GreenTech24

Nissan kicks off a 22-city tour to get the EV in front of the public and warm them to the quirks of post-gasoline car ownership, including battery leasing.

IBM is providing sensors and software to Australia’s Power and Water Corporation, Japan’s Fukuoka District Waterworks Agency and the Lower Colorado River Authority to boost their water management efforts and reduce waste.

Courting local utilities by dangling the smart grid communications carrot may help rural communities improve their chances of scoring some broadband stimulus funds.

Proving that even small data centers can save big on energy costs, The Green Grid helped the EPA improve energy efficiency by 20 percent at its modestly-sized data center near Washington, DC. For the EPA, that translates into $15,000 a year in savings and all it only required cheap, easy-to-implement measures. Now, think of all [...]

The Demand Response and Smart Grid Coalition welcomes LG and Electrolux, signaling that interest in smart appliances is heating up. And yes, GE is already a member.

It's great to see some of the large wind farm projects that were just ideas a couple of years ago become reality. First Wind's Milford Wind Corridor project has just seen the completion of its first phase - 203.5 MW in Millard and Beaver Counties in Utah, the largest renewable energy facility in the state. The wind farm consists of 97 turbines and will be able power 45,000 homes.  Southern California Public Power Authority is purchasing all of the electricity generated over the next 20 years on behalf of the cities of Los Angeles, Pasadena and Burbank. Construction on the wind farm began almost exactly a year ago.  Over the next few years, the wind corridor will expand to include four more phases totaling over 1 GW of wind energy capacity. via Press Release

The Planetary Society is planning to launch a solar-propelled space craft in 2010 after its first attempt landed in the ocean four years ago. The LightSail-1 would run on the pressure of light hitting its four triangular-shaped Mylar sails. The society sees the project as a way to achieve long space flights with slow, continuous acceleration that eventually leads to high speeds. The society's executive director imagines flights of many years reaching speeds of 100,000 mph where the craft could leave the solar system in five years instead of 25. The spacecraft will be composed of three Cubesats, small cubes that contain the electronics and controls modules and the sails. When the craft hits the target altitude the sails will unfurl to resemble a kite. The LightSail-1 will "piggyback" on another mission's rocket (the exact one is yet to be determined) and then orbit at an altitude of around 500 miles for a few days to test sunlight as a means of propulsion. If it's successful, the...

EPEAT certification is a good indication that the PC hardware you are considering lives up to your eco-standards, unless you go wild checking off those option boxes.

It boils down to infrastructure, for the most part. However, BMW has also identified other factors that need ironing out before widespread EV adoption can take place.

By partnering with The Green Grid, the EPA is proving that even small and medium-sized data centers can realize big energy savings.

Green gadgets and an assortment of innovations make up a fifth of Time’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009 list. Among them is the Nissan Leaf and EnergyHub’s dashboard.

Google’s willingness to bypass smart meters and Cisco’s feature-rich EnergyWise platform are giving the tech giants a head start in the energy management game.

Smart grid–connected appliances have a long way to go, but here's a few tips for how to get there more quickly.

Small-scale wind turbines can't produce the large amounts of power that their giant brothers can, but there's still room for them in the renewable energy landscape.  As an example, cell phone company Core Communications will begin using small vertical-axis wind turbines to power their cell phone towers. The company will use turbines from Helix Wind that can generate electricity in winds as slow as 10 mph.  The turbines will power the towers and any extra electricity will be sold to the grid, giving Core Communications a new source of revenue as well. The turbines will be installed on a trial basis on cell phone towers in Southern California for three months starting in early 2010.  If they perform well enough, additional turbines could be rolled out permanently. via CNET

As a new mom and an ecogeek, I know that choosing a diapering method is a huge issue. Disposable diapers clog landfills for hundreds of years. There are alternatives to disposables, of course, but they have their drawbacks. Cloth diapers require extra water and electricity for laundering and the couple of biodegradable options don't quite perform as well and are hard to find at local supermarkets. This leads to an overwhelming majority of parents choosing disposables and approximately 27.4 billion diapers making their way to American landfills every year. Enter one of the more exciting stories I've come across in a while. UK companies Versus Energy and Knowaste are partnering up to build the world's first diaper recycling plant. Not only will the diapers collected stay out of landfills, but the plant will actually run on the organic matter contained in them. The diapers will be shredded, washed, sanitized and separated into organic material and reusable paper pulp and plastic that may...

