April 2007 Archives

Earlier in the month we spotlighted IBM.com. This time it's Dell.com's turn.

Visitors can take a couple of routes to the company's green initiatives. There's the press and investor-focused page that contains links to its manufacturing and energy efficiency policies. You can also find details on the free recycling program (some other computer makers charge for the service) and a FAQ that answers some pretty basic questions.

But you want some high-falutin' Flash with your eco-education. Fine. For that, head to Dell Earth which is filled with a smattering of feel-good verbiage and swank transitions. The fun really starts when you hit the energy calculators and see how much using the power-saving features on a Dell system can take a chunk off your energy bill and prevent CO2 emissions. Also interesting are the counters at the bottom that reflect how much customers are saving (over $1.3 billion as of today) and how many tons of CO2 emissions didn't escape into the atmosphere (12 million).

IT mavens will want to check out the interactive Datacenter Capacity Planner. Available in web-based or downloadable forms, you can drag and drop servers, storage and peripherals onto a rack and get an estimate of your desired setup's power draw (among other stats). Go nuts!

Somewhere in your house are a handful of rechargeable batteries and a charger collecting dust instead of putting an end to your Energizer-consuming ways. I know your shame...

Well, now geeks (anyone actually) can enjoy freshly charged NiMH AAs with a minimum of fuss.

USB Cell, from Moixa Energy, charges directly from USB ports, the very kind that are all over the place these days. The upside is that there are no chargers to fiddle with and you can replenish those batteries while you work (or play WoW). Now, for the bad news. It costs nearly $20 for a set of two and charging times are a bit on the slow side.

[via EcoGeek]

Is there anything nanoscale technology can't do?

While some futurists paint a bleak picture of what nanotech has in store for mankind (gray goo, anyone?), there are many that think that a sustainable, "clean" economy hinges on advancements in the field.

Already, nanotech is being credited with helping to boost the output of plastic solar cells, a promising alternative to costly silicon based panels. A report from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies -- which is backed by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and The Pew Charitable Trusts -- examines the issues of not only developing greener products, but also assuring that the production of those products adhere to environmentally safe standards.

Want an example? Here's one from the group's report, Green Nanotechnology: It's Easier Than You Think:

A newly developed nanomaterial could replace the tin-lead solders widely used as interconnects in electronic products, said Yi Li, a chemist at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Her lab is investigating alternative materials called electronically conductive adhesives (ECAs), which are lead-free and can be produced with less energy and in fewer steps. The group enhanced the performance of ECAs by adding nanosilver fillers and molecular monolayers to create an environmentally friendly nanocomposite for use in interconnects.

Visit their website for the rest of the report (PDF, 1.7 MB).

Engadget halts its assault on our early adopter dollars with this bit of news on a laptop that treads lightly on the power outlet and on the budget.

The Everex StepNote NC1501 consumes just 12W at peak performance. That's partly due to the low power, 1.5 GHz VIA processor.

Here are the specs:

• Processor: 1.5GHz VIA C7(R)- M processor
• Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Basic
• Graphics: VIA Chrome9(TM) HC IGP
• Memory: 512MB DDR2 533MHz SDRAM
• Hard Disk Drive: 60GB, 5400RPM SATA
• Optical Drive: DVD-ROM/DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support
• Display: 15.4" WXGA (1280 x 800) Widescreen TFT with DiamondBrite Technology
• LAN: 10/100 Ethernet
• Wireless: IEEE 802.11b/g
• I/O: (1) DB 15-Pin VGA, (3) USB 2.0 ports, (1) RJ45, (1) RJ-11, (1) Headphone/Line Out, (1) Microphone/ Line In
• Battery: 6-Cell Lithium Ion (up to 4.25 hours operating time)
• Dimensions: 14.1" x 10.7" x 0.9 - 1.5" (W x D x H)
• Weight: 5.3lbs
• UPC: 853031001467
• MSRP: $499.00

Note, however, that there are some compromises. You get Vista Home Basic, in other words, the non-Aero version. So no Flip 3D for you! But then again, it's just $500 for a fairly functional little machine you can pick up at Best Buy.

