For decades, we’ve been trying to harness and convert energy from one form to another in hope of meeting our day-to-day power requirements. In winters, we use electricity to keep our home warm and cool in summers. Smarter Energystar homes improve this model but they still don’t remove the need for Power plants.

NanoHoldings would change our lifes forever.

The Future of Energy is all about Clean and Renewable energy that doesn’t require any of the oil, coal and nuclear power plants. Energy is going to be Free!

Watch the video, I’m sure you will be amazed.

Pythagoras Solar has come up with new Glass windows that fit into your apartments, offices and generate electricity throughout the day. In addition they can be used to control the light and heat entering the rooms. The company is calling it the industry’s “first energy efficient, transparent and high power-density photovoltaic glass unit”.

The new product could show up in curtain walls, skylights or windows. It both blocks the sun to keep it cool inside and captures sunlight to create solar energy.

The video below talks about how the Solar windows work:

And a preview of how much these solar Windows would cost:

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Scientists have built the world’s  smallest petrol engine that is tiny enough to power a Watch.

The mini-combustion engine can run for two years on a single dose of a light fuel.

To give you an estimate of the power, it produces 700 times more energy than a conventional battery despite having a size less than a centimetre long . If the technology continues to innovate with the same pace, it could be used to power laptops and mobile phones for months.

Energy evangelists believe that this new mini-motor can make batteries look conventional and even phase them out in half decade.

The engine has been produced by engineers at the University of Birmingham.

“We are looking at an industrial revolution happening in peoples’ pockets. The breakthrough is an enormous step forward. Devices which need re- charging or new batteries are a problem but in six years will be a thing of the past.”

These tiny engines would find applications in other fields such as medical, military gadgets, and future robots.

Today, charging an ordinary battery to deliver one unit of energy involves putting 2,000 units into it. This is due to the fact that energy is wated at several steps before it is effectively stored. On the contrary this engine produces energy locally,  and hence  is far more efficient.

Micro engines have been produced several times in the past, but all of them failed at dissipating heat to surroundings, and burned themselves over a small period of operation. The Birmingham team overcame this by using heat-resistant materials such as ceramic and silicon carbide. They brought together all the engineering disciplines, both materials, chemical engineering, civil engineering, and mechanical engineering.

We’re excited about this more than Bloom Energy,  a new Energy revolution.

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Second biggest source of Energy consumption is the Lighting. We can chose LED light bulbs to illuminate Home and workplaces, effectively saving as large as 90% of the Energy spent by traditional Incandescent tubes/bulbs. Earlier, CFLs were considered as an effective replacement, but with advent of White LEDs, much higher efficiencies have been attained.

Philips, LG,and other leading electricals have started bringing great LED lamps to the market. A single 5 watt LED bulb would easily outperform a 25watt CFL and that too with a pure white light.

LED vs. CFL vs. Incandescent Energy efficiency

The reason is obvious, LED is the most effiecient since it completes almost all of the electrical energy into Light and very minimal amount of energy is dissipated. However a traditional light bulb spends more energy in  heating than emitting light.

Going by approximate figures a 60 watts Incansescent = 20 watts CFL = 3.5 watts LED

Lifetime

The lifetime of an LED bulb is nearly 50, 000 hours (~6 years), when run continously. Which is insanely great as compared to 8,000 hours of CFLs and  1200 hours of Incandescent bulbs.

Directional

Unlike other sources, LEDs tend to be directional due to their inherent design. However, newer designs with multiple LEDs aligned at different angles into a same bulb, make it possible to cover a wider area.

Time to Reach maximum Light

LEDs are instantaneous, taking only nano seconds. Incandescent takes order of 2-5 seconds. CFLs are slowest, taking upto 30 seconds to emit maximum lumens of energy.

Environmental friendliness

• Toxic material: LEDs and CFLs are both environmental friendly as they donot have mercury.
• Carbondioxide Emissions: Lower energy consumption decreases CO2 emissions and hence LEDs do 451 pounds/year, CFLs 1051 pounds/year, and Incandescent does 4500 pounds/year.

Drawbacks:

LEDs: They are realtive expensive today, but should get cheaper as cost of production is low. Another disadvantage is that its almost impossible to find High power LED bulbs. I haven’t seen many options above 10watts.

