Energy efficiency

Dow starts mass-marketing solar shingles

Colorado now has a slightly more aesthetic option for harnessing all that lovely Rocky Mountain sun.

Dow Solar, a division of Dow Chemical, began selling solar roofing shingles this month that may attract even the most exigent homeowner.

While there have been several pilot projects throughout the country where the Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingles have been installed since their release in 2009, Colorado is the first state where the shingles will be available for widespread sale and installation.

Dow Solar then plans to mass-market its shingles in a dozen more states, starting in California and moving across the country to … Read more

Solar firm SunPower goes micro

A leading solar manufacturer has decided to offer panels with microinverters for automatically converting electricity from direct current to alternating current.

SunPower, which is partly owned by gas and oil giant Total, announced this week it's adding the E18 and E19 AC Solar Panel series to its line of solar panels. The new solar-panel models will come integrated with SolarBridge Pantheon AC microinverters made by SolarBridge Technologies.

Normally, a solar panel generates electricity in DC (direct current), and needs to be routed to an inverter that converts it to AC (alternating current), the standard used in homes, before it … Read more

Facebook 'social energy' app compares home efficiency

After finding out what your friends did over the weekend, you'll be able to see how they're doing reducing their home energy use.

Facebook, Opower, and environmental advocacy group the Natural Resources Defense Council today announced a "social energy" application designed to raise awareness of energy use and encourage efficiency.

The Opower-developed application, which will be available early next year through Facebook's Green page, will let people compare how their energy usage compares to the national average and to other people who participate. To build a profile, people input their electric utility information in either … Read more

Japanese turn used bras into fuel

Don't underestimate the power of Japan's brassieres.

We've seen Japanese bras that can grow rice, pressure men to propose, double as a golf green, and even offer messages of support in a crisis.

Now Japanese underwear makers are turning bras into an alternative fuel.

Triumph International and Wacoal have been collecting used bras from customers and turning the raw materials minus the metal into refuse paper and plastic fuel (RPF), which is used to power industrial boilers and power generators. … Read more

U.S. missing out on energy from trash, study says

Columbia University researchers assert that tech breakthroughs in recent years now make sending trash to landfills a waste of energy.

While recycling and energy recovery from plastics is on the rise, about 86 percent of used plastics are still sent to landfills. It's a big waste considering its energy potential, according to the 33-page report, "Energy and Economic Value of Non-recycled Plastics and Municipal Solid Wastes that are Currently Landfilled in Fifty States" (PDF).

About 28.8 million tons of non-recycled plastics were sent to landfills in 2008, the energy potential equivalent of 36.7 million tons … Read more

A Moore's Law for computers and energy efficiency

Today's smartphones need to be charged far more frequently than older cell phones. But if it weren't for rapid improvements in energy efficiency, smartphones, laptops, and other mobile gadgets might still be on the drawing boards.

A paper published in the last edition of the IEEE's Annals of the History of Computing finds that there is a rough equivalent to Moore's Law when it comes to energy and computers. As computing muscle has increased over time, the amount of energy needed per computation has gone down, the paper finds. In fact, improvements in energy efficiency are … Read more

Inventing a new socket for LED lighting

Thomas Edison surely did a good thing when he developed the screw-in socket for light bulbs. But the rise of LED lighting lets designers start from scratch with new connectors.

LED light source maker Bridgelux in a partnership with Molex early next year plans to start producing a new lighting component that dispenses with the classic screw base. Whether it becomes a de facto industry standard remains to be seen, but the product offers a glimpse into the design possibilities and technical challenges of solid-state lighting.

Rather than screw in, the disk-shaped Helion lighting module snaps into a base and … Read more

EnLighted spreads sensors for efficient lighting

As lighting becomes more computerized, startup EnLighted is taking a low-touch approach.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company today announced it has raised $14 million in venture capital and disclosed more details on its efficient commercial lighting technology. Investors are Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Intel Capital.

EnLighted's lighting system is installed by attaching sensors to existing light fixtures. The sensors, located at every 100 square feet, monitor light levels and occupancy to make adjustments, such as turning off lights or changing light levels based on outdoor light, explained CEO and co-founder Tushar Dave.

The product … Read more

Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards honor innovation

Popular Mechanics magazine on Monday unveiled its seventh-annual Breakthrough Awards winners, calling out 10 products and 11 innovators its editors feel are tackling longstanding problems in medicine, space exploration, technology, environmental engineering, and automotive design, in all-new ways.

Leading the list of this year's winners is "Avatar" director James Cameron, to whom the magazine gave its 2011 Breakthrough Leadership award.

The products honored by the editors include a hot new smartphone, an all-new kind of seat belt, a genre-shattering video game, highly efficient solar cells, smog-eating roof tiles, a new kind of LED lightbulb, and an automatic … Read more

Nevada to up geothermal production by 25 percent

Nevada, already the second largest producer of geothermal-generated electricity in the U.S., is set to increase its power production by 25 percent.

The state is getting three new geothermal plants thanks to a $350 million 20-year loan guarantee from the Department of Energy to geothermal company Ormat Technologies.

The Ormat Geothermal Project will consist of three separate geothermal power-generation facilities--one each in Jersey Valley in Pershing County, Tuscarora in Lander County, and McGinness Hills in Elko County.

All three installations when fully operational will produce enough electricity to power about 88,000 homes annually, according to Ormat Technologies, the … Read more