The Efficiency Zone
Danish Government In Wind Power Gust
May 10, 2007 10:04 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: The government of Denmark wants to get 75% of its energy from offshore wind farms by 2025. That's an extremely impressive goal, if it's plausible. "We aim to make Denmark independent of oil, gas and coal in the long term
TechTurn: 86,000 Pounds At Earth Day Event
May 10, 2007 7:18 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: TechTurn processed 86,000 pounds of used electronics at its recent Earth Day recycling event in Washington, D.C., officials said. Dell, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Recycling Coalition sponsored the event
Wal-Mart Wants to be Sun-Mart
May 9, 2007 9:23 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Wal-Mart is planning to adapt solar power for 22 stores in California and Hawaii. "We are taking aggressive steps toward our goal of being supplied by 100 percent renewable energy," Wal-Mart's vice president for energy, Kim Saylors-Laster, told the AP.
DDP Joins UC-Davis LED Research Unit
May 9, 2007 9:01 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: DDP, a maker of commercial lighting products, announced a new partnership with the California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California / Davis.
Jersey Barrier Today, Turbine Tomorrow
May 2, 2007 8:15 am | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: Traffic here in New Jersey (home of the ECN main office) may soon improve or at least it may soon improve the environment. How so? By putting wind turbines inside our infamous Jersey barriers, although nobody actually calls them by that name here.
CD Manufacturer Repents By Recycling
April 30, 2007 12:24 pm | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Bruce Bennett, owner of the American Duplication Supply Group, says he feels guilty about manufacturing millions of compact disks, only to see most people throw them away after a few years. CDs don't fair well in landfills, so now Bennett has a new endeavor, the CD Recycling Center of America.
Ontario Government Plans Solar Field
April 30, 2007 7:06 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: The Ontario Power Authority plans to build North America's largest solar power station, containing hundreds of thousands of cells and producing 40 megawatts. The news dwarfs that of a 15-megawatt station announced last week for a U.S. Air Force base in Nevada.
Review: Lego Mindstorms NXT Kit
April 20, 2007 12:06 pm | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: What can engineers learn about electronics product design from Lego's Mindstorms NXT kit? Abstract thinking, control, diligence, efficiency, low parts count, planning, and more.
Energy Links: Blogs, Forums, News, etc.
April 20, 2007 8:53 am | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: We at ECN are hardly the only source for energy-efficiency news and opinion. So, we'll continue compiling a massive list of other sites to visit. Please suggest others.
Efficiency Zone Welcome Message
April 20, 2007 8:23 am | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: Hello world! Do not adjust your monitor: you are now entering the Efficiency Zone. 'Tis the opposite of the Technology Twilight Zone. It's a place where budgets are met, projects are delivered on time or even early, employees have high morale, and customers are happy. Is it also, you ask, a mere fantasyland? Nope. The Efficiency Zone is quite real here
On Semi Debuts Greenpoint Power Supplies
April 20, 2007 6:28 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: On Semiconductor announced an open ATX reference design meeting the new Energy Star performance requirements for power supplies in desktop PCs, scheduled to take effect this July. Five new power supplies based on the design are available. On Semi's goal for the design is full-load power supply efficiency of 86.5 percent at high-line and 82.5 percent efficiency at 20 percent of load and low-line.
ARC Plans Low-Power Reference Design
April 17, 2007 6:32 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: ARC International announced a new reference design for low-power, system-on-chip multimedia applications. The design exploits uses the Silicon Integration Initiative's Common Power Format, along with power managment tools from Virage Logic. It will be part of the ARChitect system in the second half of this year, officials said.
HP Releases 20-Watt PC in China
April 17, 2007 6:09 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Hewlett-Packard, walking the road less taken, is using a Via Technologies processor in its new 20-watt desktop computer in China. That's less than half the power required by a PC with a standard AMD or Intel processor.
Delphi Packard Eases Auto Wire Efficiency
April 12, 2007 10:03 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product:Delphia Packard Electric is making halogen-free automotive wiring in designs that are thinner, more pliable, and safer to recycle. The development is part of Delphi's umbrella "E/E architecture" plan, officials said.
PolyFuel Improves Fuel Cell Tech
April 12, 2007 6:48 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: PolyFuel announced two new patents that may help make fuel cells smaller, lightweight, less expensive, and longer lasting. They are no. 7,094,490, “Ion Conductive Block Copolymers” and no. 7,202,001, “Sulfonated Copolymer” both covering the chemistry behind advances hydrocarbon polymer membrane technology.
Green Grid Wants Earthy Data Centers
April 10, 2007 9:58 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: The Green Grid, a non-profit consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems, this week announched its technical summit to be held April 18-19 in Denver, Colorado. Officials said they hope to emerge from the summit with detailed technical objectives and program plans for 2007, focusing on three areas
Newmarket Has New Name, Recycling Service
April 10, 2007 9:20 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Newmarket IT, a specialist in recovering, refurbishing, and reselling your used and obsolete technology, announced TechTurn as its new name this week. They also announced a recycling services program for resellers and systems integrators. The program is designed to produce revenue and market opportunities by giving sales and marketing support.
Echelon Makes Green Design Contest
April 9, 2007 12:37 pm | by echelon green electronics design contest | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Echelon Corp. announced a design contest to encourage the use of automated control and energy-saving sensor networks. The winning designer will get $10,000 based on their invention's green potential and even its coolness.
Power Line Transeiver for Home Automation
April 9, 2007 12:24 pm | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Echelon Corp. announced the PL 3170 Power Line Smart Transceiver to help designers more quickly and easily create end-user home automation products. This is part of Echelon's LonWorks and Digital Home product lines.
Off-Topic, But Really Efficient!
April 9, 2007 6:50 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: The Tesla Roaster isn't your only choice in high-end electric sports cars anymore. A new choice is the Hybrid Technologies L1X-75 -- check out the Popular Mechanics story and The Wall Street Journal video.
Greenpeace: Lenovo's good, Apple's bad
April 5, 2007 7:31 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News:BBC News wrote: "Compiled by Greenpeace, the quarterly report ranks firms by how green their production processes are and what they do to recycle hardware they sell.
Silicon Valley's Brightest Working on Energy
April 4, 2007 5:48 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: From a Reuters story today: "Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley have been searching for the next big thing in high-tech for years, but now many have switched to greener pursuits -- finding technology to help cut global warming.
Electronics Help TI Save Pennies, Planet
March 30, 2007 1:15 pm | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Microchips today are all about efficiency. Problems that engineers used attack with brute processing speed and massive amounts of memory are now solved by reducing bandwidth bottlenecks and allowing software to intelligently plan and prioritize its own data paths. So when Texas Instruments decided to build a new 300-mm chip fabrication plant in October 2003, they chose the same approach to constructing the facility as with the chips it would produce – smarter, not stronger.
How Green Is My High-Tech Vendor?
March 29, 2007 12:39 pm | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: It's a sign of a trend: communications and IT vendors are increasingly touting their "green" credentials as a regular part of sales and marketing cycles. Consider the amount of power and cooling needed to run your company's computers and electronics; chemicals and paper consumed by printers; legal requirement to recycle old desktops, laptops, and telephones; and unnecessary travel.
Report: SMEs Not Thinking Eco-Friendly
March 29, 2007 12:32 pm | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Owners of small and medium-sized businesses in the U.K. do not care, or don't have time to care, much about making their companies environmentally friendly, according to a new report by research firm Shirlaws Global. In a list of 18 business challenges, most survey respondants had environmental concerns listed last.
