US Army plans giant solar thermal farm
Green TechThe US Army plans to install a 500-megawatt solar thermal power farm at a Fort Irwin base in California as part of its bid to reduce a $3 billion annual energy bill, spent mostly on installations.
The Mojave Desert plant would feed electricity to the grid by 2014 for savings of $21 million and 4,015,000 tons of carbon dioxide over 25 years. Construction is set to begin in 2012. Continue reading...
UK canals to get wind turbines and hydro
Green TechCanals have already been hailed as a low carbon way to transport goods, but now a new scheme hopes to reinvent them as green power stations. British Waterways, which maintains 2,200 miles of canals and rivers, is planning to install enough wind turbines and small hydro-electric projects to save 100,000 tonnes of CO2 each year.
It looks like a win-win for cutting emissions and local wildlife conservation. British Waterways intends to build 50 wind turbines with a total 100 megawatt capacity, which means we're talking big wind farm-style turbines here rather than small wind power. "If we successfully develop this resource it would mean the nation’s canal network would generate more than ten times more electricity than it consumes," says British Waterways CEO Robin Evans. Continue reading...
AlertMe plans to automate your home energy
Green TechDigg's Kevin Rose generated a lot of debate when he unveiled his iPower idea for an automated home energy-saving system. Now it looks like a UK company is going to make a similar concept into reality. AlertMe, which launched a wireless home security system earlier this year, is readying a kit capable of monitoring and automatically cutting your electricity and gas use at home.
The first product in AlertMe's new Energy line will be a Smart Plug (pictured above right) which you stick in any plug socket you want to monitor. The Smart Plug then talks wirelessly with the AlertMe Hub, a broadband- and GPRS-connected box (above left), and displays each socket's electricity use on a web page. Continue reading...
Review: Solargorilla and Powergorilla
Green TechSolar electricity is a mature technology that's over half a century old, but you wouldn't guess it by the rate of innovation. From solar cells you can paint on roofs to solar energy storage with hydrogen and oxygen, every month brings a new breakthrough. The latest development is solar power for your laptop thanks to a pair of new gadgets, Powertraveller's Solargorilla and Powergorilla.
Up to now, the pocket-size solar chargers we've reviewed on SmartPlanet have only been capable of charging pocket-size gadgets: phones, cameras, PSPs, anything only requiring a few volts. The Gorillas, however, are the first affordable gizmos that'll power your laptop from the sun. Continue reading...
Mini Kin wind charger blows in, challenges Hymini
Green TechMeet the Mini Kin, a new wind-powered gadget to recharge all your other shiny gizmos. Experiencing Déjà vu? That's because this debutant resembles the Hymini, a second handheld wind charger which SmartPlanet reviewed back in June. So what does the Mini Kin bring to the party?
Not a lot, it seems. The key differences appear to be a lower price (£30 to the Hymini's £40), the inclusion of a suction mounting bracket and a slightly less curvy design. Continue reading...
Why Sony Ericsson's GreenHeart eco phone sucks
Green TechToo late, too boring, too vague. That's my verdict on the "environmentally conscious" GreenHeart prototype phone unveiled by Sony Ericsson last week. Sony Ericsson knows its cred with treehuggers is trailing behind Nokia, which already has two eco concepts -- the 3110. By announcing a concept phone so late in the day, Sony Eric looks like it's bandwagon jumping.
Then there's the design. This is hardly a thrilling vision of the future, is it? GreenHeart looks like a mildly tweaked K810i with green menu icons. That's fine, but dull. Compared to Nokia's wacky concepts, this looks like it was designed by the Corporate Social Responsibility team rather than Sweden and Japan's finest design gurus. Continue reading...
Review: Eco Media Player Revolution
Green TechYou can't fault Trevor Baylis for being too modest with his product names. Take the original, updated it to piano black, bumped the storage from 2 to 4GB and spruced up the video playback. I'd call that an Evolution, not a bloody barricades and guillotines Revolution.
But I digress. I've been lucky enough to spend the weekend playing with the Revolution, and this is the web's first review. The Revolution is a pocket media player which potentially never need be plugged into the mains, provided you power it by winding a built-in crank. It has a features list longer than my sore cranking arm. Continue reading...
Green tech bubble talk is a red herring
Green TechIt's fashionable these days to ponder whether there's an investment bubble in clean tech. But I believe this discussion obscures a bigger problem for the clean tech crowd: not enough money.
A panel of venture capitalists at the Technology Review EmTech 2008 conference on Thursday took the bubble question head on. The response from investors tends to be nuanced: no, there isn't a bubble, but there are some silly company ideas getting funded. Continue reading...
Cash injection heats up Promethean solar fridges
Green TechPromethean Power Systems, a start-up developing solar-powered refrigerators for India, has raised a round of angel funding from the Quercus Trust. The funding was finalised last Thursday and will allow the company to build another prototype which it hopes to test in India next year, says company CEO Sorin Gramma.
Promethean Power showed off its first prototype this week at the Technology Review EmTech 2008 conference in the US. Continue reading...
Photos: Man BASE jumps off wind turbine
Green TechYes, this is the view from the top of a wind turbine. And the man on the left is Roger Holmes, a BASE jumper leaping off the top of it. He was one of 30 jumpers competing this weekend at the inaugural British Open Base Jumping Championship (27-28 September). Australian jumper Christopher 'Dougs' McDougal won the contest.
