Inspirational and good news.
Canada’s largest province has decided to ban old light-bulbs. Entire nations have already done this, at least Australia and Venezuela have, and it is good to see other regions following in their lead.
“It’s the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road,” said Environment Minister Laurel Broten.
Computers burn a lot of energy on our planet, in fact it’s 4-5% of total world power consumption. Well, Sun Microsystems knows this and is doing something about it. I wonder how they stack up to sustainable linux, black google, but, they are better than windows and Apple.
For him, this is just good business. “Energy responsibility is about to become a society-wide business imperative,” he says. “All my projects have measurable business benefit. You might say the ‘eco’ in my title is for economics as well as ecology.”
“We’re not only part of the solution but also part of the problem,” he confesses. What he means is that computers are egregious energy hogs. Data centers alone, Sun calculates, account for 2-3 percent of total world energy use, with all IT making up more like 4-5 percent. At big companies, 20 percent of total energy costs can typically be accounted for by information technology.
Solar power is always seeing new advancements. It can be something fun like building your own solar powered iPod charger or finding that solar dyes can be used for creating electricity. This month Georgia Tech has developed a solar panel that uses nano-towers to create a more efficient solar cell.
The difference is in the design. Traditional solar panels are often flat and bulky. The new design features an array of nano-towers – like microscopic blades of grass – that add surface area and trap more sunlight.
I don’t really understand all of this quantum power stuff – it just seems so neat! Apparently plants use some quantum level process for photosynthesis which is what plants need to do in order to live. I have no idea how this will impact anything, but it’s just such a groovy discovery.
In a paper entitled, Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems, he and his collaborators report the detection of “quantum beating†signals, coherent electronic oscillations in both donor and acceptor molecules, generated by light-induced energy excitations, like the ripples formed when stones are tossed into a pond.
The power of walking proves itself to be a great way to get energy yet again!
This most recent addition to the foot powered future uses nanogenerators to convert kinetic energy into cell phone energy.
Researchers have demonstrated a prototype nanometer-scale generator that produces continuous direct-current electricity by harvesting mechanical energy from such environmental sources as ultrasonic waves, mechanical vibration or blood flow.