August 2008 Archives

Well, that didn't last long.

The Chevy Volt in production guise has been caught mugging for Transformers 2's cameras. An "above the beltline" shot and a video have emerged, revealing a sharp, un-Prius-like shape that matches up with the teaser pics of not too long ago.

Separately, someone has captured what appears to be the Volt's center stack. Interesting choice of materials...

What happens when your camera breaks? Chances are that you toss onto your pile of dead gadgets (or worse, a landfill), head over to Amazon and start looking for a new one. But if you're an owner of a Canon Powershot digital camera, you may want to check out the company's loyalty program.

As The New York Times' David Pogue discovered, the company will take back broken, out-of-warranty cameras and offer a selection of refurbs at a substantial discount.

If you have a broken S-series, G-series, or Digital Elph camera, you can choose a refurbished PowerShot SD850 IS for approximately $150, a refurbished PowerShot G9 for $250, or a refurbished Rebel XT with a 18-55mm kit lens for approximately $275. For the A-series cameras and camcorders, there are different upgrade options as well.

Now that's an electronics recycling program I like!

Some interesting tidbits emerged during a media day hosted by IBM. The USOpen.org website. Every year since its inception traffic has grown, hitting an all time high in 2007 of over 192 million pageviews generated by 7.3 million visitors.

But the server footprint keeps getting smaller thanks to virtualization. Since 2006, they've reduced the number of servers that keep the site up and running from 60 to just six P6 550 servers spread across three time zones. Additionally, they use historical usage stats to reduce consumption by dialing back the clock speed during anticipated lulls in activity.

And as for the software powering the site:

They are configured with Linux LPARs for Web serving using IBM HTTP Server (US Open.org) and AIX LPARs for WebSphere Application Server (Commenting, Feedback and Player Search), WebSphere Business Integration Message Broker, Cache logging and content distribution servers.

Visit IBM's mini site for more on how they've helped "green" the US Open.

Update: Here are some of the power savings estimates, according to IBM:

Consolidating from nine servers to six servers (since 2006 consolidation has gone from 60 servers to 6 servers) Since 2006, reduction of energy consumption by 23% and cooling demand reduced by 25% With the p6 implementation it is expected that energy consumption will be reduced by 40% and cooling demand reduced by 48% Since 2006, visits to events infrastructure have grown by 26% while the cost per visit has been reduced by 38% during the same period Users have increased by over 20% while the cost/user has been reduced by over 27% during the same period.

Thanks Dan!

D-Link paved the way for energy efficient home networking and now Cisco's Linksys brand is taking steps to green up their lineup.

For starters, new Linksys wireless N routers (WRT310N, WRT160N, WRT610N, WRT110, and WRT54GS) will be encased in a lot less packaging. And what packaging is left will be made from 80 percent recycled materials and printed using vegetable and soy based inks. The company estimates that this step alone is the equivalent of taking 3,000 cars off the road each year.

A good start, but the real impact to the electric bill comes in the form of Energy Star rated power adapters. Linksys explains:

The energy consumed by the power adapters has been cut almost in half. For example, a router used 4.6 watts of power and a new router with one of the ENERGY STAR certified power adapters can use as little as 2.6 watts of power. This equates to a power reduction estimation between 14MW and 17MW (based on Linksys' top 10 shipping product volume, which is approximately 11,000,000 units). That is enough power to light 14,000 houses for one full day.

Your mileage may vary, but considering that most home routers stay on 24/7 (mine included), every little bit helps.

Thanks Dan!

Some storage vendors are spilling the beans on setting highly efficient storage systems over at Environmental Leader.

Rackable System focuses on using energy-efficient components. These include low-wattage hard drives which use 7 to 8 watts instead of 12 to 14 watts; power supplies with up to 96.5 percent power efficiency; and low-voltage processors and memory.

Better yet, they might get even more energy efficient in the near future if SSD prices keep tanking. InternetNews tells us...

Sun Microsystems followed quickly behind, brashly predicting every device it will ship will have the flash technology by the end of 2010. Such big name support illustrates why SSD, which uses memory chips instead of rotating platters for data storage, could drive one of the biggest storage changes in decades.

There are already indications that solid state drives are moving down market, as far storage servers go.

"The technology is already going beyond the commerce and trade transaction worlds," Patrick Wilkison, vice president of business development at SSD manufacturer STEC, told InternetNews.com. STEC supplies the drives used by EMC in its high-end Symmetrix and midrange Clariion arrays.

