Clean & Green News

DSL may be the key to holding down 'smart grid' costs

By Tim Conneally on June 16, 2009, 2:07 PM

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The US government is attaching new priority to the task of reducing nationwide energy waste, with one approach being to modernize the country's aging power grid. By creating a "Smart Grid," or a self-monitoring and balancing network of electricity, the US may be able to utilize all forms of power (solar, fossil fuel, hydroelectric, wind, nuclear) in a more efficient and less wasteful manner.

Because $4.5 billion of national stimulus funds have been allocated to the creation of such a smart grid, a host of companies have sprung up, ready to provide the technology. However, just as the forms of energy are coming from disparate sources, there are different communications networks, metering software and central management systems at play. Just one week ago, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released its first preliminary List of Smart Grid Interoperability Standards , and according to the group, it could take several hundred different standards to achieve a secure, end-to-end interoperability across a fully implemented smart grid.

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ZigBee aims to cut energy costs through IP-based metering

By Tim Conneally on May 18, 2009, 4:57 PM

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The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a non-profit international board which drafts and publishes standards for a huge range of electric and electronic technologies. Among the hundreds of standards put out by the IEC, some of the most notable include VHS/S-VHS video cassette technology (IEC 60774), digital audio based on compact discs (IEC 60908) and electromagnetic compatibility (IEC 61000).

You may not be familiar with ZigBee just yet, but if the IEC gets its hands on it, that could change. ZigBee is a low-power wireless protocol similar to Bluetooth that fits under the 802.15.4 personal area network standard. Its current largest deployments are in home utility wireless networks and smart meters, and because of its conservative use of electricity, the ZigBee Alliance is attempting to make it the preeminent standard for smart energy metering. Today, the group announced that it will be submitting its ZigBee Smart Energy profile to the IEC for as the basis of a new standard in smart grid technology.

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Every UK home to get a smart meter

By Tim Conneally on May 12, 2009, 6:01 PM

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By 2020, every British household could be equipped with a smart meter -- a device that will allow for a higher level of granularity in tracking a home's energy consumption, and could lead to an overall reduction in carbon waste. Last October, the UK Government announced that intended to mandate smart meters for all households and small and medium-sized business sites.

Yesterday, the Department of Energy and Climate Change's (DECC) Ed Miliband announced the government has launched a public consultation ( found here ) on the implementation of smart meters which will be open until August 3.

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Xerox rolls out pioneering ColorQube printer with crayon-like ink

By Jacqueline Emigh on May 7, 2009, 2:22 PM

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Formerly codenamed Jupiter, the ColorQube 9200 series printers unveiled today will bring groundbreaking cost efficiencies to color printing through a combination of solid ink technology and per-click pricing plans, Xerox officials contended, in a series of press launches.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to announce that, for the first time, you can release your 'true colors' in the office," declared Xerox Corp. President Ursula Burns, touting ColorQube as the "most significant change in office printing in the past 30 years."

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EcoFocus: PCs and software meet bikes, paint, and other green goods

By Jacqueline Emigh on May 1, 2009, 1:17 PM

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At Pepcom's EcoFocus press event this week, HP launched new notebooks featuring HP Smart AC Adapters for automatically making power adjustments when needed. Available preloaded with a choice of Microsoft Windows or Novell SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11, the five new HP ProBook models also come with HP Mobile Broadband, a system combining an HP m2400 module with built-in Qualcomm Gobi technology to support wireless connectivity to multiple broadband networks and operators.

Priced starting at about $529, the ProBooks come in 14-, 15.6-, and 17.-3-inch widescreen flavors. All five ProBooks are also outfitted with a new keyboard design, in which the keys are raised in an attempt to prevent dust and dirt from settling underneath. The notebooks offer a mercury-free design and high-definition backlit displays. A compatible USB 2.0 docking station is slated to ship in June, Betanews was told.

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EcoFocus: PiSAT launches solar-powered 'green' lantern

By Jacqueline Emigh on April 30, 2009, 3:25 PM

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PiSAT and its partner the Koinonia Foundation gave the K-Light its first big push at last night's EcoFocus show in Manhattan, demoing how the soda can-sized solar device can morph from a lantern to a flashlight in just a few seconds when you remove the side handles and the piece on top.

Like SunNight's solar flashlight , touted during the CEA's Greener Gadgets Expo last month, PiSAT's K-Light is set for distribution in a couple of different ways: through foundation subsidies in developing nations, and commercial sales in the US and elsewhere.

