Things looked pretty bleak in Iceland a year or so ago. Declaring national bankruptcy is never high on a country’s list of priorities. But BBC News reports that the beleaguered country is attempting to make a comeback—as the nexus of all the world’s computer servers. In a way, it’s the perfect place to keep a ton of servers that require huge amounts of energy to be kept running, and cool. From the report:
In Iceland, with its year round cool climate and chilly fresh water, just a fraction of this energy for cooling [the servers] is needed. It means big savings.
Just outside Reykjavik, work is well advanced on the first site which its owners hope will spark a server cold rush.
In around a year – if all goes according to plan – the first companies will start leasing space in this data centre.
And if this proves successful more sites are planned.
And with its wealth of geothermal (and therefor carbon-footprint-free) power, the country stands to make a substantial global impact, particularly since all those servers mean a constant increase in CO2 production. As one expert put it:
“[I]f a large internet media company operating thousands and thousands of servers relocated its servers to Iceland, that company would save greater than half a million metric tons of carbon annually.”
Granted, now all they have to do is lay all that fiber optic cable. No getting around the series of tubes!
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U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu thinks one solution to the energy debate is obvious: turn all the roofs in the U.S. white. It’s true that doing so would result in major energy savings. But even if white roofs became standard tomorrow, it would take 20 years before the energy savings equaled the greenhouse emissions we produce annually.
Plus, not everyone would benefit, particularly in places where it gets so bitterly cold that having white roofs in the winter would cancel the energy savings made in the summertime.
Fortunately, MIT graduates have created a solution: color changing roof tiles that adjust to the temperature of the season. The tiles turn white when it’s hot outside (or when the tile is 80 percent covered by sunlight), and black when it’s cold (or when 30 percent or less is covered by sunlight).
MIT’s Web site reports:
[The tiles] use a common commercial polymer (in one version, one that is commonly used in hair gels) in a water solution. That solution is encapsulated—between layers of glass and plastic in their original prototype, and between flexible plastic layers in their latest version—with a dark layer at the back.
When the temperature is below a certain level (which they can choose by varying the exact formulation), the polymer stays dissolved, and the black backing shows through, absorbing the sun’s heat. But when the temperature climbs, the polymer condenses to form tiny droplets, whose small sizes scatter light and thus produce a white surface, reflecting the sun’s heat.
In the future, color-changing tiles won’t be your only option for reducing energy consumption: You might also be able to grow vegetables on your roof, or even use solar panel shingles to heat your house.
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Discoblog: Monitor Your Daily Energy Use
Image: MIT
As with tracking calories and losing weight, people who track their energy use are the most likely to make changes in their lifestyle and reduce consumption—as we saw with digital wall meters, which helped homeowners dramatically cut their use.
Now you can watch your energy use anywhere you go: All you need to do is purchase the energy monitoring device, TED 5000 for $200 to $300, and then download Google’s PowerMeter for free to start monitoring your progress. Some of Google’s employees have already tested it out and have said good things.
Eweek Europe reports:
According to Energy Inc, the TED 5000 is specifically designed to provide energy information to consumers rather than being a tool for utility to improve their margins. “Smart meters are designed primarily for the electric utility industry so they can better manage the supply-and-demand of electricity. TED is designed specifically for the consumer, so that one can better manage the use and costs of electricity. TED puts you in charge,” the company states.
Users can view their energy use daily on their personal iGoogle homepage or directly on their cell phones, and some people have already reported a 15 percent use reduction. In addition to monitoring, the device offers advice on how to cut carbon use. And, if saving money on energy isn’t enough of a motivator, Google thinks social competition just might be: PowerMeter also allows you to compare your results with your friends’.
Unlike Apple’s relationship with AT&T, Google doesn’t intend to keep the partnership limited to TED. Other utilities may soon roll out energy devices soon.
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The dress code in Bangladesh just got a lot more casual, thanks to an effort to cut the nation’s energy usage. According to the prime minister’s orders, men can no longer wear ties, jackets, or suits to work. The new rule is part of a plan to combat the power shortage the country is facing. And during the year’s hottest months (March through November), men need only wear pants and shirts, which can even be untucked(!).
Bangladesh has taken other measures to decrease energy usage, according to BBC:
Officials and ministers have also been told not to turn their air-conditioners below 24C [or 75 degrees Fahrenheit]. In June, the government introduced daylight saving, and the clocks moved forward by one hour, in another attempt to cut energy consumption.
It has said it will also soon spend $6bn (£3.6bn) on new power plants, operated by private companies. The current state-owned plants have not been able to keep up with Bangladesh’s large population and its economy, which has been growing at about 6% annually for the past five years.
