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Popular Articles
Chromasun to make solar air conditioner
Hara: Software for a carbon-constrained economy
MIT experts tackle nuclear power waste problem
Tuning the energy innovation engine at MIT
Do Google's carbon offsets add up to much?
SAP buys into carbon management
Cisco: Smart grid will eclipse size of Internet
Verdiem dashboard displays PC power savings
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ClearEdge Power to make fuel cell for data centers
Explore Technology News (Aug 23 2011)
ClearEdge Power is making what it hopes is the Goldilocks of fuel cells, a power source big enough for a business or school but less expensive than larger, high-end models.
The Hillsboro, Ore.-based company today said it has raised $73.5 million from institutional investors as well as Austrian energy supplier Gussing Renewable Energy and utility Southern California Edison.
ClearEdge Power's fuel cell delivers 5 kilowatts of electric power and the equivalent of 5.8 kilowatts of heat.
(Credit: ClearEdge Power)
The series E round will be used to expand to the east coast U.S. and internationally, including into central Europe. The company also intends to expand its product line with a fuel cell designed specifically for data centers, a product which is being now tested with customers, according to CEO Russell Ford.
The data center fuel cell will provide power at about half the cost of ...
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Europe Southern California Edison Bloom Energy
Study warns against hyping carbon-fixing biochar
Explore Technology News (Nov 29 2010)
Of all the approaches to cutting carbon emissions, making charcoal and putting it in the ground as fertilizer would seem one of the least controversial. But a report published today offers words of caution around expecting too much from biochar.
Biochar, also called man-made charcoal, is made by decomposing plants and other organic materials into charcoal through pyrolysis, or slowly burning biomass at high temperatures with no oxygen. The resulting biochar can be used as a soil fertilizer, a technique used by ancient civilizations in the Amazon.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Amazon.com
Study: Cloud computing for business uses less energy
Explore Technology News (Nov 9 2010)
A Microsoft-sponsored analysis released today reaffirms what many tech companies have long been saying: computing is more efficient when it's concentrated in the "cloud" at giant data centers.
The range of savings from having hosted vs. on-premise IT infrastructure is between 30 percent and 90 percent, according to the study, which was conducted by Accenture and sustainability consulting company WSP Energy & Environment.
The greatest energy and greenhouse reductions can be achieved by small businesses with fewer than 100 users. The study was designed around a comparison of three Microsoft applications--SharePoint, Exchange, and Dynamics CRM--in an on-premise mode or using the online versions.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Amazon.com Google Microsoft Corp
Report: Carbon cap to spur nukes, gas, renewables
Explore Technology News (Jul 16 2010)
About half of the electricity in the U.S. is made by burning coal, but a limit on carbon emissions from utilities would lead to a shift toward nuclear, natural gas, and renewable energy, according to a report.
Research and consulting company ICF International released one of its periodic Energy Outlook reports last week, projecting a change in the fuel used for generating electricity in the U.S. if Congress passes an energy and climate bill.
A change in the fuel mix for the grid?
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET )
After months of political wrangling, Senate Democrats in recent weeks have decided to pursue a scaled-down energy and climate bill that would put a national cap on carbon emissions from utilities, rather than all industries. Utilities account for about one-third of emissions. Other measures expected in the bill are incentives for energy efficiency, a renewable-energy mandate for utilities, and a response ...
(Read Full Article)
IBM liquid-cooled supercomputer heats building
Explore Technology News (May 10 2010)
An IBM supercomputer is doubling as a space heater via a technique that reduces energy use by 40 percent and dramatically lowers the overall carbon footprint.
Based at Swiss university ETH Zurich and dubbed Aquasar, the liquid-cooled supercomputer went live on Thursday and started analyzing fluid dynamics while simultaneously providing heat for the building. In a typical data center, about half of the energy is used for cooling.
(Read Full Article)
Can green tech operate under Moore's Law?
Explore Technology News (May 7 2010)
Doubling the performance of clean-energy technologies every 18 months, as the semiconductor industry has seen with Moore's Law, is a tough goal to hit. But the same technical and business concepts that underpin Moore's Law can play out in green tech, say executives from General Electric and Intel.
More businesses are seeking to make money around energy technology and environmental sustainability. But the scale and speed of innovation needs to ramp up in order to tackle environmental problems and conserve natural resources, according to a panel at the annual Ceres conference here on Thursday.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Forrester Research Intel InfoWorld
Nuclear power: friend or foe to renewable energy?
