Yahoo! Green: TECHNOLOGY

Fastest computer in the world focused on climate change

Megan Treacy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:55:00 PST

The Jaguar XT5 computer, housed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Knoxville, Tenn., and owned by the Department of Energy was just named the fastest computer in the world by the TOP500 list. It has a performance speed of 1.759 petaflops or quadrillions of calculations per second and that power is being focused on solving the issues of climate change.

The Jaguar is an open science machine for performing peer-reviewed research. It is being used to create models and simulations for predicting regional climate change, studying enzymes for developing better ethanol and writing algorithms for fast nuclear reactors that would produce less waste. A billion hours of processor time have been scheduled for 2010 by users like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Argonne National Laboratory and the National Science Foundation.

If you're thinking that the fastest computer in the world should be used for other problems too, don't worry, the Jaguar along with the other supercomputers on the list are also being used for things like nuclear security, developing better medicines and examining the origins of the universe, among other things.

Oak Ridge hosts four of the supercomputers on the list, including Kraken which was number three in the world with a speed of 831 teraflops. Where the human brain's processing performance ends, these supercomputers pick up, allowing tons of information to be sorted, processed and analyzed. With all of the challenges facing us in tackling climate change, it's nice to have them on our side.

via AP

Solar spacecraft to launch in 2010

Megan Treacy — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:28:00 PST

The Planetary Society is planning to launch a solar-propelled space craft in 2010 after its first attempt landed in the ocean four years ago.

The LightSail-1 would run on the pressure of light hitting its four triangular-shaped Mylar sails. The society sees the project as a way to achieve long space flights with slow, continuous acceleration that eventually leads to high speeds. The society's executive director imagines flights of many years reaching speeds of 100,000 mph where the craft could leave the solar system in five years instead of 25.

The spacecraft will be composed of three Cubesats, small cubes that contain the electronics and controls modules and the sails. When the craft hits the target altitude the sails will unfurl to resemble a kite. The LightSail-1 will "piggyback" on another mission's rocket (the exact one is yet to be determined) and then orbit at an altitude of around 500 miles for a few days to test sunlight as a means of propulsion.

If it's successful, the society plans to launch LightSails 2 and 3 for longer and farther missions. The 2010 launch will cost almost $2 million and will be privately funded.

via AP

Images via Planetary Society

Wind turbines to power cell phone towers

Megan Treacy — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:18:00 PST

Small-scale wind turbines can't produce the large amounts of power that their giant brothers can, but there's still room for them in the renewable energy landscape. As an example, cell phone company Core Communications will begin using small vertical-axis wind turbines to power their cell phone towers.

The company will use turbines from Helix Wind that can generate electricity in winds as slow as 10 mph. The turbines will power the towers and any extra electricity will be sold to the grid, giving Core Communications a new source of revenue as well.

The turbines will be installed on a trial basis on cell phone towers in Southern California for three months starting in early 2010. If they perform well enough, additional turbines could be rolled out permanently.

via CNET

Bacteria could rid the world of packaging waste

Megan Treacy — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:17:00 PST

Consumer and shipping packaging can be incredibly wasteful. Some companies are downsizing their packaging, but many products still come wrapped and boxed in ridiculous amounts of plastic, paper, cardboard -- you name it. One designer has come up with a way to get rid of the waste by wrapping objects in bacteria, creating a biodegradable, custom-fitting shell. Both gross and exciting!

Mareike Frensmeier just won third place in the Cargo Packs 2020 challenge for his bacteria wrap idea called Bacs. The packaging is made by covering an object with a culture of the bacterium acetobacter xylinum, then starting a sugar feeding frenzy. This creates a "fibrous nano-scaled cellulose network" that encases the object and keeps it safe along its journey.

The Bacs system can be manipulated to offer damp, gel-like packaging for food, dry, paper-like packaging or freeze-dried, foam-like packaging for the most fragile objects. Now, I'm not sure bacteria wrap will ever take off but the idea of a world free of packing peanuts sure is a nice one.

via Treehugger

Desk lamp powered by a phone jack

Hank Green — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:25:00 PST

From my perspective, they very fact that this is possible is the news here. It's a "reading" lamp that can be powered by a phone jack. That's right, your phone jack has a tiny amount of power that comes through along with the phone signal to power things like ringers and speakers and microphones. I imagine that the light output of this thing is pretty pathetic, honestly. I haven't seen any in use, but just looking at the price (less than $6) and the LEDs the thing has got makes me think this isn't going to assist all that much with reading, unless it's very dark out and you REALLY want to find out whether Robert Langdon is really dead.

