GreenTech Pastures

February 9th, 2010

In 'Transit': Ford seeks foothold in commercial electric segment

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 1:29 pm

Categories: cars & traffic, conservation, energy, engineering, green tech

Tags: Electric Vehicle, Ford Motor Co., Automotive, Heather Clancy

OK, so maybe this isn’t such a bad day for electric vehicles after all. The point I was making in my last post was that someone, somewhere was bound to bash hybrids as a result of the Toyota Prius recall.

But, I take back my past headline anyway, because I just received notice from the current electric and hybrid darling, Ford, that they have come out with an electric version of one of their small van models.

The Transit Connect Electric (pictured below) is the first pure electric version of the Ford Connect van, and it is scheduled to go into production in late 2010.

Ford has teamed up with Azure Dynamics, which specializes in hybrid and electric vehicles for commercial usage, to create an electric powertrain (called the Force Drive), which makes this vehicle possible. Ford is hoping to attract commercial fleet operators with the new vehicle, which is intended for short ranges (up to 80 miles) and for top speeds of 75 miles per hour. So, sort of a challenge on a speeding-prone patch of highway. But, the van apparently doesn’t skimp on cargo space, which is something you might be wondering about. Both the electric version and the gas-powered version have 135 cubic fee of cargo volume.

Ford says you can actually charge the vehicle with a standard 120V outlet, although it recommends using a 240V charge station. It will take six to eight hours of charging (essentially overnight) for the latter method. The vehicle will actually operate off a 28-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack.

No word yet on the sticker price.

Future Ford hybrid or electric plans include three additional electric vehicles due to hit the market by 2012: a Focus Electric (2011), a plug-in hybrid electric (2012) and a next-generation hybrid (2012).

February 9th, 2010

Black eye for hybrids as Toyota extends recall

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 6:14 am

Categories: cars & traffic, green tech

Tags: Recall, Hybrid, Toyota Motor Corp., Toyota Prius, Automotive, Heather Clancy

It’s pretty much a bummer of a day for proponents of hybrid vehicles.

Even though the Prius model actually HAS been cited in some of the earlier recalls, its decision to recall close to 440,000 of its popular hybrid model because of problems with its brakes is likely to thrill the nay-sayers who hate the whole hybrid/electric vehicle concept.

If there’s one bright spot in this latest development, it’s the fact that the Prius is a big enough part of the auto-maker’s business to get a ton of coverage. In other words, hybrids are going mainstream, which will get them just as much scrutiny for the right reasons (basic operating features) as the next auto.

February 8th, 2010

An ironic place to test electric vehicles: Inside an old oil tank in Israel

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 5:14 am

Categories: Uncategorized

Tags: Electric Vehicle, Pi Glilot, Automotive, Heather Clancy

Better Place, the electric vehicle proponent helmed by charismatic former SAP executive Shai Agassi, has flipped the switch on its first demonstration facility — which was constructed inside an old oil tank at the Pi Glilot Site site in Israel. Pi Glilot is apparently one of the last oil and gas distribution facilities in the country; Better Place is trying to buddy up with existing gas station networks to help make charging stations more ubiquitous, which it believes will fuel the adoption of electric and electric hybrid vehicles.

You can peek at photos of the facility at this link.

The facility is a place for the company to test its concept for electric vehicle charging stations and for corporate fleet owners to see and test the electric vehicles in action. So far, Better Place has signed up 92 different corporate fleet owners who have pledged to convert at least some of their cars over to the new electric models, which are due from Renault in 2011. The latest companies to sign on are CA and Motorola.

The facility will be open to the general public starting Feb. 14, 2010.

February 8th, 2010

Power management by design: Climate Savers org offers step-by-step guide

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 4:53 am

Categories: conservation, energy, engineering, green tech

Tags: S3 Inc., Power Management, Heather Clancy

Climate Savers Computing, a non-profit of “eco-conscious” consumers, businesses and conservation organizations dedicated to the cause of greener computing technology, figures close to 90 percent of client desktop and notebooks computers still live outside of any sort of power management scheme, even those that actually have some sort of power management capability embedded into the core software or systems designs.

The reasons for this are many but mainly it comes down to the fact that this hasn’t been a priority, especially since some users get kind of up-in-arms about any sort of policy that might get in the way of using “their” computer in ways they want, when they want. The management vs. productivity argument.

So, Climate Savers is trying to push the envelope by educating designers and managers about the various power management options they currently have at their disposal — options that make power management faster and reliable without getting in the way of user experience.

