Video: The arrival of technology-laden EVs promises to empower and liberate car fleet managers in ways they could only just imagine a few short years ago. Just ask Rolf Schreiber, Google’s Electric Transportation Manager.

As you know, Google is big on cleantech. And one of the ways it promotes this is by keeping a fleet of Volts for its employees to use. Cool, but that adds a whole new set of complications. Take, for instance, the relative scarcity of charging stations, which makes quickly determining battery charge levels all the more critical.

Enter OnStar.

In a new YouTube video, you can see out how GM’s car telematics service combined the cloud, car software and mobile computing to deliver to Google and its employees an Android app and online service that takes the guesswork out of keeping its Volts on the road. With a healthy dash of time-saving self service, no less.

Google, a pioneer in this area, certainly seems pleased. And some credit’s due to OnStar for staying at the forefront as the industry transition from gas to electric.

Check out the video below.

My non-meat-eater friends may want to skip this post. But the rest of us carnivores will be pleased by this new discovery.

It turns out that those LEDS that are popping up at supermarket display cases don’t just bathe your food products in a crisp, energy-saving glow. They also extend the shelf life of some meats!

According to researchers at Kansas State University led by a recent masters graduate, Kyle Steele, LEDs help reduce discoloration in meat products, improving sales and thereby reducing waste and spoilage.

For the study, they looked at pork loin chops, beef loin steaks, ground beef, ground turkey and beef inside round steaks — pretty popular meat products as  U.S. eating habits go.  Then they checked for discoloration and rancidity vs. typical fluorescent lights. Plus, they also factored in operating efficiency — measuring how often the refrigeration unit had to kick in and for how long.

Here are their findings:

The researchers found that LED lights scored positively in nearly all areas. Most significantly, LED lights helped reduce operating costs and prolonged the shelf life for most of the meat products.

“Most meat products displayed under LED lighting had colder internal product temperatures, which helps extend product shelf life,” Steele said. “Beef loin steaks and inside round steaks that were stored under LED lights can have up to one day longer shelf life.”

Among operational costs, LED lights had fewer cycles per running hour, meaning they were a more efficient and cost-saving light source than fluorescent lights.

Cool. Oh, and go meat!

[via Food Product Design]

Image credit: Flickr user PR® – CC

This is eerie…

Lately, the topic of infographic burnout has been making the rounds. This is mainly due to clumsy (and copious) marketing attempts, flimsy ‘facts’ or firms that are pushing outright lies using pretty pixels.

I was just thinking today how this infographic on wind turbine noise from GE was the exception.

Simple. Eye-pleasing. Informative. I liked it and shared it accordingly. And then I discovered a great, validating story from England that gives the discussion a human element and imbues GE’s infographic with something more substantive: the truth.

Ears lent and left undisturbed

A couple of months ago, the story “We were wrong on turbine noise, admit protesters” appeared in This is Leicestershire. The title pretty much says it all, but it’s accounts like this one that bust the myth that wind turbines will make your ears bleed.

Kelly Gamage, 33, moved into her home in Gilmorton in July, and said she had no idea about the plans to build a wind farm there. She said: “It was a shock when we found out, we certainly didn’t expect anything like this when we moved in.

“At first we didn’t want them on our doorstep, but now they’re up they’re not doing any harm and there’s no noise coming from them.”

So wind turbines aren’t ruining idyllic English villages. Shocking, but true. NIMBYers need to find another issue to hitch their carts to, ’cause this horse is pushing up daisies.

Image credit: This is Leicestershire

[via Reddit]

It’s been a great year if you’re the kind of techie that likes to dream up tomorrow’s gadgets.

Mind you, it’s hard not to get caught up in this year’s stunning gear like the Nest smart thermometer or LG’s prototype OLED HDTV. But 2011 also brought us advancements in materials technology that could soon make our gadgets even cooler and way more energy efficient.

Today, Kevin Bullis at MIT’s Technology Review has a great round up of the materials tech breakthroughs of 2011, many of which improve energy efficiency.