PBS (check local listings) is airing Saved by the Sun, an episode that delves into the current state of solar power. Here's what the show's site says:

"Saved By the Sun" probes how innovative technologies, new business models, increasing financial incentives, and a growing grassroots commitment to solving the climate crisis are driving a renaissance in solar energy around the world. Across the U.S., solar panels are capping more and more roofs. In Germany, a "great wall" of solar panels lines the autobahn, feeding the Munich power grid. At Cal Tech, nanotechnology is spurring new solar inventions. Worldwide, solar energy is expected to be a $50 billion industry within a decade.

It's airing as I write this, but you know it will air ad-nauseum in the coming weeks and may eventually be viewable online. Be on the lookout for sheep grazing among solar panels in Germany and a pig farmer generating enough solar power to light up over 1500 homes. Be forewarned, going solar is not quite the home run everyone wants it to be. Efficiency isn't quite there yet, but advances in capturing multiple wavelengths of sunlight look to change that.

Update: Frontline is airing Hot Politics which looks into the politics behind climate change. It's a post Earth Day-palooza, folks.

File this under "Why wasn't I invited?"

Tesla Motors, makers of the EV, a high performance electric sports car, was in New York this weekend. Why is it a big deal? Well, it's an electric car that doesn't set off dork alarms, for starters. Secondly, it performs like a bat out of you know where (0-60 in 4 seconds), has a 200-mile range and costs roughly 1 cent per mile to operate.

Anyway, some folks got to sit behind the wheel of the prototype. Treehugger has the details. Those of us not in attendance are better served by the official website where you can bask in juicy tidbits like this one:

The Power Electronic Module (PEM) controls over 200 kW of electrical power during peak acceleration -- enough power to illuminate 2,000 incandescent light bulbs.

You can even reserve yours, that is, if you have a cool $100,000 lying around. Between your couch cushions, perhaps?

Fun Fact: Run a search on Google for Tesla and Tesla Motors appears first, bumping poor Nikola Tesla from the top spot. Yes, the world has come to that.

Short of roof gardens, what's another way to cool down sweltering urban environments and manage runoff? Good old-fashioned trees.

Gothamist tells us of Mayor Bloomberg's plan to plant a million trees in New York City's five boroughs in the next ten years as part of PLANYC 2030, a set of over 100 initiatives for a "greener, greater New York." The announcement, made on Earth Day, calls for the trees to line streets, adorn parks and add an arboreal touch to vacant lots. To get the ball rolling, the city will triple the yearly tree planting budget to $37.5 million.

What about alternative energy? The city has a plan for that too.

• Create a property tax abatement for solar panel installations
• Study the cost-effectiveness of solar electricity when evaluated on a Real Time Pricing scenario
• Support the construction of the city's first carbon neutral building, primarily powered by solar electricity
• Increase use of solar energy in City buildings through creative financing
• Work with the State to eliminate barriers to increasing the use of solar energy in the city
• Pilot one or more technologies for producing energy from solid waste
• End methane emissions from sewage treatment plants and expand the productive use of digester gas
• Study the expansion of gas capture and energy production from existing landfills

If it all goes according to plan, NYC's soot-encrusted reputation may be a thing of the past...

Given that SUVs, trucks and contractor pick-ups clog the home improvement chain's parking lots, you would think Home Depot was one of the last places to bask in an environmentally sound glow. Not true!

I'm late on the Home Depot Earth Day promotion where they gave away 1 million compact flourescents, but that's no reason not to throw some link love their way. Why? Their Eco Options page.