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This week in ZigBee: The low-power wireless standard gets a boost

By Tim Conneally on April 30, 2009, 1:38 PM

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ZigBee is one of several brand name specs for the 802.15.4 wireless personal area network standard that concentrates on simple, low data rate connections. In the roughly five years it has existed, it has found its place in home automation, smart metering and remotely controllable embedded systems.

Openness: As carbon waste reduction becomes a greater interest to the public, ZigBee has enjoyed improved adoption , and this week the ZigBee Alliance announced its latest spec will be even more diverse. The next draft will include Internet Engineering Task Force ( IETF ) standards, which will add native IP support to ZigBee and in turn open the low-power wireless technology to new potential uses.

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New Opteron EE processors attempt to carve out an 'ultra-low-power' niche

By Scott M. Fulton, III on April 22, 2009, 3:31 PM

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Already, AMD has a low-power segment to its Opteron server processor line, the HE series. With Intel Xeon processors still holding a measurable performance lead -- especially with models that command a comfortable premium -- AMD needs to be able to compete efficiently and maintain that goal of 40% gross margin ( it made 43% last quarter ). And to do that, the company feels it needs a new product category for a certain segment of customers who may be willing to pay a bit extra for something particularly useful.

If that's not performance, then for now, maybe it can be very low power consumption. This afternoon, the company announced a new and exclusive segment of Opteron EE quad-core processors that are intentionally turned down , drawing 40 watts of average CPU power (ACP, which is AMD's own metric) versus 75 watts for the standard Opteron and 55 watts for the company's Opteron HEs -- which will continue to exist as an in-between choice.

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Retrevo provides a survival guide to greener living with electronics

By Angela Gunn on April 22, 2009, 2:40 PM

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For your Earth Day reading enjoyment, the folks at Retrevo (that indispensable source for the product manual you were just sure you'd never need to open again -- you know, the one you tossed two days before you desperately needed page 47) have a nice PDF guide to greening your electronics usage without tearing your hair out.

And if 30 pages is too much greenery for you -- a real possibility according to a recent Retrevo survey -- we talked them out of one tip that everyone should be able to handle.

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Seagate adopts the 'hybrid' theme for Earth Day with 5900 RPM HDD

By Scott M. Fulton, III on April 22, 2009, 11:55 AM

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On this Earth Day, a number of manufacturers are releasing their "green" product announcements, some believing they're either capitalizing upon, or trying to jump-start, a social trend in smarter engineering. But PC builders and OEMs don't need peace rallies and protest signs to tell them how important it is to make systems and data centers run cooler and with more energy efficiency.

For them, the news from Seagate today about a new class of lower-power Barracuda hard drives that makes an effort to squeeze out a little more performance than low-power drives have before, will make them skip over the whole Earth Day part and go straight to the details. The company's new Barracuda LP series will be unique in that it won't reduce drive rotation as much as other brands and as Seagate's own brands have in the past.

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Sun launches cost-conscious x86 servers for clouds

By Jacqueline Emigh on April 17, 2009, 10:18 PM

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11:45 am ET April 20, 2009 - Sun Microsystems' announcement last week came before the business deal last weekend that led to the absorption of Sun by Oracle . Most noteworthy from Monday morning's joint conference call with Oracle and Sun management was that Oracle CEO Larry Ellison characterized the deal as a software acquisition. Though the fact that Sun makes servers was mentioned (Oracle does now as well), that fact wasn't high on anyone's list this morning. And because no questions were taken from the press, we don't actually know the fate of the Sun Fire server lineup that Jacqueline Emigh covered just late last week.

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Tesla rakes in over $2.6 million from Model S reservations

By Nate Mook on April 2, 2009, 3:56 PM

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In a slight modification to the old mantra, "If you promise to build it, they will come" seems to be the order of the day at Tesla Motors, which has become a darling of Silicon Valley with its $100,000 electric roadster built atop the Lotus Elise platform.

The company announced Wednesday that it has taken over 520 pre-orders for its recently-unveiled fully-electric Model S Sedan, which is expected to cost $50,000 after a $7,000 federal tax credit. Tesla doesn't actually take orders, since the vehicles won't enter production until late 2011 at the earliest, but is instead selling "reservations" for $5,000 each. And some buyers surely plopped down $40,000 to reserve the first editions of the car to roll off the line.

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'Earth Hour' looks for public show of support for Kyoto Protocol U-turn

By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 27, 2009, 3:38 PM

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In December 1997, 37 industrialized nations entered into an agreement signed in Kyoto, Japan, to begin reducing carbon emissions into the Earth's atmosphere by five-percent increments beginning in 2005. Since that time, 181 nations and the European Union have ratified the Kyoto Accord. But the United States -- at the beginning, one of its driving forces, and still believed to be the world's principal emitter of carbon pollution -- never ratified or endorsed the treaty.