...STEC expects all major storage arrays will support SSDs by April 2009. "Consider that our flash-based SSD line just came online in early 2007, and OEMS are already pulling it in," Wilkison said. The technology, he added, requires a great deal of qualification effort by storage vendors.

Read the rest here.

Is this what the future of green IT holds? Grafting eco-friendly wood onto every device imaginable? At this rate you'll soon have to watch for splinters when you set up that new server.

Bamboo is a pricey option on Dell's sleek new Studio Hybrid desktop and [re]drive uses it for tasteful effect on its external drive, and now MemoTrek is selling USB drives sheathed in the stuff with capacities of up to 8GB.

MemoTrek explains:

This unique wooden USB flash drive makes the perfect synthesis of traditional Eastern values blending seamlessly in with modern state of the art technology. The eco-friendly bamboo casing holds a high-capacity NAND flash memory ready to securely store your company's sales presentation or link to your website.

With the harmonic union of bamboo, reflecting old and traditional Asian values, and the high-speed USB flash memory representing cutting-edge modern day high-technology this beautifully carved and simplistic designed USB flash drive sets out to form the very Ying and Yang of today's promotional gift ideas.

Riiiight.

[via SlashGear]

New York City streets may look mighty futuristic in the near future if a pilot LED streetlamp project takes off. The city's Department of Transportation has tapped the firm Office for Visual Interaction to install six of them. The power savings and reduced maintenance costs are significant, especially if they end up replacing all of the 300,000 current streetlamps.

According to The New York Times Bits Blog...

Not only will the city reduce its power usage 25 to 30 percent, but the bulbs will last 50,000 to 70,000 hours. Today’s sodium lamps are rated at 24,000 hours, which means at that point half of them are dead. The L.E.D. life rating actually means that the bulb will drop below 70 percent of its original brightness after 50,000 hours or so.

What's more, they will sport a sleek modern design with "channels" so that signage can just slot in. Neat!

[via Gizmodo]

Sure, things don't look rosy on the economic front, but some have reason to believe that the cleantech investment boom has just begun. This EETimes report explores the VC scene and the innovations that promise to keep this one hot sector for decades to come.

"The market size for cleantech will be measured in the trillions of dollars -- it's immeasurably deep," said Erik Straser, partner and leader of the cleantech team at venture capital firm Mohr, Davidow Ventures (Palo Alto, Calif.) Mohr, Davidow has investments in 11 cleantech companies to date, including those exploring solar, biofuel and hydrogen fuel cell technologies.

According to Straser and other investors, we are in the early stages of an investment boom that will last 20 to 30 years. To date, the cleantech business has been driven by a relatively small number of venture capitalists and entrepreneurial companies. But that's now changing. "Cleantech is going mainstream," Straser said.

Another fascinating concepts in the article include greening the supply chain, nanotech and designing for environment in the electronic engineering disciplines.

HP did it and now it’s Dell’s turn.

Gizmodo has scored details on the Inspiron 910, which according to their sources should be going on sale in just a few days. No word on price, but the little machine will be based around a 1.5 GHz Intel Atom processor; have an 8.9” backlit LED screen (1024x600); run either Ubuntu or Windows XP; and have up to 16 GB of storage capacity thanks to an SSD.

Head over to Gizmodo for more leaked materials.

The green tech revolution isn't just contained to the world's richest nations.

Solar-powered Wi-Fi a gift to Senegal - SFGate.com

Green Wi-Fi is developing solar-powered, wireless antennas for laptops that are specially designed to handle the dust and heat and other inconveniences of life in remote areas.

In May and again in June, Baikie went to Keur Sadaro, a village in Senegal, to try to get laptops donated by the One Laptop Per Child project hooked up to the Internet. The laptops are also solar-powered.

EnergyHub minds your electricity, saves you cash - Engadget

The device uses a touchscreen control panel (familiarly referred to as a "dashboard") to help gauge and adjust energy levels for satellite outlets that it communicates with. The data will be accessible and adjustable online, and users will also be able to compare their stats with other eco-tweakers or neighbors.

Not so idle: HP earns green transport logo for business products - ZDNet Blogs

HP actually was the first company to earn the SmartWay logo back in April, although the logo certification applied strictly to its consumer accessories, desktops and monitors. But earlier this month, HP qualified all the shipping partners for its business desktops, monitors, notebooks, servers, storage products, thin clients, workstations and all its imaging and printing products.