The company's Flash-heavy microsite is filled with some interesting but sparse info, mostly on how the chain provides tons of eco-friendly options for households. More interesting (to me, anyway) were the tickers that run along the bottom. Clicking them reveals how Home Depot has unloaded tons of green merchandise and helped curb a nice chunk of CO2 emissions in the process.

In August of last year, I attended an IBM/AMD press event here in NYC. The companies were showing off bladed servers featuring power-sipping Opterons and novel new ways of cooling during what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year.

They couldn't have planned it better, but as news goes, it barely made a blip. An Inconvenient Truth later, however, and the industry is warming (pun intended) to the idea of energy savings in the data center.

bITa Planet's Jennifer Zaino reports on last week's meeting of the Green Grid. Among the topics discussed were hugely wasteful server infrastructures and how they're contributing to an impending power crunch.

Gartner has said that half of the world’s datacenters will lack enough energy capacity to meet the power and cooling requirements of the latest high-density computing equipment by the end of 2008, according to a report issued by The Green Grid.

Problems also accrue due to the fact that almost all the electrical power that feeds the data center ends up as heat, which requires datacenters to expend energy on cooling equipment; and that there’s tremendous waste in the power conversion cycles that occur from the moment power enters a data center until it reaches a server microprocessor.

The organization also managed to lure several new and influential members in the hopes that greener data center will soon become the norm.

What are major sites doing to draw attention to Earth Day this year? Glad you asked...

Google continues the tradition of replacing its logo with new artwork on special days, which links to a simple Earth Day search this time around. The company has also been making strides to lower its environmental impact.

Yahoo is also having fun with its logo, opting for a neat little animation instead. They also launched a microsite and have announced that they are going 100 percent carbon neutral.

MSN leads with a Places in Peril photo gallery, an article on the plug-in car, tips on going green the easy way and a Stop Global Warming microsite.

Digg doesn't appear to be commemorate the day in any special way, but its users are keeping its Environment category humming.

Update: EcoGeek has an interesting interpretation of how the Google Earth Day logos have evolved during the past six years.

It's a view that few of us earthbound inhabitants will ever witness with our own eyes. The Washington Post carries an AP article that captures what astronauts say it's like to look upon Earth from Space.

In 1984, Kathy Sullivan, says the view drove home the need to keep our little blue orb clean.

"...From up there, it looks finite and it looks fragile and it really looks like just a tiny little place on which we live in a vast expanse of space. It gave me the feeling of really wanting us all to take care of the Earth. I got more of a sense of Earth as home, a place where we live. And of course you want to take care of your home. You want it clean. You want it safe."

Read the article for more perspectives.

Increased Ethanol production is not without its controversy in the US, but now a new study suggests that the cleaner burning fuel may contribute to more lung ailments if its use becomes widespread.

The conclusions drawn for Environmental Science & Technology by Mark Z. Jacobson, an atmospheric scientist, paints a future of smoggy conditions and an increase of ozone-related breathing problems.

Switching to E85 blends (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) could result in slightly higher ozone-related mortality, hospitalization, and asthma (9% higher in Los Angeles and 4% higher in the U.S. as a whole), the study finds. Cancer rates would be similar for gasoline and E85.

"It's true that ethanol does decrease some pollutants, but it also increases some others," Jacobson says. Compared with gasoline, ethanol tends to produce less benzene and butadiene, but more acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, when burned.

According to his research, this would increase the death toll by 185 persons per year in the US, with 125 of those coming from Los Angeles.

Solar roof... check. Hybrid wheels... check. Green computer... not so much.

If you're a green geek, you might be dismayed that the computer you're using to read this probably isn't the most energy efficient or environmentally conscious machine around.

Well Computer Shopper has you covered. In its How to Buy a Green PC guide, the crew lists tips like forgoing the bargain basement CRT for an LCD with meager power requirements; buying a small form factor PC; and keeping your eye out for that Energy Star label.

