujitsu decided it needed a new approach to what is otherwise an ordinary laptop: the FMV Loox. It seems that for each laptop sold, it will buy wind-power “green energy credits” equivalent to what it considers to be the amount of electricity consumed over a four-year period.

But that's not the only catch... it hopes (or that's how it is built... I didn't get it exactly) that you'll use the laptop for 4.5 hours each day, leave it on-charge for another 4.5 hours, then switch it off for 15 hours for each 240 days of each year over four years. That means you'll effectively be using your laptop only 4.5 hours a day. That's 19.5 hours per day of stand-by, 4680 hours a year, 18720 hours in four years. That's a lot of nap time, don't you think?

I'm pretty sure no one will stick to that plan, even if it means sparing the ozone layer 18Kg of CO2 emissions. So, you're thinking of buying one of these? Saving the planet doesn't come cheap, you know, so prepare to get around 1.160 USD out of your pocket. In case you were wondering, the “non-green” version is around 780 USD. But at least you won't have to climb on top of a moving train to power your laptop!


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