Greenbang

Wow … we know ongoing advances in IT technology are making it possible for companies to do more computing with fewer servers, but going from 3,900 servers to 30? That’s a pretty impressive efficiency gain. IBM says its 3,900-to-30 server consolidation will not only save on software and system support costs, but will cut energy use by a whopping 80 percent. The consolidation is being launched as part of IBM’s billion-dollar “Project Big Green” effort to cut data center energy consumption... Read Full Story

Contrary to what the flak it gets from political critics suggests, the US Department of Energy (DOE) does not, in fact, spend most of its money on so-called solar debacles or electric-powered luxury cars . Much of its spending — more than 40 percent in its proposed budget for 2013 — is focused on nuclear weapons, nuclear non-proliferation and naval reactors . Its latest $27.2 billion budget request, in fact, places a new bet on nuclear energy, too: $770 million, including $65 million to... Read Full Story

There’s been a lot of crowing in certain media arenas lately about the “death” of peak oil: “For every barrel of oil produced in the world from 2007 to 2009, 1.6 barrels of new reserves were added,” Businessweek recently gloated, noting that we’re “awash” in not only oil, but many other natural resources for which estimated reserves — and the technological capabilities to extract them — keep going in just one direction: up. “Technological advances enable companies to image, drill and... Read Full Story

Think about Middle-Eastern OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates and what comes to mind? Is it the obvious: oil? Or is it solar energy, smart grids and green technology? For a growing number of people in the Middle East and elsewhere, and for a growing number of reasons, the second answer is becoming a lot more common. Perhaps the highest-profile example today is Masdar , the UAE-based initiative working to develop one of the world’s most sustainable... Read Full Story

Smart meters, smart grids, electric cars, wind and solar power … there’s one piece of the sustainable energy future that hasn’t yet gone as mainstream as these, but is showing signs of moving that way: Large-scale energy storage. Big batteries — or, at least, energy-storage technology of some kind — is critical for bringing our power systems into the 21st century. Without them, our efforts to develop renewables remain dependent on the wind blowing and the sun shining. No wind, no sun, no... Read Full Story

It’s a good sign when cars once considered among the “greenest” around find it harder to hold on to that distinction. The growing range of choices in hybrid and electric cars has put ever-growing pressure on automakers looking to earn fuel-efficient accolades such as the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s (ACEEE) annual Greener Cars list. “Earning a spot on the ‘Greenest’ list is proving to be a real challenge for automakers given the variety of vehicle technologies on the... Read Full Story

Just days on the job, Britain’s new Energy and Climate Change Secretary Edward Davey sent the message that he is serious about the government’s “Green Deal” by creating a new division in his department: the Energy Efficiency Deployment Office , or EEDO. “I’m hugely enthusiastic about energy efficiency,” said Edward Davey in his first speech since replacing Chris Huhne, who resigned in the wake of questions regarding speeding charges against him . “It’s the cheapest way of cutting carbon... Read Full Story

Transform boring, old technology into something with next-generation smarts and huge market potential, and what do you get? Exciting new business opportunities? Check. A stepping-stone to even more innovation? Check. An open-door invitation to a lawsuit? Check. As the smart-grid industry matures and evolves, it should come as no surprise that there will be mergers and acquisitions, winners and losers … along with increasingly fierce competition along the way. And with the competitive... Read Full Story

What’s the best way to understand developments in the energy world? A Daily Ticker story on Yahoo! Finance provides a glaring example of how not to do so. Serious energy analysts usually find lots to complain about in the mainstream media’s coverage of energy issues, and those complaints — a tendency toward stenography, innumeracy, lack of context and “magical thinking” — are often justified. But the Daily Ticker article titled “US to Be Free from Foreign Oil by 2030: BP” dials those... Read Full Story

Compared to natural gas, the US is using proportionately less coal than it once did for generating electricity. “Proportional,” though, doesn’t necessarily means less overall . In fact, despite some up-and-down fluctuations, coal consumption in the US has been hovering at around 1 billion short tons per year since 1996 , according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). The US remains the world’s second-largest consumer of coal. And, globally, coal use has been on the rise... Read Full Story