Keeping Cool in the Server Room - ServerWatch

The movie Waterworld may have flopped at the box office, but it is making a big comeback in the data center. This has two advantages — it brings the coolant directly to the heat source, and it has 3,500 times the heat transfer capability per unit of volume compared to air.

United States Will Lead World for Third Straight Year in Annual Wind Power Installations - Treehugger

While still a small percentage of overall electric generation, there’s no denying that wind power has been growing consistently in the United States. In 2007, an additional 5,329 megawatts of capacity was added, an amount which was slightly more than a quarter of all new global wind capacity that year. Currently an additional 8 gigawatts of wind capacity is under construction and scheduled to be operational by the end of 2008.

Netflix suffered its biggest disruption ever this week. And while they now report that they're back on track, they still have to clear a backlog. Bottom line: that DVD you were hoping would add excitement to your weekend or staycation is likely delayed.

There's no need to hop in your car for a video rental, though. Below are five easy, low-emission and mostly no-cost suggestions to keep your mind off that tardy red envelope...

Hulu

I was a skeptic at first, but Hulu has really won me over. The site streams video of acceptable quality and offers an ever-growing selection of TV shows.

Why not catch up on some buzz-worthy or dearly missed shows like 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Burn Notice and The Office? Better yet, click on some pre-Moore/Eick Battlestar Galactica and watch in awe (and a little bit of horror).

SIGGRAPH 2008

Here's a sneak peek at the visual effects and CG that you'll experience in those future Netflix rentals. Head over to YouTube, search for SIGGRAPH 2008 and marvel at the ingenuity of those computer artists.

The quality is typical YouTube and some of the footage is shaky, but many of the demos are simply mind-blowing.

NBC Olympics

This year, the NBC Olympics site is an impressive beast. Watch live competitions or catch up on the ones you've missed. Packed with interactive multimedia, there's no shortage of coverage from Beijing.

There is, however, a downside. You have to download and install Microsoft's Silverlight plug-in. On the bright side, it is cross-platform.

Spore Creature Creator

The video game the world's been waiting for has finally gone gold. Unfortunately, you still have to wait until September 7 to get your hands on it.

In the meantime, why not temper those pangs of anticipation by piecing together you own goofy life forms with the free Spore Creature Creator? (Windows XP/Vista, Mac OS X Leopard)

Video on Demand

When was the last time you gave your cable box some love? Open up that video on demand menu and see what's playing.

OK, this is the lowest tech tip of the batch, and it will cost you some money, but it beats getting in the car and picking up DVD, only to have to return it later. Think of all that gas!

Even better, see what freebies are playing. I know, there's a lot of straight-to-DVD nonsense but there's usually one or two good classics. For instance, I can watch Men in Black in HD (Comcast here). Pretty neat, and it won't cost me a dime.

I hope these suggestions made the wait a little more tolerable.

General Motors has been trying to build excitement over the Chevy Volt by slowly peeling back the car cover on production spec prototypes. It's a strategy they most recently used in a Good Morning America segment.

Now, as you can see above, the company is slowly getting more official with professionally composed teaser shots. We've seen the new headlamps and grill before, but now there's dramatic lighting and more tiny details to pore over.

This time, though, they're stretching the boundaries of automotive marketing by also revealing a tiny bit of the car's rear (below). I will admit, the Volt logo is pretty clever and neat looking.

Catch ABC's Good Morning America clip by hitting the "read more" link...

Every time there is an SSD product refresh, my hard drives take one step closer to the big recycling bin in the sky.

That dream is getting closer thanks to companies like Imation, which is jumping on the 128 GB bandwagon for its MOBI and PRO solid state drives (SATA, SATA II and PATA). Judging from the attributes they share, it looks like storage companies are working furiously to address concerns about the reliability and durability of flash drives.

All of the drives in the product line are Flash-memory based and feature a 1 million hour MTBF rating. Dynamic and static wear leveling algorithms, along with 7-bit ECC are leveraged to extend data retention to a listed 10 years (at 77 Degrees Fahrenheit). The drives are served in both 2.5" and 3.5" form factors and ship in multiple available capacities; the average access time is listed at one-tenth of a millisecond. The drives are designed and intended to be used as drop-in replacements for their platter-based counterparts; the vendor states that no special configuration is required.

They're on sale now, with the new PROs setting you back a cool $500 (starting price).

Thanks Dan!

The era of the energy vampires may soon be over.

Fujitsu Siemens is rolling out new monitors that draw absolutely ZERO watts when they automatically shut down. As you know, most electronics consume electricity all the time, even when they're supposedly off.

