Global Cool

Office building with 100% LED lights.

2007-11-15T06:58:00.000-08:00

Here's an example of an office building that has been converted to 100% LED light. The new bulbs consume 48% less energy than those they replaced (mostly fluorescents lights). The workplace in question is the headquarters of Cree, a company in North Carolina that specializes solid-state LED lights. The parking lots, entryways, lobby and conference rooms at Cree’s headquarters are now lit by eco-effective XLamp LEDs. Even the high-pressure sodium parking lights and spotlights were converted to LED lights.

Cree wanted to demonstrate that LED lights are a viable option today for businesses and residences. The company claims that their lights render the same type of light that is produced by fluorescents or incandescents. It looks like the LEDs in the photo above are producing a full-spectrum light.

When LEDs replace incandescent bulbs, there is also the added advantage of reducing AC requirements in the summer.

The only method of lighting more energy efficient than LEDs is daylighting (e.g. through the use of sun tubes, for example).

The smarter you shop the cooler it gets

2007-11-15T04:25:00.000-08:00

Cooler enables you to eliminate the global warming pollution of your online purchases.

It’s simple.
1. Join.

2. Start shopping for all of your everyday purchases at the same prices from hundreds of the Internet’s most popular stores through the Cooler Web site.

3. Cooler calculates the pounds of greenhouse gas produced in the process of manufacturing, shipping and selling the product you purchase.

4. The store then pays Cooler a fee, which we invest to eliminate the greenhouse gas pollution created by the product you purchased. These projects are backed by the largest environmental organizations.

5. You can track your impact by viewing the pounds of global warming pollution you’ve eliminated by starting your online shopping at Cooler.

6. You can also track the collective impact you’ve had by referring friends to Cooler.

India Inc turns green

2007-10-27T23:50:00.000-07:00

The corporate sector is designing innovative products and programmes to improve energy efficiency, cut costs and counter global warming

One of the most frequently used key combinations to log off a PC is ‘Ctrl+Alt+Del’. But every time we do this and walk away, the computer remains on and consumes energy, resulting in wastage of both money and power. Not just that, the power consumed by your PC also adds to global warming! A 65 watt power processor in a computer consumes about 234 KW power if it works for 12 hours a day for 300 days. If there are an estimated 15 million PCs in India, then it could result in consumption of 35.25 terra watts of power a year— which means a whopping 4,92,748,000 barrels of oil to produce that amount of energy. This is just one aspect of the energy crunch facing India. According to the Central Electricity Authority, at the current annual generation capacity of 1,35,000 MW, there’s a shortage of nearly 10% and it will only get worse. No wonder that the corporate sector is opting for intelligent power usage. Companies are designing innovative products and programmes to increase energy efficiency and cut costs.

INDIA INC STEPS IN
For example, IBM has integrated energy conservation into its environmental management system since 1974. Between 2000-2005, it reduced PFC emissions by 58% and made the technology available to others in the industry. In India, they launched Intelligent Energy Campaign last year and Project Big Green in June 2007. ‘‘The initiative includes new products and services for clients to sharply reduce data centre energy consumption, transforming the world’s business and public technology infrastructures into ‘green’ data centres,’’ says Reji Kumar Pillai, head, energy and utilities, IBM India. Statistics show IT data centres consume 15 times more energy per sq ft than a typical office building and, in some cases, may be 100 times more energy intensive. According to IDC, expenditure on power and cooling in data centres is growing at eight times the rate of expenditure on hardware. So ‘‘green teams’’ of energy efficiency specialists, as set up by IBM, is a step forward. Similarly, AMD India makes sure the PCs in its offices are switched off, screen savers are not used and ACs are fitted with thermostats that modulate temperatures. ‘‘The company also uses PowerNow in its server processors that helps reduce energy consumption of the server,’’ says Deepanshu Sharma, GM Marketing, AMD India.

