Leading the charge toward an electric vehicle fleet

Google Blog, 6/09/2011 10:02:00 AM

(Cross-posted on the Green Blog)

Over the last few years, several innovative electric vehicle (EV) technologies have emerged in the marketplace and we’ve been working to update our green transportation infrastructure. As a result, we’ve now developed the largest corporate EV charging infrastructure in the country. We’re also including the next generation of plug-in vehicles in Gfleet, our car-sharing program for Googlers.

When Google.org launched the RechargeIt initiative in 2007, there were no commercially available plug-in hybrid EVs on the market. So we bought several Toyota Priuses and had them retrofitted with A123 Hymotion batteries to create our own mini-fleet of plug-in hybrids to demonstrate the technology. It was the birth of Gfleet, which has since become a valued perk and makes it easier for Googlers to use our biodiesel shuttle system to commute to work by providing green transportation options for people after they arrive at the Googleplex. The new Gfleet will include more than 30 plug-ins, starting with Chevrolet Volts and Nissan LEAFs, several of which have already arrived and are available for Googlers to use today. We’ll be adding models from other manufacturers as they become available.

To juice up our new cars and provide more charging options for Googlers, we’ve been working with Coulomb Technologies’ ChargePoint® Network to continue to expand our EV charging infrastructure. We’ve added 71 new and faster Level 2 chargers to the 150 Level 1 chargers we’ve installed over the last few years, bringing our total capacity to more than 200 chargers, with another 250 new ones on the way. The ChargePoint Network provides us the charging data necessary to track and report on the success of our green transportation initiative.

Overall, our goal is to electrify five percent of our parking spaces—all over campus and free of charge (pun intended) to Googlers. Our expanded charging system has already helped several Googlers decide to buy new EVs of their own, and we hope others will, too.

All told, Gfleet and our biodiesel shuttle system result in net annual savings of more than 5,400 tonnes of CO2. That’s like taking over 2,000 cars off the road, or avoiding 14 million vehicle miles every year! But we’re only one company, so we hope other companies think about how they can incorporate these new technologies into their own infrastructure. By supporting new, green transportation technologies, we’re enabling our employees to be green and doing our part to help spur growth in the industry.

Posted by Rolf Schreiber, Technical Program Manager, Electric Transportation

Apple named 'least green' tech company

Greenpeace report puts Apple at bottom of green league table due to reliance on coal at data centres

guardian.co.uk, Felicity Carus in San Francisco, Thursday 21 April 2011

Apple's iPhone 4. The company has come under attack for
its green credentials. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters

Apple has come bottom of the most comprehensive green league table of technology companies because of its heavy reliance on "dirty data" centres.

The list, which is compiled by Greenpeace and released in San Francisco on Thursday, shows that the company relies heavily on highly polluting coal power at the sites that house its banks of servers.

Greenpeace's report, How Dirty is Your Data? reveals that the company's investment in a new North Carolina facility will triple its electricity consumption, equivalent to the electricity demand of 80,000 average US homes. The facility's power will be supplied by Duke Energy, with a mix of 62% coal and 32% nuclear. On Wednesday, Apple posted a large boost in quarterly earnings, which grew by 95% to $6bn (£3.65bn).

Gary Cook, Greenpeace's IT policy analyst and lead author of the report, said: "Consumers want to know that when they upload a video or change their Facebook status that they are not contributing to global warming or future Fukushimas."

Companies in the US are not required by law to disclose their energy use or carbon emissions. But Greenpeace drew on publicly available information on investments made in data centres, to estimate the maximum power these facilities will consume, and matched that information with data from the government or utilities.

The report estimated dependence on coal for Apple's data centres at 54.5%, followed by Facebook at 53.2%, IBM at 51.6%, HP at 49.4%, and Twitter at 42.5%. Top marks in Greenpeace's clean energy index went to Yahoo, followed by Google and Amazon. Greenpeace is also campaigning for Facebook to "unfriend coal" and use cleaner energy to power its servers.