There are a couple of other advantages to the lamp. First, these phone jacks are the most standard plug in the world. While everybody has a different outlet for power, almost every country uses the same phone jack. Second, when the power is out, often, phone lines are not, meaning this could be a way to have some light during an emergency.

And, finally, what could be the most appealing reason to uses this ugly, cheap, and insignificant source of light is that the power you pull from telecoms is free. They pay for it...you don't. Now that I think of it, it's probably against the TOS agreement you have with the phone company, but there are no meters, so they'll never know. You can use all of the (really insignificant amount) of electricity you want to power this lamp, and you'll never get charged for it.

Buy it here

Dell plants solar trees in the parking lot

Hank Green — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:27:00 PDT

Dell is doing it again, this time on-site, with a series of solar trees that will not only help power its headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, but also serve to charge electric vehicles parked there. Of course, there aren't currently any electric vehicles parking in the Dell lot, but hopefully that will change in the next few years.

The solar trees were put in place by Envision Solar, who's work we've seen at Google headquarters previously. The Dell installation will provide 130,000 kW/h per year and shades the parking spots of the 56 employees who get to the lot first. Everyone else gets punished for being late by having to park in the sun.

The project uses more than Envision's technology though. The charging points are provided by Coulomb Technologies while the solar panels themselves were manufactured by BP Solar. All together, they made themselves (and Dell) a pretty sexy-looking parking lot. Hopefully we'll see a lot more of these in the future.

Via Jetson Green

A bladeless fan?

Philip Proefrock — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:16:00 PDT

The Dyson Air Multiplier fan is the latest invention to come from Sir James Dyson, father of the Dyson vacuum cleaner series and the Dyson Airblade hand dryer. Air Multiplier is a 'bladeless' fan that provides a smooth airflow and that induces air circulation in the surrounding air, getting a greater effect of air movement.

It's not necessarily a more efficient fan than other fans (Dyson doesn't have any information about the relative efficiency of their fan on their website yet), but it's certainly an innovative design, and that could make it more acceptable to have a fan in a space, where a conventional bladed fan might be objectionable. The noise level from this fan is also not indicated yet. The sleek appearance of the Air Multiplier also makes it easier to clean than bladed fans. However, the Air Multiplier is not truly 'bladeless.' The blades are just concealed in the base of the unit.

Fans can be a far more efficient method of cooling than air conditioning. Moving air can provide a cooling effect with much less energy use. The Air Multiplier offers a stylish way to do this. While it has just been released, and availability is limited, it will be interesting to see if the performance of this fan makes it a real winner, rather than an expensive curiosity.

via: Treehugger

Solar powered e-reader makes e-books eco-friendlier

Megan Treacy — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:21:00 PDT

A recent study by the Cleantech Group revealed the much lower environmental impact of e-readers - specifically the Kindle - compared to traditional publishing, but the devices still require charging from the grid. LG's new e-reader takes care of that: it's outfitted with its own integrated solar panel, allowing it to run on clean, renewable, solar power.

The thin-film panel is 10 cm wide and just .7mm thick, adding only 20 grams to the product. The panel is 9.6 percent efficient and needs 4.5 hours of sunlight to juice the device for an entire day.

Last year, LG introduced a display that can be illuminated by sunlight instead of the backlight when used outdoors, increasing visibility and cutting energy use by 75 percent. Press for the new e-reader doesn't indicate what kind of display it uses, but this product would be even more impressive if it included the sunlight-illuminated one. That way you could read easily outdoors while charging the device at the same time.

via Greentech Media

Three questions about cell phone radiation

Amy Rosenthal / EWG Enviroblog — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 06:37:00 PDT

(Photo: iStockPhoto)

To a lot of people, it might sound about as worrisome as walking under a ladder or not forwarding an email chain letter, but really, what is the deal with cell phone radiation? Is it something you should actually be concerned about?

We were curious -- though we did figure that the radiation was probably more dangerous than deleting a chain letter. So we launched a 10-month investigation into the latest science of cell phone radiation. The result was our recently released report, Cell Phone Radiation Science Review, and a brand-new cell phone database.

Given the huge response to this report's release, turns out we weren't the only ones confused and concerned about cell phone radiation.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be breaking down the report piece by piece -- there's a lot of great information in there, and not many of us have the time to sit down and read through it all.

