May 15, 2008

EPS Debuts Energy Monitoring Tech

EPS Corp. unveiled a new hardware and software called xChange Point that gives companies "near real-time" visibility into their power consumption and carbon footprint.

xChange Point™ is the premier hardware and software carbon and energy monitoring solution designed to integrate system-wide information in real time, providing executive and operational management with the data to track and adjust energy consumption and carbon emissions. The product provides an eagle-eye view of a facility’s systems and subsystems and gives decision-makers the ability to have near real-time information to make decisions on a micro and macro level like never before. xChange Point™ helps companies calculate their energy usage and carbon output at the product level.

According to EPS, the product is currently in beta testing and will become broadly available in June as a subscription-based offering. The company's other work includes a recent 223 kW solar project in the California Bay Area.

Thanks Dan!

Posted by phernandez at 1:30 PM | Add Comment

May 14, 2008

Green Matters: US DOE Sees the Direction the Wind is Blowing

Bigger than Craigslist vs. Ebay, today's green stories of note.

DOE Report: Wind Could Power 20 Percent of US Grid by 2030 - Wired.com

A new report from the Department of Energy claims that wind turbines could generate 300 gigawatts by 2030, which would power about 20 percent of the US electrical grid.

The forecasting scenario would require tremendous growth in the wind industry, which currently produces about 17 gigawatts of electricity, or a little over one percent of total capacity.

'Green' procurement goes into the black - Purchasing.com

Just ask IBM, Herman Miller and GlaxoSmithKline. At IBM, sustainable sourcing and supply chain efficiency go hand in hand. Herman Miller uses Green concepts to optimize the lifecycle of their products. And at GlaxoSmithKline, purchasing works with the company's research and development staff to find ways to save energy, water and cut down on emissions. Though their definitions of Green and their approaches to environmentally friendly purchasing may differ, each company follows the three Rs—reduce, reuse, recycle—and each works to find the best way to promote Green throughout their respective supply chains.

Ahead of the Curve: It's quiet, it's green, it's the Rack o' My Dreams - InfoWorld

After a long and edifying discussion, GizMac, a company that really needs to work on its name, agreed to send me an XRackPro2 sealed rack enclosure. GizMac was careful to set my expectations. XRackPro2 is not, the company warned, a noise-isolating cabinet. It reduces noise, I've learned, with varying effectiveness depending on the type and amount of fan noise generated inside the rack. But I'll tell you this: I packed an 8-core Xserve and two 16-core machines in a 6U XRackPro2. When I powered them all up, the noise was so overwhelming as to make a telephone call impossible from anywhere in the room. Until, that is, I shut XRackPro2's foam-sealed front and back doors.

The top 10 green issues in the workplace - ITWeb

Results of the survey show that almost 40% of US respondents said their number one office environmental pet peeve was mindless printing resulting in abandoned pages at the printer, followed closely by leaving the lights on in unused offices (37%).

DOE Lab To Get the Biofuels Party (Re)started - Matter Network

Specific projects will focus on perfecting biochemical and thermochemical processes for turning cellulosic biomass into a more eco-friendly ethanol brew. "Cellulosic ethanol is a critical component of the President's comprehensive strategy to diversify our nation's energy sources in a sustainable manner, enhance energy security and address the serious challenge of global climate change," said Andy Karsner, DOE Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Posted by phernandez at 12:52 PM | Add Comment

May 13, 2008

Maybe Not So Smart?

Charming Europeans for ages, the Smart Fortwo is finally taking to the streets in the U.S. The sub-subcompact is certainly eye-catchingly cute and it delivers relatively high MPG ratings (more on that in a sec), but not everyone is smitten.

The New York Times took the tiny car for a spin in LA and NYC and they walked away a bit underwhelmed. In short, practicality is not the car's strong suit--no shocker there--and power is on the meager side. But the biggest knock against it is that there are already cars on the road that deliver better performance and can fit at least two more people and their gear for around the same MPG and sticker price, even if they're slightly harder to park between two SUVs.

Author Lawrence Ulrich's spin around NYC reveals the following.

Sizing up the Smart against a subcompact you’d expect it to get at least 50 miles to the gallon. The Smart design certainly gets the basics right: it weighs just 1,800 pounds and its rear-mounted engine, a 1-liter 3-cylinder power plant of 70 horsepower, is the smallest in the market.

While the Smart has the best fuel-economy rating of any nonhybrid sold in America, you’d expect far better numbers from its bite-size body. Its E.P.A. rating is just 33 miles per gallon in town and 41 on the highway. I averaged an unspectacular 33 m.p.g. over a week of driving.

So, does the Fortwo have an uphill battle ahead or it is the right car at the right time?

Posted by phernandez at 11:15 AM | Add Comment

May 12, 2008

Still More Tesla Drama

Despite the sordid corporate maneuvers and technological hiccups that plagued Tesla Motors, enthusiasm over the battery-powered roadster is still high not that they have a showroom in LA and the car is emerging from vaporware's smoky tendrils. But someone's not feeling the love.

That someone is Tesla's (booted) founder, Martin Eberhard.