Cook said: "Many companies treat their energy consumption a bit like the Coca-Cola secret formula, because they don't want competitors knowing how much they spend on energy. The amount of electricity they consume would give some indication of what kind of arms race they were in. They don't really want this story to be told."

Cloud computing relies on large data centres, rather than in-house based IT services, to power internet-based services such as Hotmail or Gmail. Data centre energy demand already accounts for 1.5% to 2% of world electricity consumption and is set to quadruple over the next 10 years.

Molly Webb, head of smart technology at the Climate Group in London, said: "Greenpeace is calling for transparency from companies which rely heavily on data centres, and that would ideally highlight the need for investment and ambitious government policy to ensure enough clean power is available to green our tweets."

Jonathan Koomey, a project scientist for the End-Use Forecasting Group at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, whose work was cited in the study, said that the IT industry wrongly attracted criticism: "The use of IT often reduces environmental impacts. When we compared greenhouse gas emissions for downloading music to buying it on a CD, for example, we found downloads reduced emissions 40-80%."

Apple declined to comment on the Greenpeace report. But at its last shareholder meeting, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the company would have more to say on the new data centre in Maiden, North Carolina, in the spring.

Related Article:

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Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweepin’ down the plain - (Google)

Google Blog, 4/21/2011

Rodgers and Hammerstein weren’t kidding when they wrote what is now Oklahoma’s official state song. The gusts on the plains are fierce, which makes the Sooner State a great place to harness clean, renewable wind energy. Our commitment to greening our energy supply is also strong, which is why we’ve just signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) for wind energy—our second in less than a year—in Oklahoma.

The purchase is similar in size and structure to the agreement we signed last July for wind energy in Iowa, but this time we will be applying the power to our Mayes County, Okla. data center, which will be fully operational later this year. We’ve agreed to purchase all of the energy from NextEra Energy Resources’ Minco II wind facility in Oklahoma for the next 20 years, through Google Energy LLC, an entity that enables us to participate in the wholesale energy market. This 100.8 megawatt facility will be built as a direct result of our financial commitment and should be operational in late 2011.

We’ve made the commitment to be a carbon neutral company, and this purchase is part of our effort to minimize our impact on the environment. We’ve managed to reduce our energy consumption by over 50 percent by building highly energy-efficient facilities, but we know that efficiency alone isn’t enough to eliminate our carbon footprint. We’ve been exploring ways, such as this PPA, to reduce emissions further by increasing the amount of renewable energy we use to power our operations; we purchase high-quality carbon offsets for any remaining emissions.

If you’re interested in learning more about the whys and wherefores of our renewable energy purchases, we’ve just published a white paper (PDF) on the topic. Our hope is that by laying out our reasoning and methods we’ll make it easier for others in the industry to explore similar arrangements.

These purchases represent long-term, meaningful actions to reduce our carbon footprint and power our operations with clean electricity. Our infrastructure team will continue to seek similar opportunities globally as Google’s businesses continue to grow. As a company we hope that purchases like these, plus the additional $350 million we’ve invested in renewable energy projects, support the market and drive down the cost of clean energy. This will enable even more companies to invest in sustainable energy solutions.

Posted by Gary Demasi, Global Infrastructure team

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Google Invests in Wind Farm Transmission Project

PC World, By Nancy Gohring, IDG News

Google is continuing to back green energy projects, this time investing in the construction of a backbone that will carry energy produced by wind turbines off the East Coast back to shore.

The search giant said it is putting up 37.5 percent of the equity for the initial development stage of the project, but did not put a dollar amount on the investment. The development stage involves obtaining the necessary approvals to finance and begin building the line, said Rick Needham, green business operations director for Google.

"Although the development stage requires only a small part of the total estimated project budget, it represents a critical stage for the project," Needham wrote in a blog post.

The transmission line will run for 350 miles off the coast from New Jersey to Virginia, he said. It will carry power from offshore power hubs that will collect power from multiple offshore wind farms.

Without such a backbone, offshore wind developers would be forced to build individual transmission lines for each offshore wind project, he wrote.

When fully complete, the backbone could carry enough power to serve about 1.9 million households, he said.

