Blogs
Ann Arbor Trades Maize and Blue for Green
October 17, 2007 12:44 pm | CommentsEnergy News: City officials in Ann Arbor, Michigan announced a two year plan to convert all 1,046 of its 120W incandescent downtown streetlights to efficient 56W LEDs. They say the $630,000 installation project will save the city $100,000 per year and will reduce
Energi To Go or Not To Go?
October 15, 2007 12:08 pm | CommentsProductive Product: No, that's not a misspelling: Energizer markets its lithium (not li-ion) backup system for portable gadgets with the "Energi To Go" moniker. Basically this is a battery holder fitting one or two AA cells, a power charging and management chip from Techtium, and your connector
That's Teleconferencing: Chuck Peddle Video
October 10, 2007 6:14 am | CommentsVIDEO | Op-Ed: Here's an example of energy savings at a technology conference. MOS 6502 and Commodore legend Chuck Peddle planned to fly to New Jersey to give a 90-minute computer history lecture. But he was stuck in Sri Lanka for his job, so he videoconferenced instead. The twist: instead of using an expensive, professional videoconferencing "solution", Chuck used ordinary Skype
More new links in our library
October 8, 2007 11:39 am | CommentsOp-Ed: Recently we added some new sites to our link library. The total is up to 49 but the three newest are off the beaten path: the Athena Institute, GreenDrinks, and WattWatt. (We truly hope to refer you to sites that are useful, not just a million and one blogs and such.
Clean Demand v. Clean Supply
October 4, 2007 7:35 am | CommentsEnergy News: America's demand for clean energy will beat supply by 37 percent in 2010, the National Renewable Energy Lab will report next week -- that's according to USA Today. They also explain how half of the states require certain percentages of their providers' power to come from clean energy
The Controversial Viability of Solar
October 1, 2007 12:21 pm | CommentsEnergy News: CNN posted a very solid overview story about the state of solar power. The technology, if we lived in a proverbial vacuum, can already provide all the world's energy needs by installing panels in a small corner of the Sahara. But in the real world, cost and security are
Big Blue: CIOs Lousy at Energy Monitoring
September 28, 2007 12:52 pm | CommentsEnergy News: More than a third of enterprise CIOs don't monitor their corporate energy use, according to an Economist Intelligence Unit report, commissioned by IBM. "Although concerns about energy efficiency and global warming are now high on the political agenda, the spotlight
Salmon Sperm Lox in Brightness
September 20, 2007 11:36 am | CommentsEnergy News: DNA from salmon -- specifically, from the fish's sperm -- makes an excellent choice for building extra-bright, biodegradeable light-emitting diodes, researchers at the University of California / Riverside found. It sounds fishy but it's true. “DNA has certain optical
Evolving the BioSnake
September 19, 2007 6:04 am | CommentsOp-Ed: There's a blog post over at CNET about an E85 Dodge Viper which is breaking speed records. They wrote, "More than doubling the horsepower probably had a big effect on the performance of the car, but the extra octane can't hurt. Ethanol also cuts down on the greenhouse gases from the tailpipe."
Metrics Good, Volume Servers Bad
September 18, 2007 12:44 pm | CommentsEnergy News: Two interesting stories today from eWeek: first, the Green Grid member companies signed a Department of Energy agreement for data center metrics; second, coverage of Energy Star director Andrew Fanara's declaration that volume servers are so obviously bad for the green agenda.
Red Tape Trumps Recycling
September 17, 2007 12:18 pm | CommentsOp-Ed: The full story isn't clear here, but it looks like a government crackdown on the very popular Alameda County Computer Recycling Center. For readers not in the Silicon Valley area, I can personally attest that ACCRC is a well-run, well-supported organization which does a valuable community service. So why would an EPA inspector
HP, Lenovo, Dell Support Solar Power for PCs
September 14, 2007 10:12 am | by Evan Koblentz, online editor | CommentsProductive Product: Let's start by clarifying a vital point: this story is about solar power adapters for conventional PCs, not about "solar-powered PCs" per se. You don't actually get a solar panel slapped to the side of your tower case; you get 86 pounds of schleppability. But you also get to help save the planet and circumvent your local
Paw-Lenty of Energy to Save
September 13, 2007 9:44 am | CommentsEnergy News: According to U.S. News & World Report, "Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, the new chair of the National Governors Association, was in Washington this week to argue that state governments should be a driving force in reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil and in fighting greenhouse
Investors Write Reality Check
September 12, 2007 11:03 am | CommentsEnergy News: There's a big dose of clean-energy straight talk over at Forbes.com from physicist and investor Mark Mills. He says there is plenty of room for smart investments into alternative energies, because there wasn't much of a bubble in the first place, nor was there a bubble 30 years ago when many of the same technologies were going to save us from
Still More Far-Fetched Start-Ups
September 12, 2007 10:32 am | CommentsProductive Products: Human harvesting. Algae pools. Wave power. Artificial tornados. Super kites. Tesla coils. The list reads like a high-tech version of the plagues that freed Moses' people in Egypt, but will these alternative energy concepts succeed or have the proverbial sea crash down on them? "True, many of the kookier-sounding concepts are still in deep development within large corporations, universities, and