After being denied the first production car (tacky much?), he was promised the second one to roll off the line. Now it seems he's not even get that one. Of course, it all depends on what you take "production car" to mean.

If you want to follow this drama-soaked tale, go to AutoBlog Green. But make yourself a sandwich first, it's a doozy.

Posted by phernandez at 5:17 PM | Add Comment

Finally! Zero Power Draw Standby

Exciting news out of Osaka, Japan!

Semiconductor maker Rohm Co is promising to vanquish vampires, those gadgets that consume power even when they're supposedly off. The company has developed a large-scale integrated (LSI) circuit that requires zero electricity as it waits to be reawakened.

Productions starts next year. In Japan, the company estimates that 15 billion kilowatt hours are wasted on electronics that are just sitting around, waiting.

Soon you won't have to crawl under your desk to shut off your power strip. Not that you do it now, but if you did...

Posted by phernandez at 4:32 PM | Add Comment

May 9, 2008

Apple's Dismal Eco-score

Climate Counts has just released their environmental score card and Apple came in dead last. Why? Here's their report card to help explain:

Review: 0/22 points. Climate Counts found no publicly available information on Apple’s efforts to measure its companywide impact on global warming (i.e., its greenhouse gas emissions or climate footprint).

Reduce: 8/56 points. Climate Counts has found that Apple has completed analysis of the impact that many of its products have on global warming while being used by consumers and has engaged with its employees and other companies on climate-related issues.

Policy Stance: 0/10 points. Climate Counts found no public information to suggest that Apple supports public policy that addresses climate change.

Report: 3/12 points. Climate Counts has found that Apple has made some public information available on its efforts to address global warming.

Seems the company is getting hammered for being less than forthcoming. The good news is that at they scored 9 points above last year's results.

The top spot goes to IBM, which has a score card that reads like a love letter:

Reduce: 44/56 points. Climate Counts has found that IBM has established clear goals to reduce its energy use, and has reduced its impact on global warming (i.e., its greenhouse gas emissions or climate footprint). The company also encourages energy conservation by others.

Kudos!

[via MacNN]

Posted by phernandez at 1:32 PM | Add Comment

May 8, 2008

Green Storage: MAID 2.0

Enterprise storage watchers have been keeping an eye on MAID (massive array of idle disks) technology, not only for energy savings, but also keep lower priority data off costly, high-performance storage systems. Companies like Copan, for example, have made a name for themselves by offering arrays that shut down disks when they're not in use.

Now the industry is looking to minimize the performance penalties inherent to MAID, according to Gary Watson, CTO of storage vendor Nexsan. Hence, MAID 2.0. In an article over at Computer Technology Review, he writes:

Here’s how MAID 2.0 works: data center managers set multiple (usually three) settings on their drives. The first setting saves a moderate amount of energy by unloading the drive heads but maintaining full disk spin. This is the most commonly used setting during times of regular application usage. The next setting slows down disk spin rates and can save significantly more energy. The tradeoff at this setting is an approximate 15 second recovery time. This is used typically for less critical data retrieval, depending upon the individual needs of the user. The final setting saves the most energy and stops spinning the disks altogether. Unlike traditional MAID, however, disks don’t have to wait for a given RAID set to be allowed to spin up; they just spin up as needed. This results in sub-minute recovery times for data retrieval, well within acceptable parameters of even the most demanding data center professionals.

He then goes on to give advice on getting IT managers to invest in greener gear, especially now that they're subject to massive amounts of greenwashing.

Posted by phernandez at 3:19 PM | Add Comment

Google Street View Succumbs to Litter

Plastic bags are already on the environmentalist's hit list. Now they're botching up Google Street Views in Alaska.

Geeks, revolt!

[via Gizmodo]

Posted by phernandez at 11:00 AM | Add Comment

May 7, 2008

Green Business Roadmap

There's no getting around it. Greening your datacenter or company (or both) is going to take some adjustment. But at its core, it's an opportunity to get back to business basics, submits Polly Traylor of Datamation. Namely, getting the most output for the least amount of input and profiting from it.

In her article, "Green Computing, Green Revenue", she lays out five steps to not only cut carbon emissions, but also help to you keep more of that hard-earned revenue. In my opinion, step number 3 is the most critical....

3. Get a Professional Energy Audit and Track Energy Use.

Yes, this will cost you money – anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, according to Jerry Lawson, national manager of Energy Star. However, if your business is going to be around for a long time, hiring an auditor might be a wise investment. "We believe you can't manage what you can't measure," he says.

Grab the rest of the steps here.

Posted by phernandez at 11:31 AM | Add Comment

Using the Sun to Hear

Some DIY gumption, business savvy and a hint of green... now this is the kind of story I like!

Newsweek brings us the story of Canadian executive Howard Weinstein who set out to provide relief to the hearing impaired in Southern Africa. The problem is that hearing aids, as they are traditionally designed and manufactured, are expensive to maintain because of batteries.

His solution: rechargeable batteries, a solar charger and an untapped source of skilled labor.

[via Engadget]

Posted by phernandez at 10:01 AM | Add Comment