Despite the potential, some proposed wind farms off the East Coast have met with opposition from groups who say the farms harm marine and bird life and mar the view.

Google said it is making the investment because it thinks it will offer a solid financial return while being good for the environment. The Mid-Atlantic region is ideal for offshore wind power creation because nearby coastal areas have large population centers that have already overstretched the existing grid, Needham said.

Trans-Elect is leading the backbone project and Good Energies and Marubeni Corporation are also investing in the initial development stage.

Trans-Elect did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the cost of the development stage or the entire transmission project. The New York Times reports that the total bill for the transmission project will reach US$5 billion.

Google has invested in another green energy project. In May, it invested $38.8 million in a project to build two wind farms in North Dakota. The rooftops of its headquarter buildings are covered in solar panels and it offers plug-in electric vehicles for employees to use to run errands during the work day.

Nancy Gohring covers mobile phones and cloud computing for The IDG News Service. Follow Nancy on Twitter at @idgnancy. Nancy's e-mail address is Nancy_Gohring@idg.com

Samsung releases eco friendly LCD monitors

Save a polar bear

The inquirer, By Nick Farrell, Thu Jul 08 2010, 10:23

DISPLAY MAKER Samsung has just released a batch of eco-friendly LCD monitors.

The 30 and 50 series monitors are supposed to have low power LED backlights. "Unlike other monitors," Samsung says, "our LED-backlit displays contain few or no environmentally hazardous substances, such as mercury or lead, and use about 40 percent less energy."

Samsung's Touch of Colour technology doesn't use paints, sprays or glues, ensuring they contain no volatile organic compounds, making recycling simpler and safer. Further, the company's "Magic Eco" function allows users to adjust a monitor's brightness based on different energy consumption levels with four preset energy-saving options to choose from.

Samsung claims that its 30 and 50 series monitors meet international energy standards including Energy Star 5.0 and China's Energy Level 1 grade (50 series).

Like most modern tellies and monitors, Samsung's 30 and 50 series displays are nice and thin. The 50 series is a charcoal grey "Touch of Colour" design while the 30 series comes in a "Mystic Brown" colour that is supposed to be the colour of "rich, handcrafted chocolate".

We know there are moves to make chocolate mystical but we have never seen this on an LCD monitor.

There's no word on prices yet.

Greenpeace lauds Cisco on climate, chides Google

Cnet, by Martin LaMonica

Despite Google's lobbying on clean-energy policy and investments in renewable energy, it was Cisco and Ericsson who received Greenpeace's top marks in its ranking of computing vendors' activity on climate change.

The environmental watchdog group released its annual Cool IT Leaderboard on Thursday, which judges large IT and consumer electronics companies on a range of criteria related to climate change, including efforts to lower their environmental footprints and commercial efforts in energy and efficiency.

This year, Greenpeace placed Cisco at the top of the list because of its move into building energy management and the smart grid, technologies that can boost renewable energy use and efficiency.

Ericsson and Fujitsu scored well for developing methods for measuring the environmental impact of IT and for setting credible carbon reduction estimates for its customers.

Google, meanwhile, was marked down for not reporting its internal greenhouse gas emissions, which most companies surveyed do. In response, a Google representative on Wednesday said that it doesn't disclose information on the size of its operations for competitive reasons.

Google's data centers run efficiency, consuming about half the power as typical data centers by optimizing the chip, power pack design, and building cooling. "We are...dedicated to minimizing our footprint; it makes business and environmental sense for us to do so," the representative said.

Overall, Greenpeace is pressuring IT and communications companies to get involved in energy policy, which is historically not been an activity of tech companies. As it did in last year's Cool IT Leaderborad, Greenpeace is also prodding IT companies to take advantage of the commercial possibilities in lowering greenhouse gas emissions, as does IBM's Smart Planet initiative. Greenpeace estimates that applying IT to transportation, buildings, and power generation can result in 15 percent emissions reduction over the next 10 years.

"The company bottom line coupled with the environmental bottom line, the need to curb a growing greenhouse gas emissions, should send the IT industry to the front lines in the battle for a clean energy economy," said Greenpeace campaigner Casey Harrell in a statement. "The sector needs to step up its policy advocacy now."

