Features
Progress in Energy Star for Servers Plan
July 24, 2007 10:35 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Britain's IT Week nicely summarizes the status of an expected Energy Star program for computer servers. A tiered system and various subcategories are likely, EPA and industry experts agree. (Desktops, laptops, and other computer products are already
Securing Fuel from Oil Shale
July 24, 2007 9:30 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Oil shale and tar sands aren't exactly "alternative" energy sources in the non-fossil sense, but they are plentiful here in the United States. A new report from the Department of Energy explains the emerging technology used to harvest these
Are Biofuel Advocates Really Biofools?
July 23, 2007 7:56 am | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: It's crazy to think that American farms can supply enough corn biofuel to make any substantial dent into the energy crisis, columnist John Wasik says. Illinois is America's best place to grow corn, and even if you bulldozed the whole state (including Chicago), you'd only
Homemade Solar Panels, Cheap
July 20, 2007 11:37 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Researchers at the New Jersey Institute of Technology are working on solar cells that can be painted or printed onto flexible plastic sheets. Head researcher Prof. Somenath Mitra predicts that someday, consumers will be able to make these cells using their computer printers
Portable Power Concerns Aren't New
July 18, 2007 12:04 pm | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: My hobby outside of life at ECN is collecting and restoring vintage computers. I write a blog about the hobby and, for my personal collection, I focus on portable systems. Last week I interviewed Henry Laxen who ran software development for a small company called Friends Amis in the early-to-mid 1980s. Friends Amis designed the Hand Held Computer
Solar Science vs. Science Fiction
July 16, 2007 11:20 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: There's a good article in The New York Times about the promise vs. the realities of solar energy research. The best thing of solar energy is that it's infinite, at least for the next few billion years -- scientists agree on that much. But solar energy has an image problem. The new movie Sunshine
Need More Fuel? Grow Your Own
July 16, 2007 10:24 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News:This made it onto Slashdot today but in case you missed it, a company called Range Fuels is ready to build America's first cellulosic ethanol production factory. Unlike sugar ethanol, which can only be made from certain plants, cellulose ethanol can be extracted
The Electricity Police Are Watching
July 12, 2007 6:47 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: What's the difference between speeding and not turning light offs when you leave a room? When you speed, there are cops and signs to remind you. But when you leave the lights on, or your computers, TVs, and other gadgets, the power they waste just disappears into a lump-sum electricity bill. That's why an alliance of UK energy companies
ZAP Cars Go Zoom Zoom Zoom
July 11, 2007 7:04 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: We last gave an update on electric sports cars three months ago but now we're hearing about ZAP ("Zero Air Pollution") which is promising a $60,000 crossover SUV that goes 0-60 in 4.8 seconds and can travel 350 miles with one charge.
Shell CEO: Conservation's Good, Not Forever
July 11, 2007 5:59 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Pressed recently about the need for alternative energy research, Exxon's CEO persisted on a traditional tack: "We're in the business of oil and gas." But Shell's CEO is being more progressive. "Well, you won't see me in an SUV. And I've just installed solar electricity panels on my roof," he told U.S. News & World Report.
Fresno Gets World's Largest Solar Farm
July 10, 2007 10:03 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Cleantech America is planning the world's largest solar farm, at 640 acres, for completion in 2011 in Fresno, California. At 80 megawatts, that would dwarf the current largest solar farms in the 4-5 megawatt range.
Electronics Are Energy Hogs
July 6, 2007 6:29 am | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: Want to save $119 and deprive Earth of 1,405 pounds of CO2? Then all you have to do is activate your computers' power management settings, tech writer Larry Magid notes (but you'll have to register to read this one.) Computers and other common home electronics
Freedom to Be Foolish
July 5, 2007 7:30 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Yesterday was Independence Day here in the US, which serves as a nice reminder that we're all free to be foolish from time to time. On the energy front, some people do this conspicuously, such as driving large SUVs for no particular reason. Others are more subtle: would you believe that some people still go for perpetual energy?
One Man's Trash, Another Man's Energy
June 27, 2007 9:43 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: AgriPower Inc. is preparing to commercialize its biomass burners. These aren't quite the Mr. Fusion gadgets commonly found on your time machine, but the idea is similar: rather than paying to haul away your trash, why not
The great motivator
June 26, 2007 11:01 am | by Aimee Kalnoskas, Editor-in-Chief | Articles | CommentsMy neighbors, who live almost a hundred yards and up a hill away from me, love their SUV’s, monster trucks and electricity. During the Christmas season, the illumination from their myriad of Christmas lights and blow-up, lighted lawn Santas and Frosties alone allow me to keep my flood lights off for most of December.