It was a fact cited frequently during the campaign of then-US Presidential candidate Joe Biden, now Vice President: After the US turned its back on Kyoto, in a manner that could not be construed as anything other than intentional and a vote against climate change measures, much of the rest of the world perceived the US' move as an implied endorsement of coal-burning plants. As described by Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria in his 2008 book The Post-American World :

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Lenovo intros ultra 'green' Windows and Linux PCs

By Jacqueline Emigh on March 26, 2009, 3:01 PM

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Outfitted with Intel Turbo Charger technology for more efficient performance during peak periods, Lenovo's new S20 and D20 PCs are also largely made up of recycled materials.

Priced from about $1,070 to $1,550, the PCs come with a choice of Intel Nehalem-based Xeon 5300 and W3500 processors, and between Nvidia Quadro and ATI Firepro graphics.

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HP debuts green batteries

By Tim Conneally on March 18, 2009, 12:29 PM

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Boston Power debuted its Sonata battery technology in 2007, as a safer, more efficient alternative to standard lithium ion batteries. Boston Power promises Sonata batteries can charge 80% in 30 minutes, and have an average lifespan of three years.

Hewlett Packard took an early interest in the startup, and late last year officially announced that it had adopted Boston Power's technology for its own line of notebook batteries.

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It has come to this: A claim that patent reform threatens the environment

By Scott M. Fulton, III on March 13, 2009, 6:37 PM

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Much of America's ability to once again play a contributing factor in the restoration of balance in Earth's natural environment depends on the continuing creation of new technologies, both for replacing other technologies that damage our planet and for simply curing the problem at hand. Some of these technologies are being created at the grass roots level, by entrepreneurs and experimenters, often with the intention of licensing or selling that technology once it receives its US patent -- its assurance of originality and viability.

But the value of that patent in the modern market is determined by its defensibility -- literally, how much it can rake in, in infringement cases. Without that market value, much of the incentive for trying to build new technologies in the first place, may be lost.

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Greener batteries: Li-ion cells could charge up in mere seconds

By Jacqueline Emigh on March 12, 2009, 12:17 PM

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Like most people, you're probably tired of waiting hours for your cell phone batteries to recharge. But now, researchers have discovered new technology that reportedly not only charges up batteries in seconds, but enables the batteries to hold their charge well.

In an article published yesterday in the prestigious journal Nature , Byoungwoo Kang and Gerbrand Ceder of MIT report they have figured out a way to get lithium ion batteries -- essentially the same type of battery used in products from mobile phones to hybrid automobiles -- to release and take up lithium ion molecules in under nine seconds.

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Green: Not just for Kermit and data centers anymore

By Angela Gunn on March 10, 2009, 8:39 PM

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IT really is getting greener, notes a new report out from Forrester Research, and now it's time for the green effort to get, well, IT-er. Forrester researchers suggest that the stimulus may spur plenty of advances to business process and strategy as well as public policy and infrastructure.

The "Mapping IT's Green Opportunities" report , released last week, doesn't dismiss what it calls "Green IT 1.0" -- the efforts to improve the energy and carbon footprints of corporate IT departments with virtualization, improved power management and the data-center-centric like. But, say the analysts, there is "a new horizon of green IT 2.0" ahead, involving both business and public concerns.

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Greener Apple: New Macs, iPods aim for efficiency, cleaner environment

By Jacqueline Emigh on March 6, 2009, 3:29 PM

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Through methods ranging from blog jottings by Apple CEO Steve Jobs some time in 2008 to press releases issued just this week, Apple is rather suddenly playing up the environmental friendliness of its PCs. In a product announcement this week for its latest consumer line-up, Apple contended that the Mac mini is "the world's most energy efficient desktop, drawing less than 13 watts of power when idle."

Announcements for Apple's new MacBook Pro, mini, and iMac also suggested that the PCs are well ahead of the curve in terms of compliance with Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) and federal Energy Star guidelines.

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Greener Gadgets: Are people really saving money with 'green PCs?'

By Jacqueline Emigh on March 5, 2009, 3:14 PM

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At the Greener Gadgets Expo last week in New York City, executives for Dell and Intel touted a variety of "green" benefits for newer computer processors and laptop screens. But in another session, a product designer took the computer industry for to task for forcing users into frequent and costly replacements of PCs and software, whether for the sake of "green computing" or other reasons.

Processors such as Core 2 Duo that use Core Microarchitecture produce substantial energy savings for customers over the old Pentium 4 CPU, while also reducing carbon footprints, contended Stephen Harper, Intel's director of environment and energy policy.

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