Now don't rush out and max out those credit cards just yet. At least by following their advice on tweaking your Windows or Mac machine's power management settings, you can comfort yourself knowing that it doesn't consume nearly as much power as this baby. Those were the days...

[via Treehugger]

Along the lines of the recent TechTurn post, here's a Yahoo Finance piece on computer recycling, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal Online.

Where Computers Go to Die is a bit basic, but it has the goods on how to go about recycling your old PCs. Mind you, some will charge you for the privilege (not Dell, it's free!) but they generally offer some sort of compensation. The article goes one step further, too.

Author, Katherine Boehret, also reminds us to completely wipe its drive(s) before you send off that old desktop or laptop. This is critical, you don't want some fool running amok with your personal info. She only recommends a handful of hard drive erasing utilities, but you can find even more by trawling the comments in this Lifehacker post, but don't scroll too far or you'll end up overly paranoid.

EcoGeek points us to the stylish bamboo-encased Asus EcoBook, a laptop that contains recyclable plastic parts and uses a minimum of industrial processes in its making (no electroplating and so forth). It's also upgradeable, which further adds to its green mystique by helping users keep it around longer when a bump up in specs is called for.

Look for it next year. Maybe in time for Earth Day '08...

ABC is devoting a good chunk of its news programming to environmental issues all day Friday, April 20. From Good Morning America through Nightline, viewers will be treated to reports on climate change as well as efforts to conserve and promote environmentally friendly lifestyles from the scientific and business communities. The coverage will also extend to ABCNews.com.

Sure, Friday is usually considered a bit of a TV wasteland (if your favorite show is moved to Friday night, it's a good bet that it's a goner). However, it may be worth setting your DVR just to see your favorite ABC anchors talk up the environment. Or we'll tell Diane Sawyer where you live, your choice.

As Earth Day approaches (Sunday, April 22), online travel site Orbitz is kicking off an eco-tourism microsite at eco.orbitz.com. The site will offer travel tips and articles on top destinations, eco-friendly lodgings and how the tourism industry affects the places all those cruise ships dock and airliners swoop down upon.

For instance, Jason Summer's article, What Is Eco-Tourism, encapsulates the state of eco-tourism today. (By the way, is there a more appropriate name for a travel writer?)

They're not just slapping up a warm and fuzzy website and calling it a day, either.

According to this press release, the company is also walking the walk. Below is a list of the steps Orbitz Worldwide is taking to reduce its environmental impact as part of ongoing business operations.

Recycling efforts:

• Recycling bins in each kitchen for aluminum cans. 95% of the products in our vending machines are cans, not plastic
• Discontinued use of all Styrofoam cups, bowls and plates. Using recyclable paper products
• Distributed to every employee and contractor their own beverage cup and insulated coffee mug to eliminate disposable cups, reducing amount of garbage tremendously, as well as resulting in facility cost savings
• Recycling can at every desk, printer and conference room for paper
• Collection bins in each supply room for batteries

Energy savings:

• Motion sensor lights in offices and conference rooms, turn off when no activity in room
• Lights in entire facility turn off at 10pm, turn on at 7:00am
• High Performance lighting throughout the common seating areas, compliant with the International Energy code
• Water saving filters on kitchen taps

That crackling sound? The Government of Ontario Canada smashing incandescent bulbs under its heel.

Treehugger informs that the regional ban on incandescent light bulbs, which goes into full effect in 2012, is expected to save six million megawatt hours per year; roughly enough power to light up 600,000 homes.

You would think that GE -- a huge producer of light bulbs -- would seethe with rage at the announcement.

On the contrary! The company cheered the move, citing the reduction of greenhouse gasses that will surely result. Of course, the company also recently announced a timely technological advance that promises to deliver the same warm lighting while drawing low levels of power comparable to those of compact fluorescents. GE's nifty new incandescents are expected to hit your local Home Depot (or wherever it is that you get your bulbs) by 2010.

