Apple and renewable energy

Apples, Currier & Ives, 1868. (Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.)

Responding to criticism over energy consumption at its data centers from Greenpeace and other activist groups, Apple made an announcement on its website on Thursday, May 17, 2012:

Apple’s data center in Maiden, North Carolina, will draw about 20 megawatts [...]

Philips LED is the light bulb of the future

This prize winning LED by Phillips screws in and fits where a 60 watt incandescent does. But it only uses 10 watts of power, outputs 900 lumens, and lasts a whopping 30,000 hours. Plus, it’s dimmable and has light like an incandescent.

The initial price will be a steep $50. But even at that, [...]

California electric vehicles plan has huge loophole

peachygreen.com

The California Air Resources Board, in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has mandated that automakers put 1.4 million electric and hybrid vehicles on the road by 2025. Not only is this potentially not do-able as stated, it also has a loophole which prevents the plan from being succeeding.

How CARB plans [...]

Ikea replacing wooden pallets with cardboard pallets

Cardboard pallets hold the same weight as wooden ones and are used once then recycled. Ikea says the 90% reduction in pallet weight will save them nearly $200 million a year in transportation charges.

Water and power usage inextricably linked, especially in California

Most forms of power generation, especially coal, oil, and natural gas, require large amounts of water. The US Geological Service says nearly half of the nation’s water consumption is used in creating electricity, an astonishingly high number. Coal and petroleum-based energy are among the most water-intensive, as water is used every step along the [...]

Solar tower technology recycles plastic into oil

Wow. The Land Art Generator Initiative took inventor Akinori Iti’s idea to convert plastic back to petroleum and figured out how to do it with solar tower technology. They called it Plastikoleum. Not only does this save energy, they think they can do it at a scale of 10 tons of plastic per hour, [...]

Hydraulic hybrid conversion for school bus

Ford and Georgia Tech is teaming together to convert a regular bus to a hydraulic hybrid, something which adopted widely, could save enormous amounts of gas.

Why a hydraulic hybrid system, and not a standard hybrid-electric? Simply put, regenerative braking powers a pump, that pushes fluid into a reservoir that provides power directly to [...]

Japan drops nuclear plans, will focus on conservation and renewables

Japan will scrap a plan to obtain half of its electricity from nuclear power and will instead promote renewable energy and conservation as a result of its continuing nuclear crisis, the Prime Minister said Tuesday.

The emphasis on conservation is particularly noteworthy. A smart grid, smart appliances, and a general effort to not waste [...]

Facebook’s new energy efficient datacenter

Robert Scoble tours the datacenter, which was built using Open Compute Project standards and best practices for energy efficiency.

One of the most significant features of the facility was that Facebook eliminated the centralized UPS system found in most data centers. “In a typical data center, you’re taking utility voltage, you’re transforming it, you’re [...]

Creating power from waste heat at refineries

New processes now capture heat generated by oil refineries in crushing rock to extract methane and use it to generate electricity. There are huge amounts of wasted energy and unused heat in our manufacturing processes. The more we can use this essentially free energy, the more efficient we will be.

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