GREEN GRID
In another initiative, a consortium of IT giants like AMD, Microsoft, Dell, Sun, IBM et al, have set up The Green Grid — a platform for IT professionals who aim to cut power consumption in data centres. It offers solutions and suggestions on the best practices available. ‘Green’ buildings is another concept fast gaining popularity. Commercial buildings are responsible for at least 40% of energy use in most countries. Industry estimates say ‘green’ buildings can save up to 50% energy, 35% of water usage and improve employee productivity by up to 10%. Adds Manoj Mathur, regional head, Trane India Ltd which helps make ‘green’ buildings, ‘‘Better usage of heat from the building can also be done. For example, in the process of cooling buildings, a lot of heat is wasted. This heat can be captured and used for a wide range of applications, like water heating etc.’’ The commonly-used incandescent bulb too wastes up to 95% of its energy on generating heat — only 5% goes into producing light. This at a time when the global demand for energy is expected to grow 53% by 2030 — 70% of this demand will come from China and India alone. S Venkataramani, head, lighting division, Philips Electronics India, says, ‘‘In India, 18,000 MW power is used for lighting purposes alone annually. A study done by MAIT-Emerson Network Power (India) on network power downtime reveals... India Inc could be losing over Rs 22,000 crore in direct losses due to poor power quality and operating environment related downtime. This is estimated to be around 2.2% of the gross output of the total industrial and service sectors.’’ Now, Philips India is in the process of creating an ‘‘ecosystem’’ comprising industry bodies, governments and NGOs and education institutes to break down the barriers against adoption of energy efficient lighting. It’s promoting compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) that save energy by 80%. ‘‘That’s a saving of Rs 500 and 84 kg of CO2 per lamp per year,’’ says Venkataramani. None of these initiatives will work unless there is collaboration by all concerned. As Pillai says, ‘‘For intelligent energy solutions to succeed, there must be a concerted and collaborative effort by industry, government and consumers; no company or organisation can do this alone.’’ Recognising this, the corporate world seems to have taken up the challenge of balancing both market needs and environmental priorities.

Around the world in solar taxi.

2007-10-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

Louis Palmer dreamt of travelling around the world in a car when he was just 14. Twenty years later, his dream saw the light of day when he invented an ecofriendly car powered only by solar energy.
35-year old swiss is now on a promotional world tour in his solar car, demonstrating the sustainable technoogies are perfectly suited for everyday use, even to go around the world! "With this toud I want to show that solutions against global warming are available and that it can be stoppped"
Palmer says the many signs of global warming that he came across disturbed him. "The weather has changed so drastically in almost all the 60 countries I visited, that people are alarmed.
Developed by palmer with the help of students from four swiss technical universities over a period of one year, the solar taxi consists of a vehicle and trailer with solar cells - its 100% renewable energy with no polluting emissions. could be built for Approx 8000$ USD.

Talk while walk...charge your cellphone

2007-10-18T04:36:00.000-07:00

Forgot to charge your phone before stepping out for a walk? Now you can walk the talk with an invention of four schoolchildren which allows you to charge your mobile phone with a contraption in your shoe! For that matter, the rudimentary contraption will come in handy, or leggy, outdoors while travelling, provided you have space to walk, according to the class XII science students of Vidya Bharti School at Bhatar in Surat.

The footwear, with springs in the heel that will propel a small wheel attached to a dynamo, will be able to generate enough electricity for charging your cell phone. The more you walk the more you can charge it, says Jinesh Chopra, one of the members of the team, which comprised Ipsa Agarwal, Vishwanath Patel and Nitish Jain. The team presented its device in the ‘Model Your Future’ section at Autofest ’07 held at Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology last week. “The arrangement of different parts converts the linear force into rotational force, which can generate around five to six volts with each step. With constant power supply it is possible to charge a mobile fully within an hour,” says Ipsa.

Computers are wasting energy.

2007-10-18T04:20:00.000-07:00

Of the $US250 billion spent per year on powering computers worldwide, only about 15% of that power is spent computing-the rest is wasted idling.

If the sheer, skyrocketing cost of electricity isn't enough to make you start looking to reduce your power bill, then maybe a reminder that electricity = fossil fuels burned = more carbon emissions = global warming will remind you that there's more than just a large electricity bill at stake here.