Explore Technology News (Apr 13 2010)
As renewable energy gains steam, environmentalists are increasingly being asked whether to support their longtime enemy: nuclear power.
At the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference here, nuclear power has frequently entered the discussion over the future of clean energy. Prompted by government policies, utilities are investing in wind and solar power but there are limits to what renewable power can do, say people in the industry.
When environmentalists say that clean energy can supply all electricity needs in the near future, they're being idealistic, said David Crane, the CEO of utility NRG Energy, which has invested in solar and wind, but is seeking to build a nuclear power plant in Texas. Compared to carbon capture and underground storage at coal plants, nuclear is more mature, he said.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Natural Resources Defense Council InfoWorld CNET News
Tuning the energy innovation engine at MIT
Explore Technology News (Mar 8 2010)
"China speed," climate change, financing gaps, government policy, nuclear and natural gas, and, of course, science experiments. The MIT Energy Conference on Saturday had a little bit of everything, as entrepreneurs, business people, and academics tried to get their arms around big-picture energy challenges.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become a hotbed for clean-energy innovation over the past four years, attracting students and faculty to the energy field, some of whom have spun out promising companies.
At a showcase, local companies and researchers working in wind, solar, biofuels, storage, and efficiency displayed some of their ongoing work. But at the conference, discussion focused more on conventional energy sources, policy, and financing.
(Read Full Article)
Green tech seeks its 'Netscape moment'
Explore Technology News (Mar 3 2010)
If you're wondering what the next big thing in green tech will be, this is a good place to look.
The ARPA-E Summit, a conference designed to showcase potential breakthrough clean-energy technologies, started on Monday, attracting some 1,700 investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers all vying to reinvent the energy infrastructure to be cleaner and more efficient.
Given the makeup of the group, the mood is optimistic that new technologies can shake up even the slow-moving energy business. At the conference, scientists and entrepreneurs showed off early-stage ideas, such as kinetic energy storage systems or methods for low-cost solar power.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: General Electric InfoWorld Department of Energy
Sun Catalytix secures money for low-cost solar fuel
Explore Technology News (Nov 23 2009)
Sun Catalytix, a company that's trying to develop a revolutionary clean-energy system, has finished a round of seed funding and secured a technology license from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Cambridge, Mass.-based company was formed about one year ago to commercialize research from MIT professor Daniel Nocera in which he attempts to mimic the process of photosynthesis.
Polaris Ventures finalized a $3 million seed round of funding for Sun Catalytix and expects to raise a series A round next year, said Polaris' Bob Metcalfe, who is also on the board.
Sun Catalytix is pursuing a breakthrough system that would use cheap solar panels to produce hydrogen, which would be stored and then used to produce electricity in a fuel cell.
(Credit: MIT)
The core of the company's technology, which Nocera has sought to patent, is a low-cost catalyst for an electrolyzer, a device that splits water ...
(Read Full Article)
DOE technologist handicaps impact of carbon price
Explore Technology News (Nov 12 2009)
BOSTON--If you attached a cost to putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, how would the energy business change?
Steven Koonin, the undersecretary for science at the Department of Energy and former chief scientist of BP, has thought this question over. Koonin was the keynote speaker Thursday at the Fifth Annual Conference on Clean Energy here, where he offered a big-picture analysis of how the U.S. should convert to low-carbon energies.
Steven Koonin, undersecretary for science in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
The main drivers toward cleaner energy are efforts to improve the country's energy security and to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But there are many paths to that destination and we won't get there by only putting a price on carbon, Koonin said.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Department of Energy
Networked 'smart plug' gets energy info flowing
Explore Technology News (Nov 9 2009)
What if you could better control home appliance energy use by making your wall socket more clever?
That's the idea behind TalkingPlug from Toronto-based Zerofootprint, a company that makes software for measuring and monitoring corporate carbon emissions.
TalkingPlug is a plug that fits on top of existing electrical outlets. But it's equipped with componentry to make it a controllable node on a network, including an RFID chip, microprocessor, and wireless networking. The company plans to introduce the product next week.
(Read Full Article)
Lack of global climate deal won't crush green tech
Explore Technology News (Nov 5 2009)
People at green-technology companies will likely keep an eye on next month's global climate change negotiations in Copenhagen but they aren't betting their businesses on the outcome.
