Climate Technology
All Stories
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Google, Facebook reap benefits of building hot data centers in cold Scandinavia
Data centers are the gigantic, Borg-like assemblages of computers that run everything we take for granted on the web, from email to social networks. They take a lot of energy, because they do all the things, but more than that they take a lot of cooling; keeping data centers from overheating requires up to half […]
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Gigantic flywheels recover, recycle subway trains' energy
If subway stations could harvest the energy of incoming trains as they hit their brakes, they could re-use that same energy to launch the same train as it leaves the station. That's the idea behind Vycon flywheels, which are gigantic spinning wheels that act as temporary energy storage mechanisms.
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Google gets carbon offsets from hog poo
In its recent report on the company's carbon footprint, Google said that it offsets its emissions with high-quality offsets. We are happy as a pig in shit about that. Which is appropriate, because here's one example of what that means: energy powered by pig poop.
The company has invested in a North Carolina project which collects the methane from the waste of 9,000 hogs. A power plant burns the methane to create power for 35 homes a year. -
World solar market to increase 130 percent by 2020
In 2010 the world spent $30 billion on solar panels. By 2020 that figure will be $70 billion, says Korean electronics giant Samsung.
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U.S. solar projects boom as PV prices keep falling
The U.S. lags behind in solar PV manufacturing, but falling panel prices mean thriving commercial-scale development.
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Solar-powered ice cream truck unfolds like a Transformer
Shazam! Is it an Autobot, or an object lesson in the possibilities of distributed generation? We're grooving so hard to the soundtrack on this video that we can hardly tell. Unlike conventional ice cream trucks, which sit on the street loudly idling in order to run their refrigeration equipment, this one relies on the power […]
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Can Japan get off nuclear by 2012 without wrecking its economy?
A new plan for a massive shift to renewables could move Japan away from nuclear permanently, even as it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs for the country's ailing economy.
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Obama gives strong jobs speech, defends pollution standards
Obama’s big job speech exceeded expectations. He didn't mention clean energy by name, but he did emphasize that it's a core job-creating industry.
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How Gmail saves energy
There are a lot of benefits to cloud computing. For instance, if you believe the commercials, it lets you replace your family’s heads with better heads! Also, it saves you storage space and means you can access your data with multiple devices. But this might be the best argument so far: Switching from local email […]
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Could ammonia be the zero-carbon fuel we've been waiting for?
Ammonia would make a pretty handy, potentially carbon-free liquid transportation fuel, say engineers, and it could be produced right at gas stations using electricity from the grid, water, and air.