It’s nice and all to try to conserve energy, you know, it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, but it’s simply tough to do these days. Pretty much everything uses power. Sure, solar panels you say, but those aren’t a practical solution for most people. And let’s face it, solar panels on your house doesn’t look so cool. Some intelligent man, Ian Gilmartin, thinks he has it figured out, and while it’s still not cheap, it sounds and looks a whole lot cooler than solar panels.

It’s called the Waterwheel and will pretty much generate all the electricity your home could possibly need. It’s not quite there yet, but the Waterwheel is coming together. It looks like a miniature waterslide (much to small for kids, unfortunately) and when the water comes down, power is generated. That’s sounds lovely, but don’t worry, you won’t have a mini waterslide traveling around your house: it only takes an 18″ fall of water to generated all the power you need. Seriously, that’s all there is to it. Solving the problem of water is easy as well, simply modify your existing pipes a bit so that the Whaterwheel can draw water whenever needed. Nothing here sounds terribly bad, but the price tag for the installation is a bit of a bummer. Getting yourself a Waterwheel will cost you a cool €2000 or close to $4,000. While it may pay for itself eventually, that’s a big investment to make upfront, people may prefer just to keep handing their money over to the power companies each month. Google may like this invention though. With all the servers they have, they’re bound to use a load of power.

[via OhGizmo!]