Q&A: American Power Conversion's Neil Rasmussen
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He talks about why his firm is pushing for European voltage standards to be adopted in the United States, the myth about fuel-cell technology being carbon-neutral and the new power-design model for PC and chip makers.
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Managing Watt? Reg Tech Panel As the green debate rages on, one of the findings that came from our recent survey of Reg Readers revealed that despite all the talk about energy savings and IT, the majority of IT departments are not accountable for spending on electricity to run systems.â¦
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Scientists have struggled for years to make electricity from the sunâs light at a cost competitive with power from coal or natural gas. The challenges are formidable.
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Science & environment: Is wind turbine that looks like a giant rotary washing line the answer to our renewable energy prayers?
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The Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro discusses his recent reviews and answers your personal tech questions.
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Escalating oil prices and global warming concerns have shifted the quest for renewable energy sources into high gear. While wind and solar claim most of the attention, the dark horse in this race may be the restless energy of the sea. By Stephen Leahy.
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As you may recall from my last entry, I exchanged my cable box from a Scientific Atlanta 8000HD to a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD.  The latter, new box continues to output a signal from the cable connection even if I have it in HDTV mode.  It probably also continues to output AVI and S-Video.  This finally opened up a way for me to use my cable box with a MythTV box.   Thanks to a serious (and mysterious) spinal injury (I say mysterious because I haven't figured out how I did the damage), I can only work on the project for a half hour at a time, at most.  I have discovered some interesting things in those short segments.
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A scientist says the United States could more than double its hydropower supply by harnessing the energy of smaller streams. Doug Hall said the feat can be achieved using small turbines or generators instead of dams.
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WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn., Sept. 11  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The second of four major segments of the Electric Power System components built by Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. , was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Atlantis on Saturday, Sept.
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A soli 69,99 Euro una soluzione economica e sicura per la gestione delle password di Pc e laptop! Merate â American Power Conversion (APC) (Nasdaq: APCC) ha presentato lâultimo nato della famiglia di soluzioni
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By JIM ABRAMS  WASHINGTON - Curious about how much of your money is going to encourage hydroponic tomato production in Ohio - or to build bridges to nowhere in Alaska? A user-friendly Web site is going to help you find out.
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A scientist says the United States could more than double its hydropower supply by harnessing the energy of smaller streams.
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Britsol boffins answer Branson's challenge Somebody call Al Gore and tell him he can leave the lights on in his house for as long as he likes: some academics in Bristol have solved the climate change crisis. Oh yes, and they want their $25m prize money from Richard Branson, thankyewverymuch.â¦
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Ex-NASA boffin could kill off wind and tidal A former NASA engineer, most famous for inventing the noted "Super Soaker" squirtguns, may be on the track of a radical new energy technology which could have important implications for power generation.â¦
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New cybersecurity standards proposed by the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) to protect the nation's power infrastructure are not broad enough and fail to cover a significant number of interdependent assets.The standards also give electric utility owners, operators and users too much discretion when it comes to implementing the prescribed controls, a group of experts told members of the House Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cybersecurity, and Science, and Technology on Wednesday.James Langevin (D-R.I.), chairman of the committee, said the NERC's proposed standards require stakeholders in the power grid to establish plans, protocols, and controls for safeguarding physical and electronic access to the control systems that manage the national's electric infrastructure.The problem is the standards are focused purely on the reliability of "bulk power systems" and don't require electric sector owners and operators to secure their generation systems, distribution systems, or telecommunication equipment, Langevin said in prepared testimony."We know from countless real-world examples that these units are highly vulnerable to intentional and unintentional cyber-events. Knocking any of these units off could affect the power supply to our nation's critical infrastructure," he noted in his statement.The narrow focus of NERC's proposed cybersecurity standards is especially troubling, Langevin said, in light of a recent simulated attack against a power utility control system that was carried out by Department of Homeland Security researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory. The same methods that were used in that experiment could be used to carry out attacks against larger generators and other equipment and cause "widespread and long-term damage to the electric infrastructure," he warned."I'll be blunt: If this administration doesn't recognize and prioritize these problems soon, the future isn't going to be pretty," Langevin said.Joseph Weiss, managing partner of Applied Control Solutions, testified as an expert at the hearing. He said the growing interconnectedness of control systems with other networked computing systems is happening without a corresponding appreciation for the security risks resulting from such connectivity.For the most part, he stated in written testimony submitted to the committee, security issues have been the purview of the IT organizations within utility companies, whose control system groups manage grid and plant operations. As a result, it's often the case that some parts of the system are sensitized to security while others do not fully appreciate the risks, he said.Exacerbating this issue is the fact that many control system applications run in Windows and Unix environments and are therefore susceptible to the same security threats as other systems are. Traditional IT security controls, Weiss said, can help alleviate some of these issues, but they can also cause control system reliability problems.Against this backdrop, he said in his prepared remarks, the NERC's proposed standards are too narrowly focused on bulk power grid reliability, and not, for instance, on smaller substations that might support a major oil or gas pipeline in a remote locale. Similarly, there's not much priority given to securing the continuity of electricity to facilities such as municipal waterworks, manufacturing plants, refineries, hospitals and military installations.Experience has already shown the significant impact that an attack or a security incident against a control system can have on the electricity infrastructure, said Gregory Wilshusen, director of information security issues at the Government Accountability Office. Wilshusen provided written testimony to the committee.As examples, he cited a 2006 incident in which a foreign hacker planted malicious software capable of affecting a water treatment plant's operations, and another incident in which excessive traffic in a nuclear power plant's control system caused two circulation pumps to fail -- forcing the unit to be shut down manually.David Whiteley, executive vice president of the NERC, said that the security issues raised by the interconnectedness of the electric infrastructure and other infrastructures are important and need to be addressed. However, under its existing mandate, the NERC has the authority and responsibility for enforcing reliability standards on only the bulk power grid, not on the distribution system. Developing and enforcing standards on connected infrastructures is beyond the capability of a single body, he said.Whiteley said that in July of this year, the NERC sought comments from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on a proposal for approving eight CIP reliability standards. Those cybersecurity standards have been in development for several years and were developed with extensive input from industry experts.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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David Gardner continues his interview with Jim Sinegal.
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Will the stun gun maker continue to generate electricity on Wall Street?