On the display front, QD Vision and Samsung are developing quantum dot screens. This could lead to “printed” displays — even on bendy surfaces — that barely sip power, produce bright visuals and reduce manufacturing waste. (Hit the TR link for a neat little update on Qualcomm’s Mirasol color e-reader tech.)

In the realm of batteries, some experts at Stanford have devised an electrode that can sustain 40,000 charges — a huge leap from the 1,000 charges your laptop battery can currently handle. From Lawrence Berkeley National Labs comes a new electrode that slots in to current manufacturing processes. If used with new, inexpensive battery chemistry that stores 10 times the power of today’s cells, it could lead to gadgets (and EVs?) that run for days between charges.

As for renewables, researchers are finding ways to capture more energy by using nanoscale materials to trap more light or convert certain wavelengths of light to the kind that solar panels can use.

See, something for everyone.

Source: Technology Review

Even surrounded by the visual overload that is Times Square on New Year’s Eve, the Ball is hard to miss. Yes folks, not only is it big — 12 feet in diameter and weighing 11,875 pounds — it’s also very, very bright.

Now, thanks to Philips, the supplier of its lights, you also know exactly how many LEDs it takes to give the iconic spectacle its glow: 32,256. And each is computer controlled to produce fancy effects behind a shell of Waterford crystal.

The LEDs are 88 percent more efficient than its prior light source, requiring the equivalent energy of two home ovens to keep running for an hour. Plus, they’re expected to operate 30,000 hours, far above and beyond the roughly 1,000 hours that prior halogens and incandecents could muster.

All neat stuff, but this year the Ball carries with it some extra symbolism, according to the company.

Countdown to EISA

On January 1, 2012, the Energy Independence & Security Act 2007 goes into effect. For LED lighting manufacturers, it’s expected to become a major — if not the major — turning point for the industry. While many factors are contributing to its growing popularity, LED lighting is poised to really take off when regulations begin pushing market conditions in favor of energy efficient light sources.

And considering that Philips expects LEDs to comprise 10 percent of the global lighting market this year — the U.S. happens to be the prime market for LED lighting, representing 40 percent global share — there’s a lot of room for growth.

Looks like a bright New Year, both at Times Square and for LED companies, doesn’t it?

Image credit: Philips

One of the biggest complaints levied against wind turbines — apart from them “ruining” idyllic views — is that they’re noisy. It’s an understandable fear. Whereas you can turn your back on an eyesore, an incessant drone will drive anyone batty.

Thankfully, this infographic from GE Reports — a site from a company that knows a thing or two about wind turbines — shows us what kind of decibel levels your ears will be subjected to.  Yes, wind turbines can get loud. But generally, few are ever erected within earshot.

So, one more old, NIMBY-flavored chestnut put to rest.

Hit the source link below for a full-sized version of the infographic.

Source: GE Reports
[via Reddit]

Thanks to some sleuthing by a reporter at the Charlotte Observer, we now know how Apple plans to make its massive, billion-dollar data center in Maiden, North Carolina greener.

While some vital specifics concerning the new solar farm are still shrouded in mystery, engineering plans (called Project Dolphin Solar Farm A Expanded) call for a reshaping of a slope on part of the 171 acres of land Apple owns near the facility. That’s a pretty big patch of land, but only Apple knows how much of it will be loaded up with solar panels.

There’s one clue that the solar installation will be pretty substantial, though. According to the report, the panels will be accessible via “multiple gravel roads.”

This is the latest sign that Apple’s betting big on data center efficiency. Earlier this month it was revealed that the company had hired Scott Noteboom, one of the brains behind Yahoo’s innovative, chicken coop-inspired data center in upstate New York.

Screen capture, courtesy of Bill Wagenseller

[via Slashdot]

Pictured: Lulea mayor Karl Petersen (left) and Facebook’s Director of Site Operations, Tom Furlong – Image Credit:  Lulea data center Facebook page

Facebook is poised to take free cooling and clean energy to new heights. Up into the Arctic Circle, in fact.