Distribution and the Evolving Web
June 26, 2007 8:06 am | by Rob Birse, Vice-president of Marketing, Allied Electronics | Articles | CommentsIf you spend time on the Internet, you may have noticed a subtle but important shift in the way web sites are beginning to interact with visitors. Web sites that feature static content have faded away and are being replaced by interactive web sites that engage the user. This recent shift in content — termed Web 2.0 — reflects the idea that the web is moving into its next generation of interactivity. The electronic component industry is certainly not exempt from this recent web trend. Many distributors have already done a considerable amount to beef up their web sites in response to engineers’ changing preference of obtaining information on the Internet in recent years. As distributors are quickly learning, they must do even more to keep engineers engaged and returning to their web site
Optimizing the Power Switch in High Voltage Applications
June 26, 2007 5:59 am | by Peter Blair, Zetex Semiconductors | Articles | CommentsSmall high voltage loads are found in abundance. Be they actuators, motors, solenoids or transformers, power supply or power conversion circuits, all are subject to the relentless quest for better energy efficiency, improved reliability and reduced cost and footprint. For the power switching element within such loads, these technical demands appear to manifest themselves as simply “increased switched power density!” In practice, how can this be best achieved?
Serial Buses Free I/O Pins
June 25, 2007 11:14 am | by Jon Titus | Articles | CommentsMore times than designers might like to admit, they wish for just one more I/O pin on a microcontroller. Three chip-to-chip serial buses can help overcome I/O pin limits. The following information provides a quick overview and points you to sources of more information.
Brits Invent Filament-Free Light Bulb
June 25, 2007 10:34 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps is a simple way to save energy, but a new technology using microwave power may soon lead to traditional(-ish) bulbs that last for thousands of hours. According to The Economist, researchers at Ceravision are perfecting a bulb with no filament, and therefore
Solar-Powered Cell Phones Debut
June 21, 2007 6:16 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Solar power worked pretty well for calculators in the 1980s, and now it's available in cell phones from China's Hi-Tech Wealth company. Like any other new technology, this does not come cheap: think about the $500 range and for now it's only available in China. But it's a great way to show off your green-friendliness to friends and colleagues without having to invest in a hybrid car
Are You Googlin' My Way?
June 19, 2007 7:09 am | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Google.org is giving up to $11 million for hybrid vehicle research, with the goal of developing plug-in vehicles capable of reaching 70 to 100 miles per gallon. Google also hopes the project, dubbed RechargeIT, will lead to development of
Q & A with Stephen Wong
June 18, 2007 10:33 am | Articles | CommentsIn this Interview Stephen Wong, Regional Director of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) for the Americas, discusses the state of distribution in Hong Kong and touches on key topics such as the impact of China's membership in the WTO, RoHS and Hong Kong's strategies to strengthen their global position.
What's the Purpose of Energy Efficiency? Or Am I Just an Idiot Dorkosaurus Rex?
June 15, 2007 10:45 am | Blogs | CommentsOp-Ed: It happened a month ago: two months after founding The Efficiency Zone, someone in readerland finally posted a reply. They said, "You're an idiot. Energy efficient design is not about saving mother earth. It's about delivering a device that lasts on a battery all day such as a cell phone. All the new devices stress low power needs to keep the battery going, not because an extra mWh is gonna lessen the carbon foot print on Motorola."
Solar Thermal: Tech on the Rebound
June 11, 2007 12:26 pm | Blogs | CommentsProductive Product: Try, try again: it might work for solar thermal technology, which unlike traditional solar power can still generator power in the evening. A 64-megawatt plant just opened outside of Las Vegas, but even at that scale it may not be efficient enough to offer mainstream cost savings.
Efficiency Vital To Planetary Health?
June 11, 2007 11:56 am | Blogs | CommentsEnergy News: Energy efficiency is vital if the world's leading nations want to curb global warming, officials at the Group of Eight summit said last week. The necessary long-term steps are to "promote the appropriate policy approaches and instruments, including inter-alia economic incentives and sound fiscal policies, minimum standards