It’s hard to look at all the utilities hopping on the Google PowerMeter bandwagon and not wonder if Microsoft is serious about getting Hohm into, well, more homes. Wonder no more. Tomorrow, the software giant plans to announce that Xcel Energy’s 3.4 million customers have access to Microsoft’s free online energy management tool.

On Friday, Microsoft plans to announce that its online home energy tool is available to Xcel’s 3.4 million customers.

here it is .... the beginning of the end of the world as we know it..of reality as we know it. ..robots, nanorobots, invisibility, immortality, new life forms design - Petr Buben

ABI Research estimates the market will reach $155 million by 2014 from just $10 million in 2008. Why? An explosion of wireless energy monitoring and management devices, many of which are based on ZigBee. Sorry, Wi-Fi.

Imagination will provide its META processor and related IP to help expand Green Plug compatibility among OEMs. Is the end drawing closer for power adapters?

Despite the Wi-Fi Alliance’s maneuverings, the technology’s limitations and progress from upstarts are conspiring to keep Wi-Fi on the fringes of the smart grid.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current... - Petr Buben from Bookmarklet

there's one in the atlantic too, :( http://geography.about.com/od... - chaz2b

Very sad, especially in the effects this has on wildlife. - John (a.k.a. dendroica)

In the quest to make hydrogen as a clean alternative fuel source, researchers have been stymied about how to create usable hydrogen that is clean and sustainable without relying on an intensive, high-energy process that outweighs the benefits of not using petroleum to power vehicles. New findings however, show that photosynthesis may function as that clean, sustainable source of hydrogen.

Some countries already get a substantial share of their electricity consumption from wind power: Denmark 20%, Spain and Portugal 11%, Ireland 9%, and Germany 7%. Power systems have to cope with variable electricity consumption. Variable wind power will increase variations that the power system has to manage. According to a recent IEA WIND report, wind energy is rather smoothly integrated as system operators get on-line production levels and forecasted production estimates in their control rooms.

The performance of modern electronics increases steadily on a fast pace thanks to the ongoing miniaturization of the utilized components. However, severe problems arise due to quantum-mechanical phenomena when conventional structures are simply made smaller and reach the nanometer scale. Therefore current research focuses on the so-called bottom-up approach: the engineering of functional structures with the smallest possible building blocks -- single atoms and molecules.

And by-and-large, they consume 15 percent less energy than built to conform to the 2004 International Residential Code.

Have you ever been driving in rush hour and wished you could just zone out and read a book during your trip instead of stressing about the traffic? Well, the EU is testing a way to make that possible while cutting fuel consumption at the same time. The idea is that eight vehicles would travel as one "train," linked by wireless sensors. It's believed that the system, called Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE), could cut fuel use by 20 percent for cars traveling in the trains. Each road train would be controlled by a lead vehicle driven by a professional driver. All other drivers in the train would be passengers able to take their hands off the wheel and enjoy the ride. Sensors would collect and send information to the lead vehicle about what was happening around each of the cars. Cars, buses and trucks would all be able to join a train and could leave at any time. The SARTRE project will be conducted for three years on test tracks in the UK, Spain and Sweden and eventually on...

GE is facing a chicken and egg problem. The company now offers smart water heaters but there are few smart meter-equipped homes to sell them to. Plus, not every utility offers time-of-day electricity pricing. So while the emergence of smart appliances is a welcome sight, expect tepid demand until all those pieces start falling into [...]

The Wi-Fi Alliance is making moves to turn the wireless networking technology into the go-to smart grid communications standard.

According to a senior International Energy Agency official, the energy watchdog agency fears the truth would trigger panic buying A senior official at the International Energy Agency turned whistleblower just prior to the release of a major IEA report, and claimed that the international organization has downplayed a looming oil shortage to appease the U.S. and prevent panic buying. The anonymous whistleblower apparently told his story to The Guardian on the eve of the new World Energy Outlook report that went public Tuesday. He alleged that the international watchdog has bowed to U.S. pressure to underplay the decline of existing oil fields and overplay the possibility of tapping new fields. Outside economists and energy experts have already criticized a figure within the new report that states oil production can grow from 83 million barrels per day to 105 million barrels per day by 2030. The whistleblower added that the IEA had already dropped its 2030 estimates from 120 million...