Archive for the 'Alternative Energy' Category

Electric Cars and a Better Place

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

The Ted Talk above by Shai Agassi is all the more remarkable given it was given in 2009 and, since then, his vision is starting to be rolled out. The Better Place network is being rolled out in Canberra, where I live, and the Renault Fluence electric car that uses Better Place’s charging system [...]

US$10 Million Prize to Build a Better Bulb

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

The New York Times is reporting, in a story Build a Better Bulb for a $10 Million Prize, that Dutch electronics giant Philips has announced that it has already developed an LED based light that meets all of the ‘L Prize’s conditions. The bulb is now being tested in what the US Energy Department [...]

£10m boost for British Sea Power

Saturday, September 5th, 2009

Photo of Glenelg, Scotland, by Dave Sag and used with permission.
IEEE Spectrum is reporting, in a story “£10 Million Sea Power Challenge“, on a new initiative by the Scottish Government to boost research into technologies that generate power from the sea.
Scotland is finalizing the terms of a contest in wave and tidal energy that takes [...]

Italian Cost of Solar Power to Rival Coal by Next Year

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

Yale University is reporting that the cost of solar power in Italy is soon to rival that of coal fired power.
Southern Italy, with it abundant sunshine and high electricity tariffs from coal-generated power plants, could by 2010 produce solar power that is economically competitive with conventional power. That’s the assessment of Winfried Hoffmann, president of [...]

HowTo: Make a simple hand cranked device recharger

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

Hack a Hand-crank Flashlight

I love this sort of thing. I am always charging something, my iPhone, my laptop, my Wife’s 9 year old mobile that only holds charge for a few days (but she loves and won’t upgrade until it really truly dies). So being able to charge these devices without drawing off [...]

Oil Refineries are Cancer hotspots

Monday, February 16th, 2009

The fossil fuel industries are the most destructive forces on the planet. Coal mining fatalities are so high that you can measure electric power in lives as well as megawatt hours. We all understand that burning of fossil fuels is one of the primary causes of global warming, but spare a thought for [...]

Solar Sunflowers

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

I just watched the most amazing TED talk from 2003, by Bill Gross, founder of IdeaLab and CEO of Energy Innovations. If you watch the whole video above Bill explains the development of his Solar Sunflower and it’s brilliant. In the video he’s using genetic algorithms to optimise old-school tech like Stirling Engines [...]

Obama stimulus good for climate says Al Gore (naturally)

Thursday, January 29th, 2009

“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf and burning it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that has to change.”

Nobel Prize winner, former US Vice-President and long-term climate activist Al Gore addressed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the strong links between the climate crisis, the economic [...]

Carbon Planet becomes a GreenPower™ provider

Thursday, December 18th, 2008

I am very excited to announce that Carbon Planet has been approved as a provider of GreenPower™ for Australian business customers.
What is GreenPower™?
GreenPower™ is a trademark owned by the NSW Department of Water and Energy, who manage the national GreenPower™ Program on behalf of the various states and territories. Certified GreenPower™ consists of Australian Renewable [...]

Clean Energy 2030: Google’s plan to save the world

Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Tech website Ars Technica has a story on Clean Energy 2030: Google’s plan to save the planet
The Google plan is nothing if not ambitious. To begin with, Google proposes a massive push toward energy efficiency, which will reduce electricity demand to 2008 levels (accounting for around 1,000 terawatt hours/year. It also calls for a complete [...]