Seems like this idea could be, well, suitable for other heat-drenched places such as the southern United States. After all, it’s actually pretty ridiculous to bundle up for work, then use valuable energy to keep the buildings we work in comfortably frigid.
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Image: flickr /skyfaller
To conserve energy this summer, why not harness the insane amount of heat your car collects to—what else—bake cookies? Instead of warming up your oven (and your kitchen) on an already-too-hot day, it makes sense to use the heat that automobiles naturally store to finagle some freshly baked sweet treats.
The blog Baking Bites tried it out and found that standard-sized chocolate chip cookies took about two-and-a-half hours to bake in the writer’s car, which reached 180 degrees Fahrenheit (the temperature outside, meanwhile, topped 100 degrees).
“I think that they were best hot out of the car,” writes the blogger, who placed the cookies on a baking sheet on her car’s dashboard. The cookies never browned, but apparently they did smell and taste delicious. “They were slightly crisp at the edges and chewy in the center,” she writes.
Those of us without cars will just have to bake our cookies the old-fashioned way (or use someone else’s). Still, if you can manage it, car-baked cookies will also make your car interior smell pretty darn good.
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Reducing the cost of the most expensive component of any high-priced product seems the obvious way to increase its consumer demand. Swiss researchers led by engineer Lino Guzzella are working to do just that for the gasoline-electric hybrid car by replacing the battery with, of all things, compressed air. The new car, known as a pneumatic hybrid, replaces a two-liter gasoline engine with one that stores energy in compressed air, which is expected to yield a fuel savings of about 32 percent.
While a conventional gas engine has enough power to accelerate quickly, it more often runs with much less power, like when it’s moving at a steady speed. Guzella’s engine, however, strays from that design. The small engine is sufficient for the car to cruise at highway speeds, but when extra power is needed it relies on a process known as supercharging: because the compressed air is dense, it supplies the oxygen needed to burn more fuel for a boost of acceleration.
The engine also gains efficiency by capturing energy during braking, and saving energy it when the car is stopped: The compressed air can be used to restart the engine, so the car actually shut downs rather than idles the engine when not in motion.
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The car of the future may be no car at all, at least in the common sense of the word. Auto trailblazers have been hard at work coming up with designs for just about anything that will move us from one place to another on electricity, and some of the results are nothing short of remarkable. WebEcoist has a fantastic list of the most innovative electric cars that have appeared thus far.
A few of the highlights include a pair of moving pink bunny slippers designed by Tesla, a roadster designed by a Paris fashion house, a compact car made entirely of bamboo (a renewable resource), and a single-passenger electric coach that will protect us from the “post-apocalyptic wasteland” of toxic waste and pollution. There’s also the”Ecooter,” an enclosed scooter intended for short-distance driving in cities. We’re not even gonna touch that one.
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Image courtesy of JapanProbe.
Tired of running out of cell phone juice in the middle of a conversation? A professor at Texas A&M University may have just the answer for turning your chatter into power.
Chemical engineering professor, Tahir Cagin is using piezoelectrics, a material made of either crystals or ceramics, to generate electricity. Piezoelectrics were used in World War I in sonar devices. Today, they’re found in microphones, inkjet printers, and even cigarette lighters. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is making a shoe with piezoelectrics that can change the energy created by walking into electric power for charging soldiers’ equipment. Some European clubs even use them to transform the dance power from late night partiers into power to light up the club.
Cagin discovered that when piezoelectrics are small and thin (between 20 and 23 nanometers to be exact), twice the amount of energy is created. By finding the ideal length, he was able to convert the mechanical energy it creates into electric power.
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As John McCain and Barack Obama aim for the White House, the fights over experience and age, the war in Iraq and terrorism, and the economy and budget-balancing drag on. But whenever a serious science and technology debate comes up —including education, medicine, and energy—we here at DISCOVER perk up. Even if that debate is being furthered by Paris Hilton.
Granted, the point of Paris’ most recent (and perhaps only) talk about energy policy on funnyordie.com is not to start an energy debate that has teeth, but to make a humorous entry into presidential politics with faux-serious solutions. If this is an effective way to get people to discuss energy policy—an admittedly wonkish and often boring topic—so be it.
And now, let’s discuss Paris Hilton’s “energy plan.”
First of all, Hilton is taking on oil, not energy. She is not discussing nuclear, coal, wind, or solar—just the stuff that is turned into plastic water bottles, heats our homes, and makes cars go “vroom”. So this is not a comprehensive energy plan, but a look at lowering gas prices and shedding dependence on foreign oil.
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