Fuel Economy Bill Finally Passes in Congress, Ethanol Gets a Boost
December 18, 2007 at 8:26 pm | Posted in Politics and Policy, Transportation | Leave a commentTags: auto, cars, energy, energy bill, fuel, fuel economy
Today, congress approved the first increase in automobile fuel economy in 32 years. This is the beginning of a huge change for the auto industry.
Of all the energy bills floating about in D.C. lately, the fuel economy bill has always seemed the most reasonable and likely to pass – it was just a matter of finding a balance between what the automakers could handle economically and what eco-savers wanted.
The energy bill, which intends to boost mileage by 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon (likely that would be the average MPG of all an automaker’s vehicles in a certain class), passed the House 314-100 and now goes to the White House, following the Senate’s approval last week. Bush is actually expected to sign off on this one, at least according to a statement from the White House. I figure they know what they’re talking about.
Our country has finally realized that regardless of belief about global warming, we need to stop depending on foreign oil. When most of the middle east hates us, and that’s where a lot of the oil lies, it’s a good idea to do what we can to find alternate resources.
Continue Reading Fuel Economy Bill Finally Passes in Congress, Ethanol Gets a Boost…
Green Storage Initative Launches
October 16, 2007 at 4:38 pm | Posted in Computing, Energy Efficiency | Leave a commentTags: 3par, brocade, copan systems, data center, dell, emc, emulex, energy, equallogic, green computing, hitachi, hp, ibm, intransa, lsi, microsoft, netapp, qlogic, seagate, storage, sun, xiotech, xyatex
First came The Green Grid, a nonprofit consortium (including the likes of Intel and AMD) working together on data center and computing power efficiency. Now there’s the SNIA Green Storage Initiative, a similar group focused on advancing energy efficiency in networked storage technologies.
Launched today, the group includes 3PAR, Brocade, COPAN Systems, Inc., Dell, EMC, EqualLogic, Emulex, Hitachi Data Systems, HP, Intransa, IBM, LSI, Microsoft, NetApp, QLogic, Seagate, Sun, Xiotech, and Xyratex.
It’s unclear what benefit such a group will have on the overall industry’s energy usage, but the Storage Initiative at least plans on educating data center operators on green data storage.
“Our green efforts will include helping our member companies design more energy efficient products, investigating specific technologies such as data de-duplication, thin provisioning and tape-based archiving as well as providing education that can help contribute to energy efficiency,” notes the release.
Grid Infastructure Investment Needed ASAP
October 16, 2007 at 3:51 pm | Posted in The Grid | 1 CommentTags: electricity, energy, grid, power
Anyone who thinks America’s electric grid can keep functioning without drawing power from renewable energy sources is dellusional. But figuring out how to produce clean energy is only a tiny piece of the solution to supporting a sustainable grid. The biggest issue is the lacking infastructure available to transport that energy.
A new report by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. about the national power grid says just that [see PDF of report]. The report notes that even without an increase in renewable energy, electricity use is growing twice as fast as the resources used to generate and transmit it.
That means that power companies will have to invest big in transmission technology, even if they plan to avoid clean energy altogether and operate in states that do not have legislation that requires a certain amount of their energy to come from renewable sources (see States with Renewable Portfolio Standards).
Although Sergel’s group would not provide a cost estimate for meeting this goal, the utility industry expects to spend $38.1 billion on transmission projects between this year and 2010, compared with $37.8 billion spent since 2000 — Associated Press.
Australia’s “Green” Water Progress
October 15, 2007 at 7:07 pm | Posted in Solar, Water | 1 CommentTags: australia, clean water, heating, Solar, solar heating, solar pond, Water
Even though life would be bland without Facebook and television, we (as in human beings) can survive without electricity. But, as you probably learned way back in preschool, we can’t live without (fresh, drinkable) water.
Earth-Policy.org warns that “water scarcity may be the most underestimated resource facing the world today.” They point out that by 2050, 1.7 billion people in the world will be suffering from “hydrological poverty.” Yikes. That’s pretty scary stuff.