For Earth Day last week, Greenpeace organized a panel on IT and climate change which was hosted by Cisco and had representatives from Cisco, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.

Related Article:

Climate Policies Earn Cisco Top Spot in Greenpeace IT Rankings

Is Google's Energy Endeavor Its Next Step In World Domination?

The Atlantic, Jan 8 2010, 12:53 pm by Daniel Indiviglio

First, the internet. Then smartphones. Now it looks like Google wants its piece of the energy pie as well. The company created a "Google Energy" subsidiary last month. It's also applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to be allowed to buy and sell power, like utilities. What exactly does the internet search leader want with energy? To be that much closer to taking over the world? Possibly. But it's more likely that the company just wants to enhance and protect its profit margin.

The New York Times' Bits blog reports:

• Google said it did not have specific plans to become an energy trader and that its primary goal was to gain flexibility for buying more renewable energy for its power-hungry data centers.
  
  
• "We want to have the ability to procure renewable energy to offset power usage of our operations," said Niki Fenwick, a Google spokeswoman. Ms. Fenwick said that having access to more renewable energy could help the company fulfill its goal to become "carbon neutral."
  
  

Right, because Google runs on energy, literally. Think about the thousands of databases and computer terminals sucking power 24-7 at Google's headquarters each day. Does it really want to have to rely on electric companies to control its energy costs? If it had some power over its energy sources, that could bend its cost curve dramatically.

So what Google is likely doing here is bracing for the inevitable increase in energy prices associated with the depletion of fossil fuels. It would likely prefer to shape its energy destiny by relying on cheaper, renewable energy sources in the years to come. While this has pleasant environmental implications, there's little doubt that Google has economic reasons for this endeavor as well.

But why the need to trade energy? Because if it eventually goes off the grid and lines up agreements with independent electricity producers, then it could end up with a deficit -- or surplus -- of energy at any given time. The company would benefit from greater flexibility to buy and sell that energy.

Or maybe it's just part of Google's plan for world domination. Perhaps, one day, we'll all get our energy from Google. And our mobile phones, maps, books, e-mail, videos, searches. . .

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LCD to LED: Is it worth the move?

Zatni Arbi, Contributor The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 12/28/2009 10:54 AM

Samsung LED TV 8700 www.samsung.com

After inviting a group of journalists to a sneak preview at its head office, Samsung Electronics Indonesia let us play around with one of its LED TVs.

I said I was interested. “Can I see the largest LED TV you have?” I asked Shinta Wardiastuti from corporate marketing, in my email. After a few days, I received a huge box, almost as large as my refrigerator. Thereafter, courtesy of Samsung Electronics Indonesia, I have been able to watch TV broadcasts, DVD movies and even YouTube on a 55-inch screen.

Yes, a huge 55-inch TV. I almost regretted asking for the biggest model as I had to make space for it in my tiny living room. It will be a relief when they take it back early January, although I will miss it. But I will feel more at ease because not only can I reclaim the space, I will no longer have to worry about protecting this Rp 60 million ($US6,000) item.

Samsung, reportedly the worldwide leader in LCD and LED TVs, currently offers three different series of LED TV. These are the B8000, B7000 and B6000.

The numbers have nothing to do with size. Instead, they indicate their features. The B8000 has the most features. The one that has dominated my living room is the UA55B7000WR.

Setting it up is extremely easy. The TV can be hooked up to a conventional aerial, a TV cable network, a DVD player, a Blu-Ray player — it has the full 1,920 by 1,080 resolution, a PC and a number of other digital media players.

It has two gigabytes of internal memory, it supports USB 2.0 and it can play movies from any equipment using the USB connector. It has an RJ-45 port to connect it to our home network, or we can use an optional wireless adaptor, both DLNA and LAN. It has Samsung’s media player named Medi@2.0, which also supports Internet@TV, the Content Library, USB 2.0 Movie and wireless DLNA.

Incidentally, my wife once refused to use the netbook, saying the screen was too small for her. When I hooked up the same netbook to this LED screen, she still refused it because it was way, way too big!