The company is also working with Konica Minolta on OLED lighting to commercialize the energy efficient and sci-fi flavored technology (look right) in three years.

We're not talking slaving over a washboard and bucket in the backyard, but there is one huge energy hog that an author for the New York Times thinks could use some banishing.

Kathleen A. Hughes tells a story about how hanging her laundry out to dry helped her family slash the electric bill by roughly half. Mothballing the dryer can't account for all those savings, but it's pretty impressive nonetheless.

The story isn't all visions of billowing bed sheets and happy endings, though. She also looks into the dangers of running a clothesline across your property as many homeowner associations are loathe to allow the neighbors' unmentionables to mar their vistas. And then there's the matter of those that live in areas that don't get sunny, rain-free days 360+ days a year.

Dan Ragle found a nice little online resource for this week's EIT Toolkit, a column where we spotlight the latest products and the occasional site (only the best, mind you).

I'll let him explain.

Called the Green Grid, this consortium of IT companies and pros is focused specifically on reducing the energy needs and increasing the efficiency of typical, power-sucking data centers around the globe. The group is led by an impressive collection of Board of Director members, including AMD, Intel, Dell, IBM, HP, and Microsoft; and focuses on research, standards writing, publishing studies and guidelines, and of course, promotion.

...and you'll also want to check out some of the available papers as well. As in today, before you spend another dollar (or currency of choice) on another power-hogging server.

Don't worry, you didn't inadvertently trigger your Cute Overload bookmark. Uber-cute Knut here is the subject of a Slate piece that goes into how the baby polar bear, after having been rejected by his mom (some mother she is), is melting hearts in Germany.

Unfortunately, his 15 minutes may do little to help prevent the melting polar ice caps. Anne Applebaum's article points out the obvious links to captive polar bears and the eco-challenges faced by their wild counterparts. Sadly, she concludes, Knut's popularity now may do little to influence things in the long run.

Not fun. So let's turn our thoughts to more upbeat yet still cute thoughts: recycling and power savings!

Tom Ballhatchet's Hamster Shredder is a contraption that shreds those annoying pre-approved credit card offers *and* lines your hamster's cage. Can't vouch for its effectiveness since the hamster in this pic looks suspiciously stuffed (as in fake, not overfed or taxidermied).

Ingenious. [via Engadget]

Poor Windows Vista. Delays, not-so-Vista-capable-systems (face it, people like their eye-candy) and now word that the OS, despite its advanced power saving features, may cause of mountains of e-waste the likes of which the world has never seen.

EcoIron points us to some interesting recent happenings in the UK (old in blog time but new to me). The Green Party contends that Vista will cause corporate upgraders to scrap millions of otherwise useful XP machines to the detriment of the environment.

Is Vista the ultimate landfiller? Not if you keep plugging away with XP like I am. But I make no guarantees in a year or so when DX10 graphics are burning my retinas and SideShow remotes pop up at Best Buy (or Amazon for you non-B&M types).

Add "urban greening" to your eco-vocabulary. Green Roofs for Healthy Cities is singing the praises of over 3 million square feet of leafy, sod-covered roof systems installed in 2006, an increase of 25 percent over 2005.

Green roofs are being hailed as a great way to help cool urban environments by employing the sun aborbing and air cleansing qualities of plants and trees (though even that is open to debate). In the winter they act as natural insulation.

The top ten green roof U.S. cities are as follows:

1. Chicago, IL
2. Washington, D.C.
3. Wildwood Crest, NJ
4. Dulles, VA
5. Kansas City, MO
6. Phoenix, AZ
7. Milwaukee, WI
8. New York City, NY
9. Portland, OR
10. Columbus, OH

More info on the organization is available here.

Power generation from the skies? Sure, why not?

Wired's Gadget Lab points us to Magenn Power's MARS Wind Power Anywhere generator. What makes it special is that the helium filled contraption floats majestically at 600 to 1000 feet and harness the tremendous wind power present at those heights to generate up to 4 kW.