Research and events company Cleantech Group on Thursday released an analysis called "Why Cop15 Doesn't Matter," referring to the 15th conference of international climate change talks scheduled to start December 7 in Copenhagen.
With numerous political and economic issues complicating the picture, it would be surprising if a major breakthrough pact emerged next month. But whether there is a binding agreement won't have an immediate impact on the adoption of green technologies, according to research analyst Stephen Marcus, who was the principal author.
(Read Full Article)
Researchers ask how best to engineer the planet
Explore Technology News (Nov 1 2009)
A group of academics on Friday considered the ultimate engineering challenge: building machines to stabilize the earth's climate.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology convened a symposium here to discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of geoengineering, also called climate engineering. Everything from shooting light-blocking particles into the atmosphere to "artificial trees" is being seriously studied, despite trepidation among researchers and opposition from others.
During talks Friday morning, academics said climate engineering techniques are not well understood and, because of the complexity of the global climate system, individual approaches are pockmarked with uncertainties.
(Read Full Article)
Autodesk crunches numbers for greener buildings
Explore Technology News (Oct 27 2009)
Autodesk, a company best known for its AutoCAD three-dimensional design software, has spent the past year developing extensions to its existing products focused on green renovations of existing commercial buildings, company executives said here on Monday.
Last year, Autodesk acquired two companies that had developed analytical tools intended to bring more hard numbers to sustainable design efforts. When used with Autodesk's existing applications, professionals such as architects, designers, and contractors can get a snapshot of how existing buildings perform in terms of energy and water use and can simulate the impact of architectural changes.
(Read Full Article)
IBM data center gets deep energy retrofit
Explore Technology News (Sep 17 2009)
-IBM's "green" data center here is kind of like a techie version of the "This Old House" television show. But in this case, the project was to build a showcase for energy-efficiency computing, rather than construct a new addition for a suburban home.
IBM's main problem was data center sprawl. Five years ago, internal IT staff could barely keep up with growing demand for computing resources from employees, causing an expansion from one data center location to four--a situation that was costly and inefficient.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: InfoWorld Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory IBM
To make better biofuels, researchers add hydrogen
Explore Technology News (Sep 8 2009)
Research on nuclear energy and hydrogen has yielded what backers say is a technology that could replace U.S. oil imports with biofuels made from agricultural by-products.
Scientists at Idaho National Laboratory have been working for the past year and a half on a process to convert biomass, such straw or crop residue, into liquid fuels at a far higher efficiency than existing cellulosic ethanol technologies.
A scarce resource for fuel?
(Credit: Idaho National Laboratory)
Rather than one single development, the technology--named bio-syntrolysis--ties together multiple processes, but it has electrolysis, or splitting water to make hydrogen, at is starting point. When combined with a carbon-free electricity source, the approach could deliver a carbon-neutral biofuel, according to models done at INL which has done research for decades in nuclear energy.
(Read Full Article)
GE: Smart grid yields net-zero energy home
Explore Technology News (Jul 16 2009)
General Electric unveiled a project at its research labs that will let homeowners cut annual energy consumption to zero by 2015. These "net-zero energy homes" will combine on-site power generation through solar panels or wind turbines with energy-efficient appliances and on-site storage. Consumers will get detailed energy data and potentially control appliances with Home Energy Manager, a device that is expected to cost between $200 and $250, according to GE executives at a smart grid media day. (Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: General Electric InfoWorld CNET News
Is smart grid the next green-tech bubble?
Explore Technology News (Jun 19 2009)
WASHINGTON--Here at a conference on the utility of the future, the starring players are Google, IBM, Cisco Systems, Intel, and smart grid start-ups. The reason? Data. Modernizing the grid isn't just about installing more transmissions lines and smart meters. It's a giant information challenge as well, said attendees of consulting firm Kema's Utility of the Future conference here on Thursday. The heavyweight IT companies are seeking to capitalize on initiatives around the world to upgrade the power infrastructure. The U.S. Department of Energy is expected to soon announce how billions of dollars in stimulus money for smart grid will be allocated. Smart grid has also become one of clean-tech venture capitalists' favorite areas, spawning dozens of start-ups with ways to make the grid run more efficiently and integrate more solar and wind power. Altogether, it's a combination that could end up creating a bubble, said ... (Read Full Article)
What's the carbon footprint of your handwash?