The new SCENICVIEW ECO monitors, in 20 and 22-inch also feature automatic brightness control, 1680x1050 resolution and 5ms response times.

[via Engadget]

Yeah, we're still pretty attached to our PCs. But it looks like enterprises are seriously starting to consider the technology for large workforces.

Share a computer with a co-worker, get a rebate from utilities - Greentech Media

Thin clients have been the next big thing for, oh, a good fifteen years or so, but energy consumption may finally give them the oomph that they need for mass adoption. NComputing, a thin client start-up in Redwood City, already has 1 million seats deployed. They’ve only been selling computers for about two years. Pretty impressive.

Turning Clean-Tech Engineers Into Entrepreneurs - Wired.com

Take Potentia, a green tech startup conceived by University of Michigan PhD students Tzeno Galchev ad Ruba Borno in conjunction with MBA student Rishiraj Das, and facilitated by Michigan's Zell-Lurie Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies.

The Institute was founded to introduce engineering students to new venture opportunities and help them bring their inventions to market. In addition to offering a business curriculum, it serves as an umbrella organization for grants and competitions for the benefit of new startups -- such as last September's Clean Tech Forum for venture capitalists.

Test Drive a Solar Array's Wattage Before You Build With RoofRay Google Maps Calculator - Gizmodo

Draw the shape of a prospective solar array on Google Maps' satellite image of your roof, enter its slope angle, and watch RoofRay calculate how much DC juice your panels will generate. It doesn't take into account exactly what kind of panels you'll be using, so of course it's an estimate, but an interesting tool for getting the general idea of how much you could knock off the electric bill.

Download and Be "Green" - The Technology Liberation Front

Now there’s a new tax on the horizon - digital downloads. Today’s CNET news article describes how states have recently passed laws taxing downloaded content from the Internet, and quotes my colleague Steve DelBianco: "A digital download is the greenest way to buy music, movies, and software, since it requires no driving to the store, no delivery vans, and no plastics or packaging."

IBM Plans Virtual Green Data Center In Second Life - InformationWeek

IBM hopes to use the data center as a demonstration area for its eco-friendly technologies and services. The company is increasingly turning to Second Life as a platform for showing off new products, as well as research concepts. IBM announced in 2006 that research into virtual worlds would get a share of a $100 million fund that it has earmarked for new technology development.

There are plenty of ways of cutting power costs in the data center. Virtualization instantly comes to mind. But getting storage arrays to pull double duty as app servers?

That's the intriguing proposition made by Pivot3. They're pitching the Serverless Computing platform that nestles virtual machines onto the processing and memory subsystems of storage nodes.

Grid Today has the story.

Serverless Computing is built around Pivot3's RAIGE (RAID Across Independent Gigabit Ethernet) platform -- a clustered IP SAN made up of x86-based nodes called Databanks, each with its own disk drives, network connection, power and fan, and RAIGE software implementation, which distills it all into a virtual storage pool. The company's HyperPath technology links the Databanks, allowing multiple Gigabit Ethernet connections and providing for linear scaling of performance.

For its new serverless system, Pivot3 has replaced Databanks with Cloudbanks, which are more powerful with an added CPU, more RAM and more network ports. The other big addition is the Xen hypervisor, which virtualizes the Cloudbank for use as a storage device or a compute device.

The savings are nothing to sneeze at, for one customer at least, .

Everyone's mileage would vary, of course, but Pivot3 cites the case of one customer, in the video-surveillance business, that went from 15 conventional servers to zero. Rack space dropped in half, and power and cooling consumption was 44 percent less. Pivot3 combines energy and acquisition costs to figure that this particular customer, over three years, would save about 22 percent. Its energy bill over that period would be about $70,000 instead of about $126,000, the company says.

Enterprise Storage Forum also covered the announcement here.

In addition to inexpensive furniture, IKEA may soon also become the place to go for a green abode. The company announced that it is setting aside €50M for cleantech startups over the next 5 years. The goal is to have eco-friendly wares like solar panels on the shelves soon-ish.

DailyTech informs:

The new unit, IKEA GreenTech, is channeling its efforts in five directions: solar panels, alternative light sources, product materials, energy efficiency, and water saving and purification. The unit will only invest in startups the can guarantee delivery of a product within a four to five year window, as IKEA's ultimate intention is not purely altruism, but rather primarily to sell greentech.

Johan Stenebo, managing director of IKEA GreenTech states, "We're already talking to companies."

