Spark Devices wants to connect your light bulbs to the internet.
Friday, January 16, 1970
Enphase Energy Announces AC Module Availability with CertainTeed
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Enphase Energy Announces AC Module Availability with CertainTeed
http://feeds.businesswire.com/click.phdo?i=f46e8d976b834e08d10b0af993983a34
Oil Lobby Chief Warns ‘You Fundamentally Can’t Regulate’ Fracking At All
Earlier this year, the Obama administration issued the first-ever national standards for air pollutants related to fracking on federal lands. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas lobbying arm, was even satisfied with the new rules, which still allowed companies to frack first and disclose later.
And that’s the way the industry wants it to be. At an event this week, API President Jack Gerard argued that there is no case for regulating the controversial drilling technique, suggesting companies should get free reign:
“You can’t be for the potential energy development in the United States and be against hydraulic fracturing,” Gerard said. “You fundamentally can’t regulate the very technology that has created the potential and deny the ability to use that in places where we can see job creation, revenue creation.”
There is strong evidence for the need to scrutinize the fracking industry. The Obama administration’s new rules are just a small step in tackling problems, since it applies to only a portion of the U.S. natural gas supply and won’t regulate greenhouse gases. Hydrofracking poses a great risk for the future of the climate, since studies point to high levels of methane leakage, a greenhouse pollutant more potent than carbon. And thanks to exemptions from the Clean Water and Air Acts, as well as weak state-level rules, companies can avoid disclosure of chemicals that are injected near water wells.
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/climateprogress/lCrX/~3/l7x0fzKlX0M/story01.htm
Oil Lobby Chief Warns ‘You Fundamentally Can’t Regulate’ Fracking At All
Earlier this year, the Obama administration issued the first-ever national standards for air pollutants related to fracking on federal lands. The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas lobbying arm, was even satisfied with the new rules, which still allowed companies to frack first and disclose later.
And that’s the way the industry wants it to be. At an event this week, API President Jack Gerard argued that there is no case for regulating the controversial drilling technique, suggesting companies should get free reign:
“You can’t be for the potential energy development in the United States and be against hydraulic fracturing,” Gerard said. “You fundamentally can’t regulate the very technology that has created the potential and deny the ability to use that in places where we can see job creation, revenue creation.”
There is strong evidence for the need to scrutinize the fracking industry. The Obama administration’s new rules are just a small step in tackling problems, since it applies to only a portion of the U.S. natural gas supply and won’t regulate greenhouse gases. Hydrofracking poses a great risk for the future of the climate, since studies point to high levels of methane leakage, a greenhouse pollutant more potent than carbon. And thanks to exemptions from the Clean Water and Air Acts, as well as weak state-level rules, companies can avoid disclosure of chemicals that are injected near water wells.
| |
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/climateprogress/lCrX/~3/l7x0fzKlX0M/story01.htm
Why IEA Oil Forecast is Unrealistically High
The International Energy Agency forecasts that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, and will become a net oil exporter by 2030. What the forecasts ignore is the problem of diminishing returns.
Why IEA Oil Forecast is Unrealistically High
The International Energy Agency forecasts that the United States will become the world’s largest oil producer by 2020, and will become a net oil exporter by 2030. What the forecasts ignore is the problem of diminishing returns.
Facebook takes on Mother Nature by using open air cooling for N.C. data center
Facebook has managed to make its newest data center in North Carolina more efficient than the one it built in Prineville, Ore., despite the sweltering heat of the Carolina summer. By using open-air cooling and its Open Compute Foundation servers, Facebook has achieved a PUE score of 1.07 (the Prineville facility has a PUE of 1.09).
PUE, or power usage effectiveness, is a metric that divides how much energy a data center uses in total by how much its IT equipment uses, and the closer you are to one the more efficient your data center is. So how on earth did Facebook manage to avoid using air conditioning in its data center located in the South where temperatures can hit triple digits and the humidity is enough to make you feel like you’re breathing underwater?
Dueling weather metrics and swamp coolers
Facebook’s blog post on the topic opens with dueling weather forecasts. It weighed forecasts using BinMaker software for calculating temperature and humidity on computing and forecasts and data from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, Inc. to figure out if it would need to use A/C. The ASHRAE estimates said the social networking giant would need to use its A/C in Forest City, N.C. and BinMaker didn’t. Undeterred by the prospect of turning on the chillers, Facebook installed them but also went ahead with plans for open air cooling.