The social networking behemoth announced today that it was siting its first data center outside of the United States in Lulea, Sweden. One of its main draws is a chilly climate that will reduce the need for cooling equipment. Another huge draw — at least in terms of getting out from under the shadow cast by the coal-powered cloud in Prineville, Ore. – is that the facility will be mostly powered by green energy.

So far, plans call for three buildings to house servers totaling approximately 900,000 square feet. Inexpensive hydropower will supply the 120 MW needed to keep the data center running.

Combine green energy with the free-cooling benefits that the location allows, and add Facebook’s penchant for energy-efficient IT systems, Lulea could be the company’s greenest data center yet. Not only can this lead to huge energy savings for the social media giant, it can also provide the industry with a high-profile, environmentally-friendly blueprint that emphasizes renewable energy sourcing in addition to power efficient IT equipment and facilities.

Another bonus: Its proximity to Europe should also help speed up Facebook for users across the region since their data will have a shorter distance to travel. Good news all around.

What does a former Apple exec that’s responsible for the iconic iPod do when the thermostats on the market are too lame for his new green home? He brings design and software savvy to bear on the problem.

The result is the puck-like Nest, from Tony Fadell’s startup of the same name. It’s a learning, connected thermostat that not only looks great, but has the potential to save households big on energy costs. It goes on sale in November for $249.99 (preorders are open now).

Sure it’s costlier than most thermostats, but that price buys more than looks alone. There’s also a bunch of features that make efficiently heating and cooling a home intuitive, and over time, automatic. This is important because according to the company, only 6 percent of programmable thermostats wind up getting programmed. (Memories of VCRs, anyone?) Worse, those non-programmed, programmable thermostats wind up squandering 30 to 40 percent lower heating and cooling costs.

So what makes Nest different?

To start, Nest learns user patterns over time when people set the temperature by turning its outer ring. Nest then takes over using time, sensor and location data. It also nudges people into greener consumption patterns by displaying a leaf on its big, bright screen at energy efficient temperature ranges.

Another exciting feature are the connectivity options. Using a laptop PC or smartphone app (mindtrip alert: controlling the Nest with an iPod Touch), users can access their Nest accounts to send commands and tweak the settings on their Wi-Fi connected thermostats. Flight cancelled? Running late? With a few taps, users can eke out even more savings.

So it’s too early to tell if Nest will be a success; the Nest preorder page is virtually unreachable as of this writing. (A good sign?)  But at first glance, it looks like Fadell and his team are bringing to market that irresistible, Apple-like design and usability that has eluded so many smart thermostat companies and home energy management startups thus far.

At $50 to $100 per square foot, smart glass — glass that reacts to a brief charge to change color — is too big of a budget-buster for most home and business owners. For now, one of the most common uses of this technology called thermally insulating fenestration are used in auto-dimming mirrors in high-end cars.

But that’s about to change, writes Steven Ashley over at TXCHNOLOGIST.

…the technology is poised to move out of the Mercedes and into homes and businesses, where it could potentially save one-eighth of all the energy used by buildings in the U.S. if it replaced all the conventional windows in the country, according to researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colo. That’s about 5 percent of the nation’s entire energy budget.

The reason that smart windows could soon become more common is that Sage Electrochromics will open the floodgates to more manufacturing capacity at its a new Faribault, Minn. plant next year, a move that ought to lower prices at the “oldest and largest domestic maker of smart glass.” Helen Sanders, VP of technical business development for the company lays out the reasoning. “Prices of dynamic windows should drop because they’re determined principally by manufacturing volumes; there’s nothing in the technology that’s inherently costly,” she says.

But Sage Electrochromics isn’t alone in opening up the market for smart windows. A host of startups like Soladigm and Switch Materials are also ramping up production as well. Head over to Steven Ashley’s post for more info on the innovations (and innovators) that are paving the way for cheaper, more energy efficient green buildings.

Image credit: Soladigm