Here is computer power management tip

Youc can keeps your computer on for easy remote access and for nightly scheduled tasks (like backups and defrags), but didn't want to waste the energy an always-on computer would. Search for network setup that uses power-saving settings and Wake on LAN technology to get both energy efficiency AND constant availability. This estimates this new setup saves you almost $200 a year in energy bills and reduces your carbon emissions by 234lbs (!!). Here's how you i did it :

I used the open source DD-WRT firmware to set up a wireless bridge between my access point and my PC which is in another room. That allowed me to use Wake On LAN (WOL) to power up my computer remotely. I then changed the settings in my computer's BIOS and in Windows to allow WOL to start my computer from whatever state it was in. Lastly I used a BIOS setting to power my computer on every night at 3AM for scheduled maintenance tasks.

Be Cool - Buy local food

2007-10-16T07:55:00.001-07:00

Veg from a mile away is just as tasty as veg from half the world away and doesn't have to be flown to you in energy-guzzling airplanes.

An average family can save 4 tonnes of CO2 a year
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Lower your laundry

2007-10-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

Wash your clothes at a lower temperature, say 30 degrees rather than 40 or 60. It uses way less energy and your clothes still come out sparkling white unless they were black to start with.

An average family can save 90kg of CO2 a year
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Wrap up your home

2007-10-15T07:53:00.001-07:00

Insulate your loft space, cavity walls, hot water pipes or boiler. Draught-proof your doors, windows, letterbox or cat flap. Keep your home a little warmer and your planet a little cooler.

An average family could save 3.8 tonnes of CO2 a year and a lot of money
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Don't drive

2007-10-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

Walk, go by horse, run, rollerskate, take a coach, bus or train. Or at the very worst, hitch a lift. Do not in any circumstances drive an obscene gas guzzler on your own on a weekday or a weekend.

An average family could save masses of CO2 a year
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Stuff the freezer

2007-10-15T07:47:00.000-07:00

Freezers work best when they are tightly packed - that way, they don't have to work so hard to freeze air space. A great way to justify some extra tubs of ice cream.

An average family could save a bundle of CO2 a year
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Buy better bulbs

2007-10-14T00:31:00.001-07:00

Low energy bulbs give out the same amount of light but run on a third of the power. So unless you live in a nightclub, change over.

An average family can save 200kg of CO2 a year
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Take a low-power shower

2007-10-14T00:28:00.000-07:00

Showers use nearly half the water of baths and cost a whole lot less to heat. If you really must take a bath, save energy and share it with a really dirty friend.

An average family can save 290kg of CO2 a year and a lot of money
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Use Better energy

2007-10-14T00:23:00.000-07:00

Switch to a supplier that generates electricity through wind, water and solar power. It only takes a phone call and it still comes through your wall sockets.

An average family can save 1.7 tonnes of CO2 a year.
Send me if you have any such tips on rajeshsavalia@yahoo.com

Be Cool - Turn out bright lights

2007-10-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

If you don't need them on then switch them off, they waste so much energy. And if you're scared of the dark, trust us, there really are no ghosts.

An average family can save 100kg of CO2 a year and a lot of money

Be Cool - Try not to fly

2007-10-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

Hey hotshot, do you really need to fly to that meeting? Do you really need to holiday abroad? And those relatives across the world - if they really loved you, wouldn't they move closer?

An average family can save 700kg of CO2 a year and a suitcase full of cash

Be Cool - Don't boil water

2007-10-13T08:17:00.000-07:00

Kettles love guzzling energy as much as you love drinking tea or coffee. So if you need a cup, boil a cup's worth and no more.

An average family can save 45 kg of CO2 a year

Be Cool - Unplug the charger

2007-10-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

Most gadget chargers eat electricity even when not in use. So once you've powered up your PSP, iPod or mobile, be sure to power down its greedy little charger.

An average family can save 7kg of CO2 a year

Be Cool - Take a stand against standby

2007-10-12T08:31:00.000-07:00

The green button - a shocking name because a TV left on standby still burns vast quantities of energy. Why not burn a few calories by getting up off your chair and turning it off properly?