CFLs: They are not as efficient and take alot of time to reach full power.

Incandescent: Everything about them is actually a disadvantage.

Comparison of Real world performance:

Here is a comparison of LED against CFLs, Incandescent light sources:

Here’s a Philips LED:

another comaprison:

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Same is the case with the batteries that are used to power Electric cars.  Such cars have very long charging time, for instance, a minimal charge takes 30 minutes or more. And when you actually wish to move, it would need that charge.

One company has made the first breakthrough by inventing a Lithium Polymer battery that puts every other battery manufacturer to shame. DBM Energy has been manufacturing batteries that allow forklift trucks to operate in warehouses for 28 hours between charges. Their latest creation is called KOLIBRI, which has been deployed into a car and the results are pretty amazing.

The battery was put to test using standard Audi A2, a battery operated Electric car. With everything stock except for the battery, the car was set to benchmark the battery power.

With approx. 6 minutes of charge, the car traveled whooping 375 miles (600km) over a journey of seven hours averaging speeds of 55mph. On finishing the drive, CEO of DBM offered to recharge the phones of the reporters as it still had some juice left. 6 min charge time for 100 kWh – it is important to know with what kind of a fast charger it was done, but in anyway – if battery can sustain 2500 cycles with this kind of fast charger – it is another breakthrough. Question will in Charging Infrastructure, but it is 6 min for 100 kWh – too good to be true for a Lithium Metal Polymer!

The drive is now called Munich-Berlin project, with which DBM wanted to know if its batteries would work for road cars rather than just forklifts, and without a doubt it looks promising for almost everything from trucks to cars.

Comparison with Other batteries : Over 300 Wh/kg – to put it in perspective – Nissan Leaf 24 kWh battery will be less than 80 kg! We have heard that Renault Fluence 24 kWh battery weight is 240 kg.

One final piece of good news about this battery is DBM believes it can manufacture it cheaper than the other lithium ion batteries being developed. That means the premium for an electric car using a DBM battery solution should be lower than the competition.

Welcome to the future where Short Charges, Extended Battery life has become a reality. DBM seem to have solved both problems with wide range of battery options of batteries that charge insanely fast, and batteries that last really long.

This car is definitely was not optimized for optimal battery performance, if in future lighter cars are made, the efficiency could be even better.

375 miles for a 5 minute charge is something that anyone would beg for, making it to be more than enough for most journeys.

So when exactly are we getting these in EVs? It would take sometime till some car manufacturer holds the deal with DBM and puts these powerhouse into commercial cars. Going green would now be more easier.

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This supercomputer named Grape-DR, resides in the Department of Information Science at the University of Tokyo. On the specs side it has 64 Intel Core i7-920 processors and an accelerator chip that can achieve 200 gigaflops with a lightbulb’s worth of power.

The power consumption is freaking low, and that’s why they Top the Little Green500 List of energy-efficient supercomputers, achieving 815.43 MFLOPS per Watt which now outperforms IBM’s located in Germany, capable of 773.38 MFLOPS per Watt.

As one could figure out, the Grape-DR supercomputer, in addition to be the greenest is apparently also the messiest of all. It pairs its 64 Core i7 processors with four Grape-DR accelerator chips, each of which consumes only 50 Watts of power giving out 200 GFLOPS of processing power. All together the chips improve the efficiency of the supercomputer as high as 5x Times. Being the greenest does not mean fastest— Its peak performance is 23.4 TFLOPS, putting it way behind even the 500th in the list. But that’s fine, Mother nature loves it ore than any other.

via Ubergizmo

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ARM manufactures high-performance mobile computing chips. Of course, these processors cannot match the performance offered by x86 processors but there’s something that still make them attractive, more attractive than x86 processors for server farms.

ARM’s  CEO Warren East said that servers based on ARM multicore processors should arrive within the next twelve months. The current architecture, designed for client-side computing, can surprisingly be also used in server applications.

Though the implementations of ARM have traditionally been aimed at relatively low performance optimized for minimum power consumption, but, we are seeing higher speed, multicore implementations now pushing up to 2 GHz. ARM’s A9 at 2 GHz has four cores, which makes them a viable candidate for servers. However, the main difference an ARM-based server processor would offer is the addition of high-speed communications interfaces.