Organisers claim the jumps were the first ever legal ones from a wind turbine. Earlier this summer, eco blog Groovy Green posted a video of jumpers performing a turbine jump that was presumed illegal. Continue reading...
ScottishPower plans world's largest tidal power project
Green TechScotland and Ireland have been picked for a tidal power project providing enough electricity for 40,000 homes. ScottishPower Renewables announced the plan today, which will see carbon-free energy generated off the coast at Pentland Firth and the Sound of Islay in Scotland, and North Antrim in Northern Ireland.
At each location, up to 20 underwater turbines will each generate 1 megawatt (MW) of power from the tidal stream. Together, the tidal power stations should generate a total of 60 megawatts. That's big. OpenHydro, which was the first company to export tidal energy to the national grid, is only generating 0.25 megawatts at its installation off Orkney. Continue reading...
Whistler goes zero carbon with hydro power
Green TechWhistler-Blackcomb is building a huge hydro project that will power the entire resort with renewable energy. When the 7.5 megawatt site in Fitzimmons Creek is completed in 2010, it'll produce 33.5 gigwatt hours of electricity, enough to power the entire Canadian ski resort's 38 lifts, 17 restaurants and more.
Snowboarders looking for the ultimate green ride will be pleased to hear the Creek doesn't have fish and isn't used for recreation either. Electricity lines from the hydro turbine will be buried underground and the energy will be sold to local utility BC Hydro. Continue reading...
Wales beats English regions on wind power
Green TechWales generates more electricity from wind power than any region in England, a new government report says. Electricity from wind turbines and wave energy in Wales totalled 864 gigawatt hours in 2007, far ahead of the best-performing English region. North-West England trailed into second-place on 468.3 GWh.
The Energy Trends study by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) looked at renewable energy around the country. It reveals: Continue reading...
Why London eco club sums don't add up
Green TechWhen the "world's first eco nightclub" opened in London this July, it attracted unqualified plaudits and celebs including Jade Jagger, Coldcut and shadow environment minister Greg Barker. But did Bar Surya deserve the praise? Is it really as green as it claims? To find out, I chatted to the team behind the club and looked at the numbers.
Claim 1: The dancefloor creates 60 per cent of the club's electricity
The piezoelectric dancefloor at Bar Surya uses the pressure of dancing clubbers to generate electricity. The owners have variously claimed the floor provides between 50 and 60 per cent of the entire club's electricity requirement (the 50 figure came from an email Bar Surya sent me, the 60 per cent from its website). Continue reading...
RWE npower tests carbon capture in the UK
Green TechAs the Environment Agency prepares to publish its verdict on carbon capture and storage (CCS) tomorrow, Germany's RWE NPower has declared it's opening a test CCS facility by the end of September. The power generator and utility company says it will attempt to capture carbon dioxide as coal is burned at its plant in Didcot, Oxford.
"Coal will play a reducing, but vital, part to keep supplies secure, reliable and affordable," the firm's CEO Andrew Duff said in a statement. "The aim here should be to help accelerate development of a functioning CCS technology that can be integrated into those coal power stations that the country will continue to need." Continue reading...
Baylis unwraps Eco Media Player Revolution
Green TechThe first wind-up MP3 player from Trevor Baylis was adored by Stephen Fry and deemed "especially likeable" by David Pogue. SmartPlanet thought it was pretty good too. Today SmartPlanet can exclusively reveal Baylis is back with his second generation wind-up player, the Eco Media Player Revolution.
This new crank machine improves on the original with promise of a better interface, sleeker design and more battery life from your wind-up exertions. Predictably, it continues the Swiss Army Knife approach of the first edition -- it can play music, video, photos, charge phones and record via a line-in socket. Continue reading...
Photos: making ethanol for greener cars
Green TechLet us take you on a journey from these beakers to your petrol tank. A few years ago, the idea of cellulosic ethanol -- making liquid fuel from wood, grasses, and agriculture residue -- was a foreign concept to most. Now many consumers, industrialists, and policy makers consider making cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale one of the most important technical challenges for society.
Mascoma is one company in the race, with what it hopes is a breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol through biotechnology. Continue reading...
Nokia Malyasia hopes kiosks will boost phone recycling
Green TechNokia has introduced automated kiosks across the central Klang Valley of Malaysia in a bid to encourage people to recycle their mobile phones. In a recent study conducted by the mobile-phone maker, only 3 percent of respondents recycled their mobile phones, and 50 percent were unaware their devices could be reused.
Nokia is hoping to improve the statistics with the introduction of kiosks specially designed to ease the recycling process. Continue reading...
Very PC intros 16 watt Fulwood mini desktop
Green TechAnd you thought the compared to many desktops.
Very says the green machine hasn't sacrificed performance, suggesting the Fulwood sports four times the performance of rival Intel Atom-based eco PCs. Continue reading...
Review: ATP EarthDrive, the eco USB key
Green TechWe like our green gadgets here at SmartPlanet, so I was intrigued to check out the environmental claims of this thumb drive. Its maker ATP sent me the $30 4GB version (it goes up to 8GB), which came wrapped in card. The normal retail version, however, is encased in a plastic blister pack which ain't very green or recyclable.
In use, it performs absolutely fine. The USB connector slides in and out easily enough, transfer speeds are roughly on a par with the two generic keys lying around my desk and it comes pre-loaded with a free copy of Carry It Easy (encryption and syncing software that usually costs €20). It's waterproof too. I just ran it under the kitchen tap, dried it and plugged it into my laptop; it's working right now. Continue reading...
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