Today we kick off our blog series by looking at the science itself.

What is cell phone radiation anyway?

"Radiation" is simply the movement of energy through space from one place to another in the form of waves or particles. There are two types: ionizing and non-ionizing.

Ionizing radiation (such as the kind that comes from nuclear reactions and radioactive substances) has enough energy to knock an electron out of an atom's orbit. When it comes into contact with biological systems, like your body, it has the potential to cause mutations and cancer.

Cell phones send out electromagnetic waves, a type of non-ionizing radiation (a lot like the signals going to your TV or radio). Non-ionizing radiation has less energy than ionizing radiation and so can only make electrons more excited -- not knock them out of an atom.

Still, it has been accepted for years that even non-ionizing radiation can penetrate the body and harm sensitive tissue (scientists are still trying to figure out the exact mechanism by which this occurs). And it's important to note that with both types of radiation, the waves move in all directions -- so when you talk on your phone, just as much energy goes inward toward your ear as outward toward the cell station.

Can cell phones cause cancer or other illnesses?

The research is unclear but troubling. The bottom line is that we don't have a definite answer about the relationship between cell phone radiation and your health: cell phones haven't been around long enough for scientists to study their effects over a lifetime of use.

Early, short-term studies did not find an association between cell phone use and increased risk of brain cancer or other health problems. However, more recent, longer-term studies (which looked at cell phone use over ten or more years) have found that frequent cell phone talkers have a higher risk of developing certain types of brain and salivary gland tumors on the side of the head where they tend to hold the phone.

Recent studies have also associated cell phone use with increased risk of migraines and vertigo, Alzheimer's disease and decreased sperm count.

Are cell phones safe for children?

The effects on children may be more problematic. An estimated 71 percent of American tweens and teens carry cell phones, and more than half use them daily (according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project), but few studies have focused on the effects of radiation on still-developing brains and bodies.

What research there is has shown that twice as much cell phone radiation penetrates the thinner, softer skull of a child than that of an adult. Also, a recent study showed that young children who use cell phones and whose mothers used cell phones during pregnancy are 80 percent more likely to suffer emotional and hyperactivity problems.

More research is needed

Until the scientific studies catch up with the way that people actually use their phones (often, for many years and starting at a young age), EWG recommends reducing your exposure to cell phone radiation. Stay tuned for the next post in our blog series where we cover how to find a low-exposure phone and other tips to reduce your exposure. (Or if you can't wait, take a look at the report itself.)

Originally published in Environmental Working Group's Enviroblog. Republished with permission.

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Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

IBM sponsoring 500-mile EV battery project

Hank Green — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 17:07:00 PDT

In the last few years, electric vehicles have gone from a dream to the next logical step for vehicles. Of course, the future of EVs is still being debated, but IBM is using its cash and influence to push for an electric vehicle battery that can carry a car 500 miles without recharging.

500 miles is a long way, longer than most gasoline engines. And while the batteries might still require a long charge at the end of those 500 miles (longer than a five-minute gasoline fill up) it would still be a tremendous advantage over the 100 mile range of today's EVs.

There are a few paths to getting around this range problem. One is GM's "extended range electric vehicle" idea, which puts a gasoline generator in the car to recharge the batteries when they run low. Another is Shai Agassi's "Better Place" model, which has battery swapping stations scattered around the country for when you need a quick re-charge.

The third and most obvious option is to wait for battery technology to get good enough to satisfy the demands of drivers. IBM, sick of waiting, is pushing this direction hard. The project is called the "Battery 500 Project" and it focuses on advanced battery chemistries that will increase the "power density" of batteries. IBM's "Big Green" project last year asked for submissions for big green ideas, and the winning submission was the "Lithium Air Battery" which is what the Battery 500 Project will be focusing on.

Conceptually, lithium air batteries use lithium as the anode and oxygen as the cathode. Because oxygen would be fed into the battery from the surrounding air, the cathode would, in effect, be weightless. And because oxygen is available on demand, the only limiting factor is how much contact the battery can make with their air. That's where IBM's expertise comes in, they want to take their high-tech, nano-scale semiconductor manufacturing experience and use it to dramatically increase the surface area of the anode.

IBM is estimating that it will take two years to determine whether this technology is feasible. But even if that means it'll be five years before they hit the market, this will still be a huge breakthrough for power storage technology.

Via Engadget