No matter how fast these buses are, speed is definitely not an advantage ARM would offer. However, with a growing concern to reduce the amount of energy consumed by servers and server farms, ARM processors offer a great deal, especially the multi-core options in the higher range. ARM might solve part of the problem by offering a Green ServerFarm that would operate at less than 20% of the energy of the current Intel, AMD x86 server processors.

Obviously, we won’t see these processors being deployed in high-performance farms. What looks possible is that it might limit its options to the print and storage server market.

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A startup based in CA called Transonic Combustion has developed a fuel-injection system it says can improve the efficiency of gasoline engines by more than 50 percent. What this means practically is that a vehicle equipped with the technology gets 64 miles per gallon in highway driving, which is in fact far better than so-called greener hybrid cars (like Toyota Prius) which gives 48 miles per gallon. Also, hybrid cars are cost several times more than the test vehicle developed by Transonic.

What makes the new Injection system Better?

The key is in heating and pressurizing gasoline before injecting it into the combustion. The more intuitively you do it, better combustion you can yield, which in turn decreases the amount of fuel needed to propel a vehicle. The company treats the gasoline(petrol) with a catalyst that “activates” it, partially oxidizing it to enhance combustion.

Transonic’s injection system varies from direct injection in two ways: it uses supercritical fluids and doesn’t require a spark to ignite the fuel, something which totally new in petrol engines. The supercritical fluid mixes quickly with air when it’s injected into the cylinder.

Once the fuel is injected into the piston, the heat and pressure are enough to cause the fuel to combust without a spark (similar to what happens in diesel engines). Ignition can be timed to happen just when the piston is reaching the optimal point, so it can convert as much of the energy in the gasoline into mechanical movement as possible, without wasting energy by heating up the combustion chamber walls, as happens in conventional technologies. In order to make it possible, Transonic has developed proprietary software that lets the system adjust the injection precisely depending on the load put on the engine. Other Improvements include smaller engines boosted with turbocharging, improved valve timing, and direct injection, in which fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber rather than into an adjacent port.

The Scope

The aim is to increase the efficiency of existing combustion engines and not make them costly.  Transonic’s approach is “a promising way to improve on conventional direct injection.”

Mike Rocke, Transonic’s vice president of business dev, says that at a steady cruising speed of 50 miles per hour, the test car gets 98 miles per gallon.

The company has recently demonstrated the technology in its own test engine, and says it is currently testing it with three automakers. The company, is supported by venture-capital investments from Venrock and Khosla Ventures. They have plans to manufacture its system itself, rather than licensing the technology, first factory in 2013followed by production of cars by 2014.

Possibly we will have lots of EVs by that time. We’ve to wait and see which approach works best for us.

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As per stats from NationMaster, US alone uses 20.6 Million barrels of fuel everyday, followed by china at 7.5 Million

and India ranking 5th at 2.7Million. Even when burnt efficiently, this much fuel leads to 10,000s of tonnes of harmful gases/smoke to the environment. We need to bring it down to zero, Bloom Energy could be the first and automobiles the next one.

I’m not talking about high-end and fancy EVs like eWolf 2, which are way above what most people could afford. We need something that’s affordable, efficient and robust. Tata had introduced Nano: World’s cheapest car at $2,000 (or Indian Rs. 1,00,000) a price for which would, ordinarily, get you a MacBook. Tata is all set to take it to next level with world’s cheapest Electric Vehicle (EV), next year.

(image credits)

Tata Motors (the owners of Jaguars) claims that the Nano EV offers the “practicality of a real car”, compromising nothing in the pursuit of providing environment-friendly personal transportation for the modern consumer. It will seat four individuals comfortably in its spacious interiors. It will have a top speed of up to 160 km and an acceleration of 0-60 kmph in under 10 seconds.

Nano EV will be powered by super polymer lithium ion batteries, and Tata Indica Vista EV, would  provide superior energy density to conventional batteries.