As an Open Compute blog post written by a Facebook engineer notes, “We ended up installing a direct expansion (DX) coil system in the facility, just in case it might be needed, but it was important to us to find a way to make the free cooling system work — the potential efficiency gains to be found in keeping those DX units switched off were just too great to ignore.” The social networking company then built its own servers based on the Open Compute standards it had pioneered and tweaked them to handle higher indoor temperatures and humidity.
For engineers, the heat wasn’t the issue, the humidity was. Much like eBay, which uses open-air cooling in Phoenix, that “dry-heat” everyone praises actually is better because the data center operations team can use a mist to cool down the air before it enters the data center. In high heat and low humidity environments basically Facebook is using a swamp cooler. That’s the same method it uses in Prineville on warm days.
Last summer, one in which North Carolina had the second-highest July on record and the temperature hit 100 degrees one day, Facebook lucked out because the humidity stayed low. This meant Facebook never had to turn on the A/C. It did, however, have to use some of the dry hot air from the data center hall to lower the overall humidity on days when it was really humid but not that hot.
So all that hot air generated on Facebook by your friends and their political opinions can be put to good use.
Check out this series by GigaOM’s Katie Fehrenbacher on North Carolina’s mega data center clusters:
Here’s my 4-part series on data centers and power:
- The ultimate geek road trip: North Carolina’s mega data center cluster
- 10 reasons Apple, Facebook, Google chose North Carolina for their mega data centers
- The controversial world of clean power and data centers
- The story behind how Apple’s iCloud data center got built
U.S. Oil Future: Energy Independent By 2030, Bigger Than Saudis In 2020
U.S. Oil Future: Energy Independent By 2030, Bigger Than Saudis In 2020
U.S. Oil Future: Energy Independent By 2030, Bigger Than Saudis In 2020
Raspberry Pi Spawns Competitors
The Raspberry Pi has inspired a flock of competitors. Among them are the A13-OLinuXino, which you can purchase here for 45 euros. It comes with an A13 Cortex A8 processor at 1GHz, 3D Mali400 GPU, 512 MB RAM, and complete set of ports. Video is VGA. It ships Android 4.0 but also runs various Linux distros. You might also check out the $49US Cubieboard here and the UG802 for $89US here. And there's the MK802 micro-PC, a USB-sized device priced at $74US that runs Android 4.0, Ubuntu, Debian, and other distros. The tiny single-board computer has come of age.
http://www.osnews.com/story/26550/Raspberry_Pi_Spawns_Competitors
GE and Fina Enerji Fuel Wind Energy Growth in Western Turkey
ISTANBUL--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GE will provide 43 wind turbines to Turkish energy developer Fina Enerji for four new projects in western Turkey. The projects will add 97 megawatts of capacity to the country’s electricity grid.
http://feeds.businesswire.com/click.phdo?i=a27c3cc7a217596756ef8cdd0b62f026
MidAmerican Wind Completes Its Acquisition of Two California Wind Projects From Terra-Gen Power
DES MOINES, Iowa--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MidAmerican Wind announced it has completed the acquisition of the 168-megawatt Alta Wind VII and the 132-megawatt Alta Wind IX projects from California Highwind Power.
http://feeds.businesswire.com/click.phdo?i=3be26a5d27280dcb6b158950cd05aed0
Facebook and Open Compute want a biodegradable server chassis
Facebook is sponsoring an Open Compute Foundation contest with Purdue to develop a more sustainable server chassis. The goal of the contest is to build a biodegradable box, instead of steel casing‚ to hold the innards of a server. Since most companies replace their servers every two to three years (the Purdue contest site says four), why not make the case out of something that doesn't need to be recycled at the end of its rather short life?
From the design challenge web site:
Servers are typically replaced about every four years. This is necessary to maintain fast, reliable equipment. Unfortunately, this results in a lot of waste. Open Compute wants to change this starting with the server chassis. These are typically made of steel, which is recyclable, but even recycling generates waste. What would happen if these chassis could be placed in compost instead?Purdue University's College of Technology entrepreneurship program, called Tech Ventures, will work with the Foundation and the social network to get students to rethink the humble chassis. The challenge will begin with a Computer and Information Technology (CNIT) course at Purdue in the spring semester. I, for one, can't wait to see the cardboard server chassis, although in some ways I think eliminating the chassis and making the rack the protective unit for the boards and components might make more sense.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/yk3_hG0kKFw/story01.htm
http://gigaom.feedsportal.com/c/34996/f/646446/s/2562b682/l/0Lgigaom0N0Ccloud0Cfacebook0Eand0Eopen0Ecompute0Ewant0Ea0Ebiodegradable0Eserver0Echassis0C/story01.htm
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