And there's more...

Reaching winds at 1,000-feet above ground level allow MARS to be installed closer to the grid. MARS is mobile and can be rapidly deployed, deflated, and redeployed without the need for towers or heavy cranes. MARS is bird and bat friendly with lower noise emissions and is capable of operating in a wider range of wind speeds - from 4 mph to greater than 60 mph.

PETA rejoice! Since the wind turbine lacks bird and bat chopping blades, migrating flocks and errant egrets are generally safe.

According to the site, the first prototypes roll out this year.

Though dominated by a few big names, a recent talk with Jeff Zeigler of TechTurn proved to me that the tech industry is infinitely varied. And in terms of doing right by the environment, there are folks out there making a difference behind the scenes.

You might not be able to tell by the modest little logo above, but TechTurn, formerly NewMarket IT, essentially takes what would amount to thousands of tons of landfill-clogging e-waste a year and manages to find a second life for most of it. The rest is recycled.

Sure, there is the monetary incentive, but what struck me most about speaking to him over the phone -- aside from being unusually frank and level-headed for a CEO -- is how his company makes a fairly smart business case laced with a genuine desire to get the tech industry to clean up its act.

And now, they're planning to make a bigger name for themselves by engaging folks directly and via VARs. You can visit TechTurn to learn more or read up on what they do in my article (shameless self-linking, I know).

Though many tech companies have a lot to say it when it comes to environmental issues, information on their green initiatives often ends up buried deep within their corporate websites. And it makes a certain kind of sense. After all, what would IT managers think if they landed on a homepage bursting with stock photos of frolicking flower children delighting in their eco-savvy ways?

So we're here to expose some of these lesser-known areas of these sites and we're starting with a biggie: IBM.com.

Let's visit the IBM Environment homepage. Sure it's a touch staid and corporate (ok VERY staid), but the basics are there. Get past that and you're treated to a FAQ which is fairly upfront about IBM's impact on the environment -- they also manufacture semiconductors, after all -- and gives a general feel for the computing giant's stance on conservation and corporate responsibility.

There are also links to IBM's approach to product packaging considerations, product recycling programs, and the latest green happenings. The environment is also a concern behind the firm's Global Innovation Outlook 2.0 for 2006 [PDF].

All in all, this area is fairly informative though a bit dry and somewhat lacking of that human touch.

Way off-topic: In trying to find an IBM logo for this post, I came across this fascinating page that charts the evolution of the iconic image. Enjoy the drastic changes.

We generate our own electricity, none of that imported stuff for us!

You may soon hear exactly that at a cocktail party. Honda and Climate Energy this week announced that the freewatt Micro-CHP (combined heat and power), which allows households to generate their own electricity while warming their homes and heating their water, has become commercially available.

The Honda power generation unit, when combined with a furnace or boiler from Climate Energy, kills two birds with one pricey stone by producing both electricity and heat. The system rings up at about $13,000, but the companies say that the average homeowner can shave $500 to $1000 a year on their power bills, allowing them to easily recoup the added cost over its lifetime.

According to this nifty PDF brochure, the freewatt system works like so:

The engine produces 11,000 Btu's per hour of heat, which is used to heat the dwelling, either by circulating warm air or hot water. The generator simultaneously produces 1.2 kilowatts of high-quality electric power for the home.

Another magic number is 30 percent, which represents the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions when weighed against a home with a conventional setup that draws unaided power from the grid. 30 percent is also the estimated chunk freewatt can help carve out of utility bills. Add the possibility of net-metering and things look pretty rosy.

Oh, yeah, well what about solar?! They have an answer for that too! If you want to be able to put food on your table, you'll be thrilled to know that freewatt provides 80 percent of the environmental benefits of solar (presumably free-as-in-sunshine and emissions-free power generation) at 20 percent the cost.

[via Extreme Tech] Full press release here.