He hopes to have his unit placing its first investments by the end of the year. He states, "That's certainly our aim to make happen."

Good move. I can imagine a new DIY revolution if the Home Depots and Lowes of the world would follow suit.

SMBs trail larger enterprises when it comes to adopting energy-saving technologies. Looks like size matters when it comes to Green IT...

Businesses approaching Green IT cautiously - Ars Technica

At this point, Green IT concerns are being driven from the top of the business segment, rather than the bottom. 43 percent of small businesses (1-99 employees) have no plans to implement Green IT within the next two years, compared to 27 percent of mid-size businesses (100-999 employees), and just 11 percent of large businesses (1000+ employees).

Citrix CTO Eyes the Future of Virtualization - InternetNews

The OVF will package all VMs with an XML wrapper that will let them run on any virtualization platform. It will also incorporate a security check to ensure that the VM has not been tampered with; metadata about what hardware or hypervisor the VM can run on; and a license check. The DMTF said the OVF will be rolled out this year.

The development of the OVF "is the first step towards the goal of interoperability because, if the OVF becomes the standard way of creating and distributing virtual appliances, we can get towards the goal of getting virtual machines to install and run correctly anywhere in the world on anybody's product," Crosby said.

Money talks when going green - Telecoms.com

Based upon data from Japan, Australia, the US, and a few emerging markets, the telecom sector alone seems to be responsible for about one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. By contrast, telecom service provider revenues account for roughly three per cent of global GDP, making telecom among the less energy-intensive sectors in the global economy. The joint WWF-ETNO (European Telecommunications Network Operators Association) report, "Saving the climate @ the speed of light," summarises the telecoms industry's capacity to mitigate climate change as falling into three categories...

Virtual Panacea Found in Application Streaming - ServerWatch

But the benefits of virtualized desktops are in some circumstances quite compelling: It's easier to manage PC images in a data center than physical machines that are far apart, and data is easier to manage and back up when stored centrally.

"When we are talking about call centers, trading floors and setups where there are large numbers of people and plenty of bandwidth, this type of technology can be ideal, " she said.

Ask The Green Miles: Computer Recycling - TheGreenMiles.net

In case neither of those options work for you, the National Recycling Coalition can help connect you with your local government's recycling program. In DC, DPW offers a free, weekly Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) and electronic recycling (e-cycling) drop-off service at the Benning Road Trash Transfer Station, 3200 Benning Road, NE, each Saturday from 8am to 3pm. The weekly dropoffs started recently after the bi-annual e-cycling event turned into an epic fail.

As Dr. Farnsworth would say, good news everyone!

Energy Innovations' solar concentrator system, Sunflower, has been approved for rooftop installations by Underwriters Laboratories. This marks the first time a solar concentrator gets the UL stamp of approval.

Solar concentrators use reflectors and/or optics (a Fresnel lens in this case) to pinpoint the suns rays onto a relatively small area. That means silicon costs are contained but it also means that the device has to be engineered to withstand the heat safely.

CNet reports that with UL blessings in hand, they hope to raise $20 million for increased production and installation support for 2009. Energy Innovations, an IdeaLab company, claims that its system achieves 35 percent efficiency. Plus, it tracks the sun across the sky to maximize the amount of sunlight that hits the unit.

[via EcoGeek]

Sometimes the best laid plans actually work out... and ahead of schedule!

Dell today is reporting that the company has already met its goal of carbon neutral offices and work sites by the end of 2008. Although Dell's headquarters is 100 percent powered by renewable energy and company buys power from renewable sources whenever possible, there just isn't enough of it to go around, unfortunately.

So, carbon credits to the rescue!

There is not enough green energy available for all of Dell's requirements, so for the other 80 percent, Dell buys regular "brown" power, Parker said, plus enough renewable energy credits to offset that power's carbon emissions. Those credits subsidize purchases of renewable energy by other organizations, in places where more green power is available.

Dell's preference for renewable energy isn't just about global warming or public relations. Buying green power at a predictable cost can serve as a hedge against rising oil prices.

The company also said it has cut its energy use with more efficient lighting, modern climate control systems and software that shuts off idle office computers after hours, for a savings of $3 million a year, or about 5 percent of its annual energy bill.

Dell also made a splash last week by rolling out the Studio Hybrid desktop, the company's lean, green Vista-running machine.

They may lack the buzz of a DYI Batman Begins Tumbler, but these wheels are something to behold.