An average family can save 150kg of CO2 a year

Be cool - Turn your heating down

2007-10-12T08:25:00.000-07:00

Not by much - just by one degree. You save a bundle of energy and if you do feel slightly colder (unlikely) you can always wear an achingly fashionable jumper.

An average family can save 400kg of CO2 a year and a lot of money

Best Environmental movies ever...

2007-10-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

The big enchilada of environmental movies, "An Inconvenient Truth" brought global warming into the public consciousness in a major (and unexpected, and controversial) way.

"The Day after Tomorrow" is big-budget blockbuster mires New York City - and anywhere north of the equator deep in ice and snow, as global warming spins the planet out of control and right smack into the next Ice Age

Biofuels could add to greenhouse gas emissions

2007-10-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

A new paper suggests that biofuel production may be contributing to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

The lead author and Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen and colleagues from the United States and Europe suggest that the nitrogen fertilizer required to produce crops for biofuels may result in larger nitrous oxide emissions than previously thought.

According to the study, microorganisms turn 3–5 per cent — rather than the one per cent estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — of the nitrate used for fertilizing the crops into nitrous oxide.

Nitrous oxide is one of the major greenhouse gases; when considered over a 100-year period, it has a potential to influence global warming 296 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.

The global warming caused by the nitrous oxide produced by rapeseed is 1–1.7 times more than the 'cooling' effect due to saved fossil fuel (carbon dioxide) emissions. For corn, this figure is 0.9–1.5, indicating that it is perhaps better to continue using petrol than to grow and burn biofuels.
Sugar cane was the only crop shown to have a favourable balance of greenhouse gas savings and emissions, because it requires less fertilizer than other biofuel crops.

Full report in PDF

Greenhouse emissions have hit danger mark

2007-10-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

The global economic boom has accelerated greenhouse gas emissions to a dangerous threshold not expected for a decade and could potentially cause irreversible climate change, said one of Australia’s leading scientists. Tim Flannery, a world recognised climate change scientist and Australian of the Year in 2007, said a UN international climate change report due in November will show that greenhouse gases have already reached a dangerous level. Flannery said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report will show that greenhouse gas in the atmosphere in mid-2005 had reached about 455 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent — a level not expected for another 10 years. “We thought we’d be at that threshold within about a decade,” Flannery said. “We thought we had that much time. But the new data indicates that in about mid-2005 we crossed that threshold,” he said. “What the report establishes is that the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is already above the threshold that could potentially cause dangerous climate change.” Flannery, author of the climate change book The Weather Makers, said he had seen the raw data which will be in the IPCC Synthesis Report. He said the measurement of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere included not just carbon dioxide, but also nitrous oxide, methane and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). REUTERS

Hole in ozone Layer shrinks 30 percent

2007-10-07T06:19:00.000-07:00

The gaping hole in Earth's ozone layer has shrunk 30 percent in size compared to last year, according to new measurements made by the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite.

The ozone layer loses about 0.3 percent of its mass annually, yet fluctuates in its thinness through the year. The region of extremely reduced ozone above Antarctica, popularly known as a "hole," generally peaks in size during September and October but regains its composure by the New Year.

Researchers are not certain if this year's smaller ozone hole means the radiation-blocking layer is healing. Full report via Livescience

USB Ecostrip helps to keep our global cool

2007-10-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

Even when your computer is off, all those peripherals you have plugged into it continue to suck up precious energy. Be it your printer, your speakers, your monitor, or an external hard drive, they all just love wasting expensive, earth-raping power. It's time you taught them some manners.
This brilliant USB Ecostrip is a smart way to make sure that everything that runs on your computer turns off when it does. You simply plug the USB cable into your computer, then plug the power cords of all your peripherals into the strip. When it senses that you've shut your computer off, it'll cut the power to everything else, making sure you aren't sucking power that you don't need. It's a simple and clever idea that's sure to show up at the end of the month on your power bill.

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