Green IT

Robotics manufacturing tends to evoke visions of a John Henry-esque scenario in which competent women and men lose jobs to hunks of automated metal.

But in the case of Solyndra it may be robots that help American workers compete more effectively against China's low-cost labor force.

Consider the video that solar manufacturer Solyndra released this week illustrating how thin-film CIGS (copper, indium, gallium, and selenide) solar modules are produced.

In reality, the video (see below) is a showcase for the company's new state-of-the-art solar manufacturing plant, built with a $535 million federal loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, … Read more

The developer of a proposed wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island doubled the size of the project, saying that greater scale would allow it to sell the electricity produced at a lower price.

Deepwater Wind said it now plans to install 200 wind turbines some 20 miles off the shore of the smallest U.S. state. The project could generate enough electricity to meet the needs of 800,000 typical American homes.

The high price of electricity generated by proposed offshore wind farms has generated fresh public opposition to the projects as developers reach agreements to sell their … Read more

Cisco, once again, was the leader of the pack as Greenpeace released its latest Cool IT Leaderboard on Tuesday.

The environmental watchdog group named Cisco, Ericsson, and Fujitsu, respectively, as the three most environmentally responsible IT companies. Cisco received 70 out of 100 possible points, while Ericsson received 57 points and Fujitsu 52 points. Greenpeace praised Cisco for "making IT climate solutions an increasingly core part of its business strategy."

Cisco was in first place in the group's previous list in April, despite Google upping its public support for climate change legislation in the U.S. at … Read more

Smart-grid data analytics services will generate $4.2 billion in annual revenue by 2015, according to a report released today by Pike Research.

The report asserts that converting the amassment of raw data collected from smart meters into useful information, and in real-time, is a utility's goal from day one of smart-grid deployment. The information garnered from data analytics has an immediate and direct impact on how a utility operates as a company, according to Pike Research.

"[By] utilizing smart-grid data analytics tools and related services, utilities will be able to gain better insights into their customers' energy … Read more

Look at who's logging supercomputing time these days and you are likely to get a glimpse of some major innovations on the horizon.

The U.S. Department of Energy announced today it has just granted the largest award ever of the department's supercomputing time through it's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program, now in it's sixth year.

The large award, a total of 1.7 billion hours distributed over 57 projects, was partially attributed to the fact that the Energy Department has been expanding its supercomputing capacity, and, therefore, simply has the means to grant more time. But it also reflects a growing interest in using computer modeling now that it has increased in sophistication, according to the Energy Department.

The INCITE program is somewhat like the lottery in that everyone has a chance. The Energy Department has an open application process in which any scientist, whether working in the academic or commercial world, is welcome to submit a request to win supercomputing hours, and it's not restricted to energy-related science.

The winning hours are divided between two supercomputers, the IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory aka "Intrepid," and the Cray XT5 supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory aka "Jaguar," which recently lost its first place status to China's Tianhe-1A as the world's most powerful supercomputer.

Among these latest 57 recipients, are large companies like Boeing and General Electric that are going to use the time for sophisticated modeling of potential designs for jet engines and wind turbines, respectively. There are also the climate change and earthquake prediction simulation projects, as one might expect.

Most interesting to the energy sector perhaps is the Lithium/Air Battery Project led by Jack Wells, group leader of the Computational Nanotechnology Group at the Center for Engineering Science Advanced Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. His team will be running simulations of lithium/air battery reactions. A successful version of the air battery would be capable of storing 10 times the amount of energy as a lithium ion battery of the same weight. Such a battery might make electric cars more competitive compared to gas-powered cars since it would offer greater driving range on a single charge than current models.… Read more

Republican gains in the next Congress will likely curtail spending on green construction projects, but the sector promises to be a source of job growth for an economy that sorely needs it, advocates said on Tuesday.

"America needs 30 million jobs. Our mission ought to be to make those green jobs," David Foster, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of nine labor unions and four environmental groups, told the Greenbuild Expo in Chicago.

Foster predicted that Republican gains in the November 2 election mean there will be little government investment in green projects next year. But … Read more

It may not look like much, but a little white electric outlet with a networking chip in it can save a bunch of money, according to ThinkEco.

The New York-based start-up today said its "modlet," or modern outlet, is now available. It also released results from a pilot project which showed that a company reduced its power bill by $65,000 per year using the networked outlets in its office.

ThinkEco is one of a handful of companies making these smart plugs to lower the wasted energy from plug loads, which is a growing portion of businesses' and … Read more

A Microsoft-sponsored analysis released today reaffirms what many tech companies have long been saying: computing is more efficient when it's concentrated in the "cloud" at giant data centers.

The range of savings from having hosted vs. on-premise IT infrastructure is between 30 percent and 90 percent, according to the study, which was conducted by Accenture and sustainability consulting company WSP Energy & Environment.

The greatest energy and greenhouse reductions can be achieved by small businesses with fewer than 100 users. The study was designed around a comparison of three Microsoft applications--SharePoint, Exchange, and Dynamics CRM--in an on-premise … Read more

Corporations crunch a lot of numbers on a lot of things but businesses, just like consumers, don't have a very good grasp on energy spending.

Software start-up ENXSuite today is releasing an updated version of its energy management software, one of many companies trying to bring stricter accounting to costs related to natural resources, including water, waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.

ENXSuite, which has some 24 announced customers, competes with start-ups Hara Software, which launched last year, and C3, a still stealthy company with Tom Siebel and Condoleezza Rice on its board. Companies in more specialized areas, such as … Read more