The organization has published the Power Management Systems Design Guide, which covers what it calls sleep state standby (S3) technology. The guide is prescriptive: that is, it offers specific instructions about how to build and deploy energy-efficient, power-managed client platforms. So, this guide might be particularly useful to anyone who uses any sort of custom-built hardware within their organization or that is building this sort of hardware. It is meant, also, for software developers and was timed for the release of the Ecma Network Proxy Standard, which essentially helps ensure that a “sleeping” devices still maintains a network presence.

The guide highlights the contributions of Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, LSI, Lenovo and MIcrosoft. Its focus is helping technical sorts guarantee that desktops and laptops can transition in and out of lower energy states more seamlessly. Why do you want to do this? Because a sleeping client uses three to five watts of power versus 50 watts that are used in the idle state.

Here’s the skinny of what’s in the guide:

• What you can expect out of S3 in terms of user experience and latency
• System recommendations for the best S3 reliability
• Information about how this effort marries up with the Energy Star 5.0 specification
• Information about the Network Proxy Ecma TC32-TG21 Standard
• Reliability testing tools for S3

February 7th, 2010

Science underlying global warming--what do we "know?"

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 10:10 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, climate change, environmental health, global warming, law & politics, research

Tags: Earth, Climate Change, Global Warming, Harry Fuller

A new study by scientists in Britain suggests that climate change theory needs to carefully re-examine the assumptions about changes in the earth’s orbital position in relation to the sun. This study says the issue of the earth’s position is crucial in determining long-term effects and climate change trends. It was not considered relevant for shorter term predictions about climate in coming decades.

“Future research should more precisely narrow down the influence of orbital changes on climate,” said the chief researcher. “This is crucial for a better understanding of underlying natural climate trends over long, millennial timescales. And that is essential for a better understanding of any potential long-term impacts on climate due to man’s activities.”

LATEST ON EAST ANGLIA “HACKING”

Here’s some of the latest info and speculation on the hacking of East Anglia University climate change research docs and emails. Nearly all the early bloggers aware of the hacked material were American climate change doubters. Yet there is now some speculation there never was a hacking, but the files were simply sitting on a server accessible by the public. The police investigation is now two months old and there have been no public announcements or moves to arrest anyone.

The research was paid for by the British government.

February 5th, 2010

Can a new format challenge LEDs for energy efficiency?

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 1:58 pm

Categories: conservation, energy, engineering, green tech

Tags: Energy Efficiency, Light-emitting Diode, Laser, Engineering, Corporate Communications, Marketing, Heather Clancy

When it comes to the energy-efficiency of high-definitition displays we’ve been grappling with the various benefits of Plasmas, LCD, DLPs and LEDs. Well, get ready for another acronym, LPDs, which stands for laser phosphor displays.

Prysm, a four-year-old privately held startup in San Jose, California, is touting LPDs as a greener option for those needing laser format displays — whether it’s for a television or for a public video wall. According to the company, its technology consumes up to 75 percent less power than other display technologies depending on the application. Generally speaking, LPDs are being manufactured with low impact in mind in terms of materials, processes and the potential for reuse, says Dana Corey, vice president of sales and marketing for the company.

So, you’re wondering, when can I see this stuff in action?

Corey says the company is completing the first of several products, which will be sold both under the Prysm brand and by original equipment manufacturers with a stake in this market. The first units will include formats that can be tiled and stacked to create the resolution or size that fits the application (such as the public display example shown above).

February 4th, 2010

Digital system to monitor a greenhouse gas in California

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 3:09 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, engineering, environmental health, federal government, law & politics, research, state government

Tags: Monitor, Methane, Greenhouse Gas, Methane Emission, Telecom & Utilities, Harry Fuller

Much of the fuss involving greenhouse gases and global warming has focused on CO2. But CO2 is not the only or even the most pernicious greenhouse gas according to some research. Ozone has raised concerns. And now California is going to become the first jurisdiction in the U.S. to measure methane emissions.

A Silicon Valley firm is making the sensors and created the software that will analyze the methane measurements in several locations. This has agribusiness worried as farms and livestock are likely major sources of methane emissions.

Scientists are watching closely because no prior research has tried to pinpoint the sources of methane emissions on a broad scale. In the past there’s been speculation and some data showing melting permafrost in Arctic is releasing considerable methane. Methane is often a natural by-product of organic processes breaking down leaves, manure, etc.

The California monitoring is in compliance with a state law aimed at curtailing the state’s overall greenhouse gas emissions.