Wired.com has put together a gallery of ten green car concepts from the Royal College of Art that stretch the very notion of what an automoblie should look like. Ilaria Sacco's little three-seater above, while funky in its own right, is the tamest example of the "out there" rides.

Don't be so quick to roll your eyes at these designs. Their visual DNA is bound to creep into showrooms if history is any guide...

These outlandish designs will influence the cars you drive tomorrow. RCA has been teaching vehicle design since 1967 and its alumni include big-name designers at Ford, Mazda, Volvo and other companies. An RCA grad has probably worked on the car you're driving now, even if it isn't made of glass.

Click here for the entire gallery.

Woot, free software!

Seattle software house Verdiem today released, with Microsoft's blessing, Edison, free power management software for Windows XP and Vista machines. Both companies are members of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, don't forget.

No strangers to developing "green" software, Verdiem is also the maker of Surveyor, which gives IT folks the ability to centrally manage PC power settings enterprise-wide for drastic power savings.

In all, Edison is a snap to use. After a 27 MB download, a brief install, and a registration process (my only knock against it), the software uses a slick, easy-as-pie interface to help users not only tweak their power settings but also calculate energy savings.

You can also configure the power cost if you're privy to the exact rates you pay (my default was 0.089) as well as set a work versus non-work schedule to maximize your savings. Be warned, though, Edison can't calculate the energy and CO2 savings if you delve deeper and apply your own super-custom settings.

In all, if I were to set the slider right in the middle (display off 20 min, hard drive off 20 min and suspend 1 hr) this little machine would cost me roughly $30 less to operate a year and generate 470 fewer pounds of CO2 during the same time. Sure you can tweak your own settings, but this little utility offers a lot more manageability for the average user with very little downside, except for the 40MB hit to your RAM and neglible CPU usage.

You can catch the promotional video released by the company if you click to "read more"...

Some interesting channel news today. Electronics distributor Ingram Micro wants to take the mystery out of green IT gear for resellers with a new service that adopts the Green Electronics Council's EPEAT rankings. The company's new product database will now carry any given device's EPEAT rating (Silver or Gold) plus addition info that sheds light on a product's eco-credentials.

From the looks of it, we have one huge IT buyer to thank: the U.S. Government. Here's a press release snippet:

Ingram Micro Inc., the world's largest technology distributor has launched a service to help resellers easily identify "green" electronic products. EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) managed by the nonprofit Green Electronics Council, is an environmental rating system that evaluates desktop computers, notebooks and monitors based on 51 environmental performance criteria.

Ingram Micro North America's product database now includes EPEAT ratings information -- rankings of Bronze, Silver or Gold -- along with other product data to enable resellers to easily identify environmentally preferable computer products.

Commented Bob Laclede, vice president & general manager for government sales at Ingram Micro, "Federal government agencies are requiring EPEAT registered products to ensure their electronics purchases are compliant. By having these designations in our product database, Ingram Micro is providing the green information needed for our resellers to include on bids for government contracts. It also assists others in identifying environmentally friendly products for their end users."

It's also interesting to note that more and more green IT channel stories have been bubbling lately (like here, here and here). Make of it what you will...

Though the solar industry has made incredible strides, MIT sends word that the real solar revolution starts now.

Inspired by photosynthesis in plants, Daniel Nocera and Matthew Kanan, researchers working under the MIT Energy Initiative have discovered a way to employ solar energy to provide 24/7 power cheaply, reliably and emissions-free.

Requiring nothing but abundant, non-toxic natural materials, this discovery could unlock the most potent, carbon-free energy source of all: the sun. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said MIT's Daniel Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT and senior author of a paper describing the work in the July 31 issue of Science. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon."

The process works like this. A solar panel collects energy (technically, any source will do), which is used to split oxygen and hydrogen from water. These, in turn, are fed into fuel cells that produce power even when the sun goes down. It sounds simple but the innovation comes from the new catalysts, which unlike expensive industrial electrolyzers, work under conditions safe enough for the average household.

The key component in Nocera and Kanan's new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas. The new catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode, placed in water. When electricity -- whether from a photovoltaic cell, a wind turbine or any other source -- runs through the electrode, the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced.

Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, that can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

The new catalyst works at room temperature, in neutral pH water, and it's easy to set up, Nocera said. "That's why I know this is going to work. It's so easy to implement," he said.

The bad news? Don't expect to see this system commercialized for at least 10 years. Still, exciting stuff! Click here for the MIT release and video of Daniel Nocera as he talks about the discovery.

[via Engadget]