GreenGab

I was in Vegas last month, and the region has three interesting things as it pertains to this story:

1. Lots of wide open spaces
2. A distinct lack of inclimate weather
3. Lots of SUN

Same is true of, shall we call it, the entire desert southwest.  Almost no snow, a little rain here and there, but sunlight.  Also, it being a little closer to the equator, there’s more hours in the day when the sun is out.  Sounds like the perfect spot to put some solar cells to my ignorant ears.

I must be wrong in my assumptions, as I read today about Silicon Valley-based (well, Hayward, but it’s close enough) Optisolar, a new startup that will “build the largest solar power “farm” in North America, using solar cells manufactured in Silicon Valley. The site, near Sarnia in Ontario, Canada, will be enough to power between 10,000 and 15,000 homes on sunny days, drawing on a monstrous 40-megawatt capacity.” 

Sounds great, but what’s going to power the homes on the 300 days of the year that aren’t sunny, eh?  I wonder if the energy costs to have people come clean the snow off the cells will exceed the energy gained?  By the way, did I mention I’m from Canada, whose weather is best described as “nine months of hockey followed by three months of crappy ice”.

It turns out the Ontario government offers financial incentives for alternative energy producers, just like unlike the USA, which considers oil from countries with stable governments “alternative”.

At least the solar guys are making some progress, unlike wind/turbine generators, a.k.a. “the Aquaman of alternative energy”.

Larry Dignan at ZDNet blogged today about the rapidly growing impact of the IT industry on global emissions.

Information and communication technology accounts for 2 percent of global CO2 emissions, according to Gartner. That’s the equivalent of the airline industry.

This amazes me.  As a fairly frequent traveler, I cringe a little everytime I see the cloud of nasty trailing a plane as it takes off the runway.  I’ve always assumed that the airlines generated a tremendous amount of pollution.  I would never have thought that servers running in closets and farms all around the world were just as bad.  It shows you how quickly the net effect of something can be - and yes, that was a deliberate pun.

Source: ZDNet

I saw on Treehugger today this post on Getting Ready for Earth Day.  You should read the post for details, but here are their four big tips:

1. Check out our top five tips for reducing computer energy use…
2. When it comes to batteries, rechargeables are the way to go…
3. Crank power can replace many common plug-in chargers…
4. For greener listening (list of speakers)…

And don’t forget to check out their guide to Greening Your Electronics!

A lot of the time when people think about “going green” they associate it with disheveled-looking people with dreadlocks wearing all-hemp clothes.  These days, green tech (and green living in general) is becoming so mainstream that you can still wear that fancy suit and tie, drive that fancy (hybrid) SUV, and go to your fancy home, yet still live an environmentally-conscious life.  CNET has a great article today on building green homes.

Many energy-consumption problems can be addressed with simple tweaks to conventional house design, according to the founder of eco-friendly home design company Michelle Kaufmann Designs. Windows and sliding glass doors placed on opposite walls, for instance, allow the sun to more evenly wash a room with light and eliminate contrast, which reduces the need for electrical light during the day. Windows also allow for natural air circulation, which reduces demand for heating and air conditioning.

…

Source: CNET

The headline almost doesn’t make sense, does it?  If a company is doing all its publishing online, well, that sounds great - paperfree is better than paperfull, right?  The problem is all this wonderful tech providing this wonderful content on the wonderful Internet is using a bunch of high-powered servers in heavily air-conditioned rooms.  The bigger the pub, the more servers, and worse yet, the more redundant servers and mirroring servers needed around the world.  Yahoo! announced last week they were taking a first step at reducing their environmental impact by going carbon neutral, which is definitely one way to help this rapidly growing problem.

When I read the headline at the New York Times (online) today that “As Environmentalism Grows, Online Publishers Go Green” I was excited to read on.  The first paragraph alone was enough to disappoint:

Buoyed by the breakaway success of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the film documentary of Al Gore’s environmental lecture, publishers like The Washington Post, National Geographic and others are increasing their offerings of “green” content, hoping to attract readers and advertising revenues from manufacturers and retailers who are suddenly walking the earth-friendly path.

The entire article is basically about these companies having new columns and subsites about green products.  More stuff we can all go out and buy and feel a little better about ourselves because we bought it.  On one hand I’m encouraged, seeing big players pay some attention to this space is great.  On the other, I’m discouraged, as I’m growing increasingly concerned that everyone’s looking for the “quick fix” to environmental issues, of which there are many, most of which aren’t quickly fixable.

Source: The New York Times

When looking to add new technology to a device or product, one of the biggest challenges can be figuring out how to do it without increasing the physical size of the device.  This is primarily because we, as consumers, like “smaller, faster, better” when it comes to our gadgets.  So as companies seek to introduce fuel cells or solar chargers into devices, they are significantly constrained by small form factors.  Congrats to Motorola for patenting a process in which the solar cell is integrated into the LCD screen!

Source: CrunchGear

I was browsing Amazon today and noticed a big splashy graphic on Earth Day specials.  Here are some cool Amazon “green” links:

• Amazon’s blog with “green life” tags
• How to be an Environmentally Responsible Driver article
• Earth Day discussion forums
• 10 Ways You Can Help the Environment list

For more, here’s Amazon’s Earth Day homepage. 

Announced yesterday:

Yahoo! has committed to going carbon neutral this year. Essentially, that means we’re going to invest in greenhouse gas reduction projects around the world to neutralize Yahoo!’s impact on the environment. While doing our homework on this, we measured our carbon footprint and discovered that Yahoo! going carbon neutral is equivalent to shutting off the electricity in all San Francisco homes for a month. Or, pulling nearly 25,000 cars off the road for a year.

That’s wonderful news, and standing ovation to the Yahoo! management team for taking a step like this.  I’m not sure how Google will respond, but my hunch is they might try to buy the environment as a pre-emptive long-term move.

Just wanted to let anyone who might stumble upon this site that this is all placeholder right now.  I am bringing on a few writers, getting a designer to “fix” the look and feel, etc.  I wish I had the time myself to make this a constant activity, but it’s not realistic just yet.  In the meantime, content, links, coverage, etc will all be sporadic.

Thanks for understanding!

FountainBlue is a Bay Area-based organization who puts on numerous events all year round for executives and entrepreneurs in the high tech, life sciences, and clean energy sectors.  The next event is about a month away, on May 8th, is entitled “Clean Energy Investor’s Forum - What’s Hot, What’s Not” and focuses on these topics:

• Renewable energy like solar, wind, bio-energy, and
  environmentally-friendly hydroelectric technologies 
• Energy efficiency and demand response—electricity end-use, buildings
  and grid applications 
• Environment-enhancing technologies—advanced flue gas clean-up,
  ultra-low emissions generation such as fuel cells, environmental
  remediation, and exceptionally efficient generation
• Enabling technologies—power electronics, storage, low-loss cables
  and wires, sensors and instrumentation, control systems, materials and
  manufacturing technology, and integrated clean energy applications.

Pre-Registration is now open, and is only $10-15, click here to sign up.  For more info on last month’s event, you can read their blog posting here.