Articles from Science News, Articles and Information

Can Iceland's Renewables Power the Web?

Explore Science News, Articles and Information (Oct 17 2011) Fossil Fuel , Geothermal , Servers

Iceland is working to tip the scales toward renewable energy in a world where most computing needs are powered by coal. The familiar fuss is that fossil fuels make the most business sense for computing. Data centers -- the big warehouses full of servers that process all our Googling, emailing, online banking and so forth -- are situated in areas that have easy access to cheap energy. [More] (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Iceland   Europe   Verne Global

Is There a Silver Lining for the Environment in Cloud Computing?

Explore Science News, Articles and Information (Aug 10 2011) Carbon Footprint , Cloud Computing , Servers

Compared to familiar climate-saving programs that aim to stuff greenhouse gases into the ground or harness the power of the wind, ideas like "cloud computing" are hard to penetrate. Still, the practice is gaining attention as the information technology (IT) industry promotes it as a tool to save both energy and money. [More] (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Greenpeace   Google   Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Will Politics Slow the Wind?

Explore Science News, Articles and Information (Mar 9 2010) Wind

Not many years ago, there wasn't enough wind power coming from the Great Plains to worry about. Now there is, and lots of people are worrying. A group of mostly East Coast utility companies calling itself the Coalition for Fair Transmission Policy fears that the prime conditions in the Great Plains will make the region's wind power too cheap for its members to compete with, unless developers there are made to pay the costs of moving wind power eastward. (Read Full Article)

Comment Mentions:   Energy Department   American Electric Power   National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Cool Idea: Fan-Free Technology Could Put a Chill on Hot Laptops

Explore Science News, Articles and Information (May 22 2009) Power and Cooling

Anyone who has worked on a laptop resting on their thighs for more than a few minutes has probably wondered whether there is a better way to keep it from overheating than with tiny internal fans. (The bad news: the problem will be aggravated as faster, and thereby hotter processors are crammed into ever-shrinking electronics.) The answer may lie in electro-hydrodynamic cooling, a technique where the air inside electronic devices is electrically charged so that heat disperses more efficiently. Both academic and commercial researchers are pursuing technology that enables electro-hydrodynamic cooling, which uses an electrode to create a high-intensity electrical field that ionizes (electrically charges) the air molecules around it in tandem with a second set of electrodes to attract those charged particles. As the ionized air molecules move from one electrode to the others, they carry with them a steady flow of air, much like a running brook carries ... (Read Full Article)

Comment