Energy efficiency

SAN FRANCISCO--Ford wants developers to create a broad array of connectivity applications that can be used in conjunction with its cars, and it launched its OpenXC platform Monday to promote that effort.

In an announcement at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference here, Ford and its partner Bug Labs unveiled OpenXC, a platform designed to allow third-party developers to create any number of open-source hardware or software products that will interact with Ford's Sync system.

The idea, said K. Venkatesh Prasad, the senior technical leader of Infotronics at Ford Research and Innovation, is to make it possible for outside developers to … Read more

What happens when you let a group of crack developers and entrepreneurs direct their energies to environmental sustainability for a couple of days? As this weekend showed, you get some interesting apps.

Organizers this week hosted the first Cleanweb Hackathon in San Francisco this weekend and announced the winner of app development contest yesterday.

The overall winner for the event was team TACO (total cost of ownership) which showed a prototype of a Chrome browser plug-in that shows electricity use of electronics and other products to people when shopping, according to one of the organizers and investor Sunil Paul.

The … Read more

Utility National Grid has withdrawn and is resubmitting its smart-grid proposal, a sign of how poor understanding of the smart grid among consumers is working against the country's efforts to modernize the electricity grid.

National Grid had worked two years on a smart-grid pilot program (PDF) to install many technologies both on the transmission grid and in people's homes in Worcester, Mass. But after making its proposal to regulators, it pulled back in February this year and will try to submit a revamped proposal by the end of the year.

Rather than presenting a menu of utility-conceived technology … Read more

Google disclosed how much electricity it uses as a company for the first time today when the Internet giant described how it has cut carbon emissions.

Google said today that it consumes 2.26 kilowatt-hours per user per year, about the same amount of energy as running a 60-watt lightbulb for three hours. By investing in renewable-energy projects and purchasing carbon offsets, Google has cut the greenhouse gas impact of providing its services to zero, Google's vice president of technical infrastructure, Urs Hoelzle, said on the Google Green blog.

The total amount of electricity Google uses from its operations … Read more

What will become of your body when you die? Worm feast? Up in smoke? Cryogenic freezing?

The second option is becoming very popular. By 2025, more than 50 percent of dead Americans will be cremated, according to the Cremation Association of North America. If you've also decided to convert to ashes but don't want your vaporized mercury dental fillings polluting the air, here's a greener method to treat your remains.

Scottish firm Resomation has installed its first commercial body dissolving unit at a Florida funeral home, advertising it as a more environmentally friendly alternative to interment and cremation.

The Resomator s750 is a 7-foot stainless steel tank. It works by immersing the body in a mix of water and potassium hydroxide, which is heated to 356 F. It's also subjected to pressure equivalent to 10 atmospheres during the two- to three-hour process.

The mortal remains are turned into ash and sterile, DNA-free liquid, which gets flushed. Bones are crushed in a separate process, and any implants including mercury fillings are recovered. There are no airborne mercury emissions.

Resomation says its alkaline hydrolysis machines cut greenhouse emissions by a third compared to cremation, and use only one-seventh the energy. … Read more

Japan's Nichicon says it has developed "the world's smallest and lightest quick chargers" with two units that take 35 to 60 minutes to charge.

The Kyoto-based capacitor maker says the NQC-A202 charger is about 5 feet tall and 13 inches wide, weighing 330 pounds.

It has an output capacity of 20 kilowatts. The NQC-A302 unit has a 30kW capacity but weighs 375 pounds. The output voltage is 50 to 500 volts DC.

The company says the chargers are half the weight and size of existing models but still meet standards set by CHAdeMo, a rapid-charge association led by Tokyo Electric Power Company and Japanese automakers.

The chargers will be aimed at car dealerships and other customers. They will hit the market in October and will sell for 1.89 million to 2.1 million yen ($24,500 to 27,220), the Nikkei newspaper reported.

As of last month, there were nearly 800 CHAdeMo rapid-charge stations on the road, with the vast majority in Japan.

Nichicon has also produced on-board chargers for the Mitsubishi i-MiEV as well as the Nissan Leaf. Both cars can be recharged with Nichicon's latest chargers.

(Via Nikkei) … Read more

Energy management platform developer EnergyHub announced today it has raised $14.5 million in Series B funding from a pool of both previous and new investors.

The Brooklyn-based company makes a home energy management system and smart-thermostat software accessible via the Web, and compatible with mobile devices including the Android and iOS platforms. EnergyHub also offers cloud servicing to complement them. EnergyHub is similar to Tendril in that it plans to offer a suite of home energy management hardware including smart outlets, home displays, smart thermostats, and load control devices for utilities. EnergyHub also offers smart power strips.

EnergyHub supports ZigBee smart meters and legacy AMR meters that have an Itron ERT meter inside. The reason for this is that those are currently the most prevalent meters being used in the U.S. In Texas, in particular, over 6 million smart meters using ZigBee should be installed in homes by the end of 2013, while approximately 25 million Itron ERT meters are in use across the U.S., according to EnergyHub's marketing director Eric Fleming.

But having a smart meter in one's home is not required to use EnergyHub, according to Fleming.

"We have early customers who are using the system independent of meter connectivity and are realizing energy savings by plugging their appliances like window air conditioners, dehumidifiers, TVs, and other devices into our sockets and strips to monitor and control them remotely. The biggest opportunity to save in the home is with the Home Base plus Wireless Thermostat, which helps people easily put the home on an energy-saving schedule that automatically controls heating and cooling," he said.… Read more

Start-up Tendril announced today that it's opening up its smart-grid communications platform to more developers.

The Tendril Connect Platform Application Developer Program will allow developers to build on Tendril's platform for energy management and services for both utilities and consumers. The platform has the ability to reach 70 million households connected to the smart grid, according to Tendril.

Launched two years ago, Tendril's platform already includes a range of companies from ThinkEco to Siemens that use the platform. The company also offers compatible hardware in the form of smart thermostats and communication tools to go with its … Read more

It's not the first concept we've heard of that uses human motion to charge our batteries, but it could be far more efficient than anything up to now.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin in Madison say that one day soon, any portable device--including the meatiest smartphones--could be charged by simply taking a stroll.

"Humans, generally speaking, are very powerful energy-producing machines," Tom Krupenkin, a UW-Madison associate professor of mechanical engineering, said yesterday in a statement. "While sprinting, a person can produce as much as a kilowatt of power."… Read more