Explore Technology News (Jun 16 2009)
Start-up Planet Metrics is developing software that could give consumers a better read on the embedded energy of everyday products.
The San Francisco-based company on Tuesday released the beta test version of its hosted application, which it calls Rapid Carbon Modeling. It also said Method, which makes eco-friendly home-cleaning products, is a customer.
There are a number of companies writing software for calculating how much energy is linked to a business' operations and managing carbon emissions. Planet Metrics' software is geared at manufacturers and makers of consumer packaged goods.
Using Planet Metrics' software, a person could, for example, see how much energy consumption is associated with procuring the components that make up a cell phone. With that information, a company can then look for ways to cut energy consumption, such as reducing waste or finding another supplier.
The carbon footprint picture is built by combining a company's internal data ...
(Read Full Article)
Chromasun to make solar air conditioner
Explore Technology News (Jun 11 2009)
Fledgling company Chromasun plans to put the sun's heat to work cooling commercial buildings.
Founder Peter Le Lievre established the company to apply concentrating solar power techniques used in utility-scale power plants on a small scale, he said on Wednesday.
The potential of applying this technology in dry, sunny areas, such as the southwest U.S. or southern Europe, to cut peak electricity usage is vast, says Le Lievre. If used widely, solar-powered cooling could cut peak electricity usage by about 15 percent, he said.
Le Lievre is scheduled to discuss the solar cooling device, now still in development, at Greentech Media's Green Building Summit on Thursday where he will disclose some initial performance data.
Cooling accounts for a huge portion of the peak-time electrical load, representing about half of the peak electrical load in California. Le Lievre projects the Chromasun device can cut that consumption by a ...
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: InfoWorld Greentech Media CNET News
Verdiem dashboard displays PC power savings
Explore Technology News (Jun 8 2009)
What's the reading? Verdiem's dashboard can be customized to view energy and carbon emissions reductions.(Credit: Verdiem)
Verdiem on Monday is expected to release an add-on to its PC power-management software that gives people a customizable view of energy savings and carbon emissions reductions.
The Seattle-based ...
(Read Full Article)
Carbon software company claims broad patent
Explore Technology News (Jun 5 2009)
Verisae, a small Minnesota-based company, has received a patent for a system to track and report greenhouse gas emissions with software, a business attracting a growing field of companies.
The company on Wednesday said that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a patent to Verisae for a method for calculating a corporation's emissions. The patent, filed in May of 2007, describes a business process for gathering corporate emissions data, generating reports, and managing carbon credits.
Verisae is already offering hosted carbon accounting software focused primarily on retail companies, basing its tracking and reporting on the protocols established by the nonprofit Climate Registry, which sets guidelines for emissions reporting.
"This is a shot across the bow to others building this stuff," said Verisae product manager Daniel Stouffer. "This is a big story for those venture capital companies which might be spending money with firms that might be building ...
(Read Full Article)
Hara: Software for a carbon-constrained economy
Explore Technology News (Jun 1 2009)
Start-up Hara Software is betting that businesses need to get smarter about managing natural resources and carbon emissions even before regulations force them into it.
The Silicon Valley start-up on Monday is scheduled to come out of stealth mode after 18 months to announce the details of its software service which it designed for what its founder calls a "post-carbon economy era."
The 25-person company received $6 million in venture capital from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where partner Al Gore played a role in getting Hara funded. It's the second software-focused investment after PC power management company Verdiem that KPCB has funded as part of a green tech push first launched in 2006.
(Read Full Article)
Comment Mentions: Barack Obama Microsoft Corp
Trilliant buys broadband wireless for smart grid
Explore Technology News (May 28 2009)
Trilliant on Thursday said it has acquired SkyPilot Networks to bring broadband wireless networking to utility smart-grid programs. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
The acquisition of SkyPilot Networks, which used to sell municipal Wi-Fi systems, will allow Trilliant to offer utilities a way to build a private broadband network, according to company executives.
So-called smart meters have a communications link back to utilities, which use that information to getter understanding of changes in demand to run the transmission grid more efficiently. Trilliant supplies radio communications cards that go into meters and software for utilities to run these networks.
To carry information from people's home meters back to the utilities' data centers, the route is combination of networks. Trilliant's gear can create a mesh network among different homes where it can then be transferred to an aggregation point such as a substation. Often, utilities rely on digital cellular networks ...
(Read Full Article)
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