smart grid
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New Facebook app will let friends compete over energy efficiency
Companies large and small (including influential ones like Google) have been trying to convince consumers that they should actually use all the new smart-grid information to tamp down their energy use. So far, these programs have had little luck. Basically it’s hard to get consumers to pay attention to anything besides updating their Facebook status. So it’s lucky that Facebook now offers an energy-efficiency app.
Facebook is taking a stab at promoting energy efficiency through data, in partnership with Opower and NRDC. Next year a Facebook app will let user compete with friends over their energy use. -
Energy genius wins MacArthur grant
Shwetak Patel is revolutionizing home energy use, and people are noticing. Patel was just awarded a MacArthur Fellowship -- affectionately known as a "genius award" -- for his work creating user-friendly ways for people to monitor and control their utilities consumption. In other words, this is what certified energy genius looks like.
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Critical List: Romney’s down with coal; Iran starts up a nuclear plant
Mitt Romney, in a desperate attempt to fit in, says he wants to burn more coal.
Iran's making nuclear power. There’s no way that could go wrong!
But worldwide, renewables are beating out nuclear in terms of installed capacity.
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How the smart grid of the future will prevent power outages for millions
Right now there are millions of people without power thanks to the wind and heavy rainfall that accompanied hurricane Irene, and I'm one of them. It sucks. Having to call the utility company just to let them know that they've failed me once again is a symptom of our antediluvian electricity distribution system.
Commonwealth Edison of Northern Illinois thinks so, too. Recently, they explained to the Daily Herald how a smart grid would have prevented outages for hundreds of thousands of their customers in the wake of recent July storms.
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Russia to build $100 billion rail tunnel connecting Alaska and Siberia
Ever since Tsar Nicholas II, Russians have dreamed of connecting Siberia to North America via a rail tunnel. Now, apparently, the Kremlin has green-lighted the connection, which would be the world's longest, and twice as long as the England-to-France "Chunnel."
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If the ‘smart grid’ gets too smart it will destroy itself, says study
If our utility company gives us too much information about the price of electricity -- a cornerstone of the "smart grid" -- we'll probably use that information to crash the grid and cause massive blackouts, says a new study from MIT.
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Critical List: China makes solar power cheap; U.K. fishing fleet wastes cod
China is making solar power cheap in order to drive solar growth.
Since 1963, U.K. fishing boats have tossed $1 billion worth of dead or dying cod overboard to keep within their quotas.
In Washington State, what The New York Times calls "the largest dam removal project in American history" will destroy two dams and help salmon regrow their population. -
The top 12 women of cleantech
While the clean-energy sector is very much a boy's club, women are starting to break down the clubhouse door. Here's a list of top women in cleantech.
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Flow batteries store electricity in giant tanks of goop
Even if we do manage to set up a shiny futuristic renewable smart grid made of glitter and staffed by zebra unicorns, there are still going to be times when it poops out. Maybe the wind isn’t blowing; maybe a mean old cloud got in the way. And when that happens, there aren't enough boat batteries in the world to store all the electricity we're going to need to keep everything running.