GreenTech Pastures

Another way to ditch your gadgets the green way and earn some money in the process

Heather Clancy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:41:04 +0000

For about a year now, a Web site that started life as Second Rotation has been buying back electronic gadgets including cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras, laptops, GPS devices, gaming consoles, camcorders, satellite radios and portable hard drives. No matter how old. During that time, the company figures it has helped divert about 5 million [...]

Test case: what happens when a government requires renewable energy?

Harry Fuller — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:43:45 +0000

Let’s take a look. Not at Denmark, or Portugal or Germany. How about, say, Colorado? Here’s a report on how Colorado’s 2004 initiative for renewable energy sources has worked out so far. Here’s the information for homeonwers on the Colorado governor’s website. Here’s a series of Colorado’s pubs on conservation and renewable [...]

Geoengineering may be tech’s answer to global warming

Harry Fuller — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:30:03 +0000

There’s already money going into developing geoengineering plans to combat rising temps on this planet. Shell Oil has stepped forward as an early supporter. There are a myriad suggestions on how to use mega-engineering projects to combat global warming. Sulphurous gases sprayed into the upper atmosphere. Blocks some solar radiation. [...]

IBM: Measure, measure and measure some more

Heather Clancy — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:57:22 +0000

So far, the main green tech consulting offerings have emerged from the biggest of the big systems vendors and this latest service I’m referencing today out of IBM is no different. The new IBM Green Sigma offering, for those companies that do the Lean Sigma thing, focuses on how to help businesses reduce their energy and [...]

Will we kill the ocean before the atmosphere kills us?

Harry Fuller — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:46:16 +0000

The race is on. We humans are trashing large patches of the ocean, says an American researcher. Our cast-off, washed-away chemicals are creating oceanic dead zones. Latest dead zone discoveries have been in the more oceanic, less populated Southern Hemisphere. America’s own prize dead zone is at the mouth of the Mississippi, where [...]

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

Heather Clancy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 21:11:48 +0000

It takes more than better attention to energy-efficiency or attention to materials to classify some gadget or another as green tech. That’s why Hewlett-Packard has made a concerted effort to have its products vetted as part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay logo program, which focuses on the fuel consumption and emissions profiles of the [...]

AFCO unfurls three new systems for data center power distribution

Heather Clancy — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 01:16:26 +0000

I haven’t written much about the providers of data center scale power management systems, but noticed some news from a few weeks back out of a company called AFCO Systems, which has several new power distribution units to tout. AFCO is worth investigating because it was one of the first (if not THE first) [...]

It’s 1,100 systems and counting for open-source refurbishment advocates

Heather Clancy — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:27:59 +0000

It’s almost back-to-school time here in New Jersey, so I thought it appropriate to update the Installfest for Schools item that I covered in late May. To refresh your collective memory, Untangle and the Alameda County Computer Resource Center got together at LinuxWorld earlier this month to encourage volunteers to refurbish old computers with free [...]

Dabbler or Optimizer? Consulting company comes out with model that rates your org’s green credentials

Heather Clancy — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:19:10 +0000

Someone asked me last week if I knew of any companies that provide green tech assets services for small or midsize businesses. Honestly, I know of none, but I’ll put my thinking cap on. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering how you fare alongside your peers when it comes to “green enterprise maturity?” The Results Group, a [...]

Climate changes of yore

Harry Fuller — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:00:59 +0000

Paleoclimatology is not just a hot topic now, it’s also cool. And there are some serious implicatons for what is happening around the globe right now. Aside from the heedless arguments over who or what is to be balmed for current climate change, and constant carping from those who say it ain’t so, [...]