At first, I could watch any TV broadcasts off the air. It turned out that I had to tell the TV tuner to scan them first. Once the scanning was completed, I could watch local TV broadcasts.

Although I was using an indoor antenna, some of the local stations had sharp images. I did not hook it up to my cable TV decoder because the only location spacious enough for it was too far from the end of the cable.

The TV, which uses SRS TrueSound HD, relies on a pair of down-firing speakers and a subwoofer for audio. But, honestly, you should hook it up to a home theater system to really enjoy the sound.

The infrared remote control, which is also quite large, illuminates when buttons are pressed. It is loaded with functions, but amazingly, it is simple to use for straightforward operation.

One problem with the cable TV services is that the volume levels are not the same across the channels. As we move from one channel to another, we often have to scramble for the volume control button because the sound suddenly becomes very loud. This also happens with lots of commercials, as the stations want to ensure the commercials capture our attention. The good news is that all these three LED TVs have an auto volume leveler.

While the list of specs is more than two pages long, another important feature of the latest LED TVs from Samsung is their slimness. They are less than 3 centimeters thick. They can easily be bolstered on the wall easily.

Samsung even supplies the kit, including the fire resistant cable that is stronger than necessary to sustain the 22.4 kg weight of the LED TV.

The big question now is what makes the LED TV different from LCD TV? Not much. The LCD panel on an LCD TV has many Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (CCFL) tubes behind it to light the display. The LED panel uses Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for the same task. The diodes are far more expensive to make, compared with the CCFL, so they are used on the top and bottom of a typical LED screen to provide lighting.

One of the innovations of the Samsung LED TVs is the LEDs are located on all four edges. Samsung calls it “edge-lit LED”. It sounds a simple solution, but the Korean company has deployed almost all of its researchers to develop the technology and design the super-thin LED TV.

Among others, they had to design the Light Guide Panel/Plate (LGP) to direct the light from the LEDs into the transistors in the panel.

In addition, the engineers also had to create Samsung’s own chip, as they were obsessed with the idea of developing the best TV on earth. The results were these three series, each with its own 40-, 46- and 55-inch versions.

Are there real benefits in moving from LCD to LED? There are. First, an LED TV is more energy efficient. Samsung claims that it uses 40 percent less power than a comparable LCD TV. No mercury is used in the production. In terms of picture quality, the LED also has a far better contrast level. This gives us a darker black than what the LCD panel can achieve.

So, if money is not an issue and you are looking for a full HDTV TV, go for a LED TV. You will not be disappointed.

IDC: It's Time for Asia-Based CIOs to Make an IT Bet on Economy

IDC, December 21, 2009

IDC has announced the top-ten insights that highlight the key issues Asia/Pacific CIOs need to be aware of in 2010 and IDC's view of the key end-user strategies for the next year and beyond. During the last year or more, companies in Asia have mostly applied "wait-and-see" or "back-burner" IT tactics, but this will no longer work as the economy starts to turn again. In the list of insights, IDC highlights how IT is in the midst of a renaissance and the significance of this renaissance to businesses has been increased by the economic crisis.

"In 2010 companies will have to adopt a sense of urgency and be more proactive with how they will deal with an economic recovery," said Claus Mortensen, Principal for IDC Asia/Pacific Emerging Technologies Research Group. "The economic downturn has taken its toll on all lines of business in the last year and that makes it even more vital to be ready to deal with the next upswing. Companies will have to make strategic bet on when the economy will turn and plan their IT investments accordingly."

At the core of IDC's top-ten CIO insights for 2010 is the concept "dematerialization" of IT. For many companies, on-premises IT may have a serious economic flaw. The on-premises model can potentially hold IT to ransom with fixed assets that are typically underutilized and escalating in cost to support. "Dematerializing" these assets by moving them off the premises and off the books is one such alternative of overcoming this dilemma.

"This process of ‘dematerialization' is already taking place in various forms," said Claus. "We see them in the market as in cloud computing, cloud services, virtual dynamic IT, elastic infrastructure, on-demand architecture, Web-oriented architecture and software plus services--all sharing the same core element of virtualization."