February 4th, 2010

Green Grid prepping new efficiency estimator, power calculator

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 6:01 am

Categories: conservation, energy, green tech

Tags: Data Center, Grid, Green Grid, Data Centers, Storage, Hardware, Data Management, Heather Clancy

So, I’m hoping most people reading this blog on any kind of regular basis know who, actually I should say what, Green Grid is. But just in case you’re unfamiliar with the group, it is an organization that focuses on best practices and tools that could help improve the energy efficiency of business computing technologies and, in particular, data centers. The group also is cozying up now officially with Data Center Pulse, in order to beef up its perspective.

The Green Grid’s third annual member meeting is this week, and it has been working on some new free online tools it will make available not just to members but to other interested parties in the coming months. Those new resources include:

• A new Power Efficiency Estimator that will take into account addition factors such as workloads, available requirements, space constraints and other real world considerations that might alternate an energy efficiency equation. The new estimator is supposed to go live by the end of the first quarter, according to Green Grid board member Kathrin Winkler, who is the senior director of corporate sustainability for EMC.
• The estimator is NOT to be confused with a new calculator for power usage effectiveness (PUE), a metric that was originally created by the Green Grid to express the relationship between a data center’s IT equipment and the equipment needed to keep things cool and otherwise acclimatized. This tool, too, will be available at the end of the first quarter. Two things of particular note here are the fact this the calculator will now account for the container-type data center modules that are being sold by several companies AND it will also be available to the public, not just to Green Grid members.

Here’s what it looks like:

If you’re looking for some not-so-light reading, the Green Grid has published a white paper discussing the impact of virtualization on physical data center metrics and it also has posted some sample chapters and an outline for the forthcoming data center design guide, for which it is soliciting member comment. The organization has also teamed up with the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (aka ASHRAE) to publish a booked called, “Real Time Energy Consumption Measurements in Data Centers.” If you’re a Green Grid member, you can get the book at this link. Otherwise, it is available for $54.

February 3rd, 2010

Corn chips or biofuel? Feds push for more ethanol

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 10:24 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, biofuel, cars & traffic, conservation, energy, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, global warming, green tech, law & politics, petroleum, renewable energy

Tags: Biofuel, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Chip, Telecom & Utilities, Automotive, Harry Fuller

The newest government guidelines on biofuel could lead to more corn being processed into ethanol. The EPA says even if you account for all the fertilizer and processing energy, burning biofuel is better for the environment than fossil fuel.

Corn Belt pols will love this, environmental groups are attacking it as a sell-out to those states, and the battles will continue. Many critics have claimed that food crops should not be used for making fuel. Of course, the oil industry is NOT pleased with the EPA’s findings either. The EPA now says using more biofuel will help the U.S. cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s the EPA’s press release on today’s biofuel finding.

February 3rd, 2010

Famous geek says his Prius could be dangerous

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 4:22 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, cars & traffic, energy, engineering, federal government, fossil fuel, green tech, law & politics, renewable energy

Tags: Toyota Motor Corp., Toyota Prius, Automotive, Harry Fuller

UPDATE ADDED FEB 4:
Toyota’s now looking into the brake problems on the 2010 Prius. Apparently earlier models are not involved as they have an earlier, different brake system. No recall here yet. But lots more bad PR for Toyota.

Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, says his Prius accelerates on its own. Prius has not been involved in the recent avalanche of Toyota recalls. It is the highest selling hybrid car in the U.S.

Wozniak said he tried to notify both Toyota and the feds. Nobody would listen. Steve who?

Now that his problem has gotten publicity, Toyota’s going to borrow the 2010 Prius for a week of testing. Wozniak’s view: no new product is perfect and he’d buy another Prius.

Meanwhile, the complaints about new Prius brakes seem to be piling up. These complaints center on the third generation Prius which came to market last year. The new models’ brakes are supposed to give it even more fuel efficiency and higher mileage. Toyota has not yet decided whether this brake prob warrants another recall. You can bet they are nervous and paying attention.
Prius 2010 model. Courtesy: CNET

Here’s the Prius’s official website.

None of this is going to help hybrid car sales, of course. Not to mention what lost revenue is doing to both Toyota’s cash flow and its stock price. Reputation? That’s a longer term question.

Now drivers of Toyota models already involved in the accelerator prob recalls are warned they could be in violation of the law. The drivers may be liable, not just Toyota. One lawyer warns drivers of recalled models could be deemed in operation of a dangerous vehicle.

[Full disclosure: the author of this blog owns and drives a 2005 Toyota Prius.]