High-Tech Buildings May Save Energy
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Buildings are getting smarter &#151; and the next generation of building materials is expected to do even more. Windows could trap the sun's energy to heat hot water. Sensors that measure the carbon dioxide exhaled by people in a room could determine whether the air conditioning needs to be turned up.
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Exotic materials and cheaper substrates could lead to better photovoltaics.
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Particles that capture infrared light could allow everyday objects to tap into an under-exploited source of energy.
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Kiss those utility bills goodbye. Well, maybe. If you live in a sunny -- but not humid -- area, you may be able to live in a zero-energy home. By John Gartner.
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Blog: Researchers create lighting foil to save energy, space.
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Some Holy See buildings will start using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's concern about conserving the Earth's resources, a Vatican engineer said Tuesday. The roof of the Paul VI auditorium will be redone next year, with its cement panels replaced with photovoltaic cells to convert sunlight into electricity, engineer Pier Carlo Cuscianna said.
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As the summer swelters on, skyscrapers and apartments around the city will be cranking up the air conditioning and pushing the city's power grid to the limit.
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It's like an outdoor radiant floor heating system. It melts ice and the excess energy can help heat or cool buildings.
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Going green with certain home improvements can save you big.
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While plug-in hybrids and hydrogen  fuel cells are likely one day to help cut U.S. gasoline  consumption, major fuel savings can be achieved now if  automakers put existing technologies to work under one hood.
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Google, Intel, Microsoft, Dell, and Hewlett-Packard pledged this week to develop and use more energy-efficient computers and computer components.
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(InfoWorld) - The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) is stressing incentives over regulations to improve the energy efficiency of datacenters. The DOE's office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) gathered the top technology companies in Silicon Valley Wednesday to promote collaboration on strategies to improve overall energy efficiency.Â Datacenter energy issuesÂ are a growing concern for businesses and users as computers get more powerful, and the cost of running them and keeping them cool continues to increase. Technology vendors represented at the forum, including rival chip makers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, along with server vendors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, andÂ Sun Microsystems, have each been developing more energy-efficient products. But they and the DOE representatives acknowledged that datacenter energy usage needs to be addressed holistically. The DOE can be a resource to the industry, not a regulator requiring datacenters to meet energy efficiency goals, said Andy Karsner, head of the EERE program. "I donât know that right now thereâs a dramatic need for a regulatory move, particularly when you have the leaders of the industryâ¦coming here with a sense of purpose,â said Karsner. Industry representatives said they work independently on improving the energy efficiency of individual products but that the federal government could provide tax credits, other financial incentives, or other resources to enhance overall energy efficiency. "AMD and Intel keep doing their best to improve the performance [of processors], but the CPU is only half the story.â said Kris Singh, director of strategic platform technology programs at AMD, which hosted the daylong energy conference at its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. Because this was the first meeting of what the DOE called a "tech industry working group," no specific recommendations were made and the schedule for future work remained open. The DOE can fund research that individual product makers can't fund to look at how different components could work better together, said David Rodgers, acting deputy assistant secretary of EERE. "A hardware company might improve theÂ energy efficiency of a blade serverÂ and another company might improve the energy efficiency of a transformer to convert AC to DC. Right now very few people are doing research on how to integrate those two together," said Rodgers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sponsors theÂ Energy Star programÂ rating the energy efficiency of home appliances such as refrigerators and air conditioners and some commercial equipment. But some participants in the working group are skeptical that a comparable program could be applied to datacenters. âIâm not sure about that," said Roger Schmidt, chief thermal architect at IBM. Because datacenters are much more complex with components from different manufacturers, it'd be hard to develop one Energy Star rating everyone would agree upon. "What if [the rating] is bad, what do you do? Who are you going to point the finger to?â Schmidt asked.
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Two Silicon Valley firms show energy-efficient practicies in their own facilities.
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The technology could boost LED power, increase solar-panel efficiency and reduce light spillage inside cameras.
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Green tech financiers share tips for spotting sustainable startups.
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A push into the solar sector could benefit the company.
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Smart meters can help identify where energy is being wasted, but only if the devices offer meaningful information.