IDC's 2010 top-ten CIO checklist highlights how companies can respond better and more dynamically to future market change. It also provides insights into how the choice of IT architecture can provide business technology a rapid and flexible way to revise, scale, upgrade and change BPM and workflows in minutes rather than in months.

IDC sees the top-ten issues that CIOs should be aware of as:

1. Adopting an IT Recovery Strategy;
2. Cost Reduction and the Dematerialization of IT;
3. Cloud Migration 2010;
4. Protecting Business from Disruptive Innovation and Subsequent Technology Churn;
5. Security and Identity & Access Management;
6. Cloud Multi-Tenancy is About Innovation;
7. Virtual Private and Hybrid Cloud;
8. Business Intelligence as a Service;
9. Social Enterprise Architecture; and
10. Green IT.

For more information, visit www.idc.com.

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Silicon Valley reinvents the lowly brick

Reuters, by David Lawsky, Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:07pm EDT

NEWARK, California (Reuters) - Forget microchips.

Silicon Valley sees a profitable future in the humble brick thanks to a low-energy production process that illustrates the greening of the U.S. technology capital.

Brick maker Calstar Products is heavy on PhDs and backed by venture capitalists whose vision is to create buildings less expensively and in a way that saves energy.

Calstar Products Chief Executive Michael Kane stands next to submerged samples of experimental high tech bricks undergoing testing in his Newark, California plant September 16, 2009. Silicon Valley sees a profitable future in the humble brick thanks to a low-energy production process that illustrates the greening of the U.S. technology capital. (REUTERS/David Lawsky)

"We think it is time for a second industrial revolution," said Paul Holland, a partner at Foundation Capital, which invested $7 million in Calstar. EnerTech Capital led another round that raised $8 million for the business.

"We and dozens of others are trying to create green alternatives for all the things that happen in the building industry," Holland said.

Currently about 40 percent of U.S. energy use goes toward the heating, cooling and general operation of buildings.

Silicon Valley is finding high-tech ways to make age-old materials, pursuing carbon dioxide-eating concrete, windows that insulate better than walls, and wood substitutes.

The field is still new. Venture investments in green buildings have waxed and waned with the recession, but involved 45 deals worth about $350 million the past year, according to Cleantech Group LLC.

3,000-YEAR WAIT

Bricks have been made pretty much the same way for 3,000 years, until Calstar's scientists came up with their new technique, said Chief Executive Michael Kane.

Ordinary bricks are fired for 24 hours at 2,000 degrees F (1,093 C) as part of a process that can last a week, while Calstar bricks are baked at temperatures below 212 F (100 C) and take only 10 hours from start to finish, Kane said.

The recipe incorporates large amounts of fly ash -- a fluffy, powdery residue of burned coal at electric plants, that can otherwise wind up as a troublesome pollutant.

"Ours is a precise product" that relies on getting the chemistry right, said Amitabha Kumar, Calstar's director of research and development.

The process of making the bricks, which look and feel like any other brick, requires 80 to 90 percent less energy and emits 85 percent less greenhouse gas than ordinary bricks, according to Calstar.

Lower energy costs mean higher profit, allowing the company to pay for its research and compete against large companies that have economies of scale. The new bricks -- which the Brick Industry Association says are not actually bricks -- will sell for the same price as traditional clay-based ones. The Brick Industry Association says there is also no proof that products using fly ash will last as well as traditional brick.

BRICKS FOR CHINA?

The low-carbon footprint in the production process also gives the bricks a strong environmental cachet, and Calstar is targeting the "green materials" market with the goal of competing against traditional clay brick makers like Glen-Gery of Pennsylvania and Endicott of Nebraska.

The company's headquarters and research facility is based in a warehouse on the shores of San Francisco Bay but its first plant is under construction in Caledonia, Wisconsin, the heartland of brick-using country. It is near a Wisconsin Energy Corp plant that can supply calcium-rich fly ash.

