Policy

Feng Shui and the art of data centers

Large multinational companies are building data centers designed to flow with their environment. There's something you probably didn't expect to hear five years ago.

Microsoft, for instance, is building a data center in Ireland in which the server rooms and other facilities will be cooled with devices called air side economizers, which pipe outside air inside.

"It uses fresh air aggressively to keep your building cool," said Rob Bernard, Microsoft's chief environmental strategist, in a phone interview. "The ideal scenario is that if Ireland continues to develop wind power and hopefully wave power, you … Read more

Oil demand stays relatively flat, despite rising prices

North America and Europe are consuming less oil, but worldwide demand is still rising despite increasing prices.

The International Energy Agency came out with its monthly report yesterday and, in some ways, it's business as usual. Demand in Western economies for oil dropped by about 190,000 barrels a day, bringing daily consumption down to 49.3 million barrels. Demand in China, India, and other developing nations, however, rose by 120,000 barrels a day to 38.3 million barrels a day.

In all, that comes to 87.5 million barrels a day of oil being consumed worldwide--close to … Read more

The week in sustainable energy stocks

Continuing concerns with economic conditions drove all the broad stock indicators into negative territory for the week. With one expectation our sustainable energy indices followed suit with three indices declining and one, Renewable Electricity, advancing.

The Solar index suffered another large decline dropping 5.9% bringing the YTD decline for the sector to -42.5%. In perspective, even with this large decline the index has some distance to go before it gives up the huge gains we saw in 2007. LDK Solar Co. LTD (LDK) led the declines down 21.3%, closing below its IPO price. Apparently there remains some … Read more

Ireland: Where wind power is king

DUBLIN, Ireland--It's easier here than in most industrialized nations to green the electrical grid.

Peak demand for electricity in the Republic of Ireland comes to about 5,000 megawatts, Graham Brennan, program manager for renewable-energy research and development at Sustainable Energy Ireland, the government's green-technology arm, said in an interview in SEI's Dublin offices. The peak occurred last December, at 4,907 megawatts.

Studies show that onshore and offshore wind turbines located in the republic could deliver approximately 5,000 megawatts of power over both parts of the island, he added. This figure takes into account only … Read more

Clean energy today: All bluster or the real deal?

Green is the new black--from Washington, D.C., to Silicon Valley.

But the lovefest with clean technology still has plenty of detractors who say that it's all just posturing, wishful thinking, or, worse, misguided.

Let's pull together a few threads from Friday morning's river of green tech news and see whether it adds up to anything.

For those of you in a hurry, here's my bottom line: No, America will not "get off oil" anytime soon as President Bush urged us this week, but yes, green tech matters a lot for the economy and … Read more

Photos: Washington renewable energy conference in pictures

Highlights from my week: a hybrid Mack dump truck, foldable solar panels, biomass pellets to replace coal, and a speech by President Bush.

The first Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) 2008, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday, brought together ministers from 119 countries and a trade show floor full of businesses.

The headline event, without a doubt, was a speech delivered by president George Bush on Wednesday morning where he said America has to "get off oil."

Overhanging the entire event, however, was a policy stand-off that renewable energy business people is hurting the U.S. economy. … Read more

Bush commits to renewable energy for climate change, energy security

WASHINGTON--The world is in the early days of an energy revolution for clean technology, a shift the United States is committed to for economic, political, and environmental reasons, President George Bush said in a speech here Wednesday.

The president spoke to delegates from more than 120 countries at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) 2008, where he described what the United States has done to promote biofuels, fuel efficiency, and renewable power sources like wind.

"America has to change its habits. It has to get off oil. Until we change our habits, we are going to be dependent … Read more

Policy standstill could stall U.S. clean tech

WASHINGTON--The last time tax incentives for renewable-energy projects dried up in the 1980s, energy investor Nancy Floyd got out of the wind business--something she fears other entrepreneurs may do without quick changes to U.S. policy.

Floyd, now the managing director of energy technology venture capital firm Nth Power, was one of a group of businesspeople who held a press conference here to lobby for the renewal of federal tax incentives set to expire this year.

The incentives, which provide a federal tax credit for renewable-energy investment, are set to expire at the end of 2008. But the impact is … Read more

Investor Khosla: Clean energy only matters when it meets 'China price'

WASHINGTON--Famed venture capitalist Vinod Khosla told energy and environmental ministers from around the world they greatly underestimate how rapidly energy is moving toward renewable sources.

Khosla was a speaker during the ministerial plenary at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) 2008 here on Tuesday, where he argued that the energy industry is undergoing a technology disruption, much the way that telecom and computing did decades ago.

The reason people don't appreciate the pace of change is faulty projections, he said. Government officials and businesspeople trust market forecasts which have consistently been far off-base.

People believed that it would … Read more

More money washes into wave power

Right now, wave power is in the early experimental stages, but venture capitalists are lining up to be on the ground floor.

Orecon has lined up $24 million in funding from Advent Ventures, Venrock, Wellington Partners and Northzone Ventures to build a full scale prototype of its wave power machine and, if the results are positive, move toward commercial deployment.

The U.K.-based Orecon has devised a large-scale buoy for harvesting power from waves. In a nutshell, waves striking the device create pressure in a chamber, which is used to turn a turbine and create electricity. A single device … Read more