Worried yet? Here’s some good news. Over in Australia, scientists at RMIT University have found a new eco-friendly way of producing fresh water. TheAge.com reports that a team of renewable energy researchers figured out that their man-made solar pond can be used to produce afffordable fresh water from salty ground water (with zero greenhouse emissions to boot).
Originally, the solar pond was created to research how it could be used for heating applications.
[GEEKTAILS] The technologies developed by the RMIT team rely on two phenomena: water in a vacuum boils at lower temperatures than 100 degrees, and when steam condenses, it gives off heat. So in the project at Pyramid Hill, salty water from beneath the ground is pumped to the surface and then sent through pipes on the bottom of a hot solar pond and heated.
The heated water then goes to a vacuum chamber, where it boils at 65-70 degrees and, as the vapour condenses, the heat given off is used to further warm incoming water, making the process highly energy efficient. A series of interconnected vacuum chambers continues the process until the fresh water produced comes out at room temperature — TheAge.com
Dr. John Andrews told TheAge that he estimates production of fresh water from salty ground water woulc cost between $2 and $4 per kilolitre.
The Energy Bill is Stuck.
October 13, 2007 at 4:50 pm | Posted in Politics and Policy | 3 CommentsTags: cleantech, energy, energy bill, government, politics
Passing a energy bill through the White House is no easy task. The Senate and the House each passed their own versions of the energy bill in the past few months, so now we’re waiting on the Democratic leaders to appoint a committee to figure out how to meld these two versions of the bill into one. Sounds like that’d be pretty simple to do, right? Um, not exactly.
“Unfortunately … it doesn’t appear that we will be able to get a conference,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday. “But … that doesn’t mean we won’t be going forward.”
(Good luck Pelosi, you’ll need it.)
The new plan is that Democratic leaders will hold closed-door talks to draft a new energy bill they hope can win approval in both houses of Congress. Pelosi said earlier this week she hopes to pass an energy bill by year’s end.
Better than Spielberg: Solar in Space
October 13, 2007 at 4:16 pm | Posted in Solar | 1 CommentTags: government, military, pentagon, Solar, space
Everyone is investing in solar power these days. There are plenty of options to chose from — traditional, thin-film, concentrated, and solar thermal — but one of the major problems with solar technology is figuring out where to put it.
Sure, houses and other buildings can be adorned with the sun-collecting panels, but that just doesn’t produce enough energy to power our entire country. You can put solar panels in the desert, but then how do you get the power to the folks living in Maine? Here’s another idea — put those solar panels in space.
A Pentagon-chartered report that came out this week is urging the U.S. to take the lead in developing space platforms that can capture sunlight and beam electrical power back to earth. It sounds like a concept taken straight out of a sci-fi novel, but it’s also not a bad idea. Too bad it won’t work.
Welcome to EcoTech Today
October 13, 2007 at 3:42 pm | Posted in Etc. | Leave a commentTags: Biofuels, cleantech, energy, greentech, Solar
Hello and welcome to EcoTech Today. Here you’ll find commentary on cleantech news and all things related to “green technology.”
Why’d I start this blog? Previously I’ve covered clean technology for Red Herring and Earth2Tech.com. I’m no expert on cleantech, but, on the other hand, I know a few things about what’s going on in the sector and what matters. This blog is the result of my decision to leave a full time journalism profession to pursue other endeavors (such as web design and marketing writing). In short, I’ve also decided that I can’t just stop writing about cleantech for good.
Whether you call it cleantech, greentech, or ecotech, technology that helps reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil while limiting the amount of carbon dioxide we put into the air everyday is a no-brainer for good business. But, of course, not every business will succeed. And that’s why I, and a bunch of other journalists and bloggers (not to mention investors and entrepreneurs) are spending time and energy trying to sort out this relatively new and exciting sector.
This blog probably won’t offer breaking news, at least not for now. Instead, I’m just going to point to some really interesting things going on in cleantech, and hope that you’ll find this blog a place to discuss what’s going on in “EcoTech Today.”
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