The plant is to be running before year's end. At first, the company will make only "facing brick," used on the outside of buildings, a $2 billion annual U.S. market. It plans to branch out into paving stones, roofing tile and other brick markets.

The company has signed 16 distributors to sell 12 million or more bricks the first year, and plans to make 100 million bricks for sale throughout the Midwest and South, Kane said.

After that, fast-growing markets like China beckon.

(Reporting by David Lawsky, editing by Matthew Lewis)

Related Article:

Building with green bricks

IBM plunges into the 'smart grid for water'

CNET News, by Martin LaMonica

Even as billions of dollars are being spent around the world to modernize the electricity grid, the systems to delivery fresh water are also in desperate need of a 21st century upgrade.

IBM is developing a portfolio of IT-related water management technologies, a business that it estimates can total $20 billion within five years. At a water conference next week, IBM and Intel will be forming a working group to study how information and technology can be used to improve water management, according to IBM.

The goal is to sketch out the technical architecture required to more efficiently use fresh water, only one percent of the available water on Earth.

Water systems even in developed countries like the U.S. are notoriously outdated, with faulty pipes--some of them still made of wood--result in 25 percent to 45 percent lost water. That means high-tech approaches, such as using sensors to gauge water quality, are a tough sell to cash-strapped municipalities, most of which are more concerned with maintaining the basic infrastructure.

IBM is betting, though, that fresh water will have more value attached to it from the public, governments, and corporations.

"The hard truth is that most of the countries in the developing world are outgrowing the amount of water that is available to them," said Peter Williams, the chief technology officer of IBM's Big Green Innovations program, who representing IBM at a conference organized by the Water Innovations Alliance industry association next week. "Certainly, it's the case that water is the great sleeping crisis and it is most definitely starting to wake up."

IBM launched Big Green Innovations two and a half years ago to capitalize on constraints in energy generation, carbon emissions, energy in the data center, and water. For the past 18 months, IBM has focused more of its attention on water, said Williams, who characterized the business as "incredibly nascent."

Reservoirs of data

Upgrading the water utility infrastructure is analogous to the many smart-grid technologies now being tested to make the grid run more efficiently and use more renewable energy.

Gathering and processing information on the status of delivery allows water agencies to better manage their operations. For example, if a water authority can use meters or sensors to locate problems, such as leaks or sewage overflows, they can cut their maintenance costs, Williams explained.

IBM has already had a number of water-related deals. In a partnership with the Nature Conservancy, it's gathering data on various environmental factors to measure the health of river ecosystems. In the Netherlands, IBM is involved in the design of levies to understand potential breaking points.

In these cases, IBM is building the software and networks to handle incoming data from sensors and to provide tools to let people analyze the information. It's also testing smart water meters that would provide more accurate consumption data and alert customer if there's a problem, such as a leak. It's also looking at new sensors being developed to track the level of pathogens or chemical contaminants that come from use of pharmaceuticals.

Big Blue's Maximo "asset management" software is used by many water utilities to keep track and maintain their equipment of pumps, plants, and filtration equipment.

Still, water utilities are a generally low-tech bunch when it comes to IT. Most water authority executives don't consider technology options beyond basic SCADA control systems, Williams said. "They are where (electricity) utilities were five or 10 years ago," he said.

Corporate risk

IBM is pushing into water because the trends on water point to the need for greater conservation for social and economic reasons.

In poor countries, billions of people don't have regular access to clean water. Meanwhile, high-profile droughts in Australia and the western U.S. served by the Colorado River are causing severe financial problems for different industries, notably agriculture.

The high energy cost of delivering water helps makes the economic case for better monitoring and data analysis. In the U.S., between 3 percent and 4 percent of the entire electricity output is used to pump water. In California, it's almost 20 percent. Meanwhile, low water levels in rivers and reservoirs forced the shut down of nuclear reactors in France a few years ago.

Industries that rely on water, such as semiconductors, agriculture, or beverages, are susceptible to disruptions of supply. There's also "reputational risk" when consumers perceive that businesses are profligate with water, Williams said.

"It's something like greenhouse gases. Ten years ago in this country, few people were talking about them but now they are," he said. "The same will happen with water."

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Air power

Energy: Batteries that draw oxygen from the air could provide a cheaper, lighter and longer-lasting alternative to existing designs

Economist.com, Sep 3rd 2009, (From The Economist print edition)

MOBILE phones looked like bricks in the 1980s. That was largely because the batteries needed to power them were so hefty. When lithium-ion batteries were invented, mobile phones became small enough to be slipped into a pocket. Now a new design of battery, which uses oxygen from ambient air to power devices, could provide even an smaller and lighter source of power. Not only that, such batteries would be cheaper and would run for longer between charges.

Illustration by Belle Mellor

Lithium-ion batteries have two electrodes immersed in an electrically conductive solution, called an electrolyte. One of the electrodes, the cathode, is made of lithium cobalt oxide; the other, the anode, is composed of carbon. When the battery is being charged, positively charged lithium ions break away from the cathode and travel in the electrolyte to the anode, where they meet electrons brought there by a charging device. When electricity is needed, the anode releases the lithium ions, which rapidly move back to the cathode. As they do so, the electrons that were paired with them in the anode during the charging process are released. These electrons power an external circuit.

Peter Bruce and his colleagues at the University of St Andrews in Scotland came up with the idea of replacing the lithium cobalt oxide electrode with a cheaper and lighter alternative. They designed an electrode made from porous carbon and lithium oxide. They knew that lithium oxide forms naturally from lithium ions, electrons and oxygen, but, to their surprise, they found that it could also be made to separate easily when an electric current passed through it. They exposed one side of their porous carbon electrode to an electrolyte rich in lithium ions and put a mesh window on the other side of the electrode through which air could be drawn. Oxygen from the air took the place of the cobalt oxide.

When they charged their battery, the lithium ions migrated to the anode where they combined with electrons from the charging device. When they discharged it, lithium ions and electrons were released from the anode. The ions crossed the electrolyte and the electrons travelled round the external circuit. The ions and electrons met at the cathode, and combined with the oxygen to form lithium oxide that filled the pores in the carbon.

Because the oxygen being used by the battery comes from the surrounding air, the device that Dr Bruce’s team has designed can be a mere one-eighth to one-tenth the size and weight of modern batteries, while still carrying the same charge. Making such a battery is also expected to be cheaper. Lithium cobalt oxide accounts for 30% of the cost of a lithium-ion battery. Air, however, is free.

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Could the Tesla Model S become the Google Car?

ComputerWorld, Seth H. Weintraub, March 28, 2009

Tesla Motors introduced their $50,000 Model S Electric Sedan this week to lots of ooohs and ahhhs from the automobile and tech communities. The bad news is that this won't roll off the assembly line until 2011-2012, at the earliest. The car is a model of inspiration to a dying domestic car industry even though Tesla as a company has had its internal struggles.

Besides its great looks and incredible specs (and unfortunate leadership controversies), there is something else interesting about the Tesla. Google's founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are big investors.

We learned this week that the Tesla would have an industry first 17-inch display that would include Google Maps for driving guidance and a 3G connection to use services like Pandora radio. You can also check the battery charge on mobile devices as well. For instance, you can check the charging while you are at work.

But that isn't all that the Google founders would probably like to get into this car.

If they had their way...

The car's web browser of choice will undoubtedly be Google Chrome. The OS that is running the system will likely be Android. Google Talk/Google Voice (Grand Central) could also be used for communications.

Going international? Use Google Translate to navigate your way to Cabo San Lucas...or Quebec.

Youtube could keep the kids occupied in the back while driving or be a distraction while waiting for a Big Mac in the drive thru line. Speaking of distraction, how about seeing your Google Reader feeds or Google News on that 17-inch display.

Mobile shopping is getting bigger and Google Checkout/Product Search could play a part of this. Need to exchange a battery for the Tesla? Pull up Google to find the closest/cheapest battery refilling station.

That's just the beginning. Google has their hands on what could be the most revolutionary vehicle of the millennium, if they put those big brains to work on what automobile consumers want, they'll likely come up with things that make other cars seem...so last century.

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