In early 2011, they plan to unveil Tata Nano EV alond with Indica EV, and this keeps me excited. Tata’s product may or may not capture the market but will set the trend and build concept of  ”Affordable Green Cars”.

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PowerMeter provides a great interface to monitor, track, analyze, and optimize power usage. Now manufacturers can integrate various appliances to enable advanced Energy monitoring. Google PowerMeter is a software application being was developed to help consumers track their home electricity usage. The development of the software is part of an effort by Google to invest in Green and Renewable energy initiatives

The API will make “energy information more widely available to consumers”.

Google has laid-out data model and the accompanying protocols to ensure that Google PowerMeter provides consumers access to their energy consumption with utmost care in maintaining the user’s privacy and control on access to the information.

In addition, google is providing some code samples to get developers started in building their first device which integrates with powerMeter.
If you are interested, checkout google’s  PowerMeter blog for timely updates on the service.

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Google with it’s Google Energy, is trying a similar approach.

Update: BloomEnergy is now Live, details at the end

The future is all about generating your own cheap electricity in greener ways, and a US startup believes that they have found a solution – “Powerhouse in a Box”.

Bloom energy, formerly “Ion America”,  comes-up with something that is truly powerful, and revolutionary. K.R. Sridhar has built what he claims to be a fuel cell that can power a typical US home for a year with zero emission. This equals 2 European and 4 Asian houses 24/7 x 365 days, that’s alot of energy.

KR had worked previously with NASA to build a handy device that could actually produce Oxygen for Mars. But the idea was dropped by the agency, and KR reversed the invention to make it a fuel cell.

Currently, these boxes cost $700,000-$800,000, but eventually in 5-10 years, there will be one in every home – and Sridhar thinks he can get the cost below $3,000 for a unit to make that happen.

Two of these boxes combined together makeup to a size of a brick, and they need to be surrounded by a larger unit that takes in an energy source (such as natural gas)of upto size of refrigerator.

The fact  is that they’re already installed at datacenters in companies like Google, eBay, FedEx and others. Four of these Bloom Boxes have apparently been powering a Google datacenter for the past 18 months. eBay says their five boxes have saved them over $100,000 in electricity costs over the past 9 months.

Watch the Video Coverage from CBS:

The technology will be unveiled to public on wednesday, 24th feb, the countdown is already clicking on their website. Stay tuned for the unveiling, we will keep you updated @taranfx.

Update: BloomEnergy is now Live

Energy Saver: Built with our patented solid oxide fuel cell technology, Bloom’s Energy Server™ is a new class of distributed power generator, producing clean, reliable, affordable electricity at the customer site.

Fuel cells are devices that convert fuel into electricity through a clean electro-chemical process rather than dirty combustion. They are like batteries except that they always run. Our particular type of fuel cell technology is different than legacy “hydrogen” fuel cells in four main ways:

1. Low cost materials – our cells use a common sand-like powder instead of precious
   metals like platinum or corrosive materials like acids.
2. High electrical efficiency – we can convert fuel into electricity at nearly twice the
   rate of some legacy technologies
3. Fuel flexibility – our systems are capable of using either renewable or fossil fuels
4. Reversible – our technology is capable of both energy generation and storage

Each Bloom Energy Server provides 100kW of power, enough to meet the baseload needs of 100 average homes or a small office building… day and night, in roughly the footprint of a standard parking space. For more power simply add more energy servers.

At the heart of every Energy Server™ is Bloom’s patented solid oxide fuel cell technology.

Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom’s fuel cells. Each cell is a flat solid ceramic square made from a common sand-like “powder.”

Each Bloom Energy fuel cell is capable of producing about 25W… enough to power a light bulb. For more power, the cells are sandwiched, along with metal interconnect plates into a fuel cell “stack”. A few stacks, together about the size of a loaf of bread, is enough to power an average home.

In an Energy Server, multiple stacks are aggregated together into a “power module”, and then multiple power modules, along with a common fuel input and electrical output are assembled as a complete system.

For more power, multiple Energy Server systems can be deployed side by side.

In addition to Bloom’s unmatched performance, this modular architecture offers…

• easy and fast deployment
• inherent redundancy for fault tolerance
• high availability (one power module can be serviced while all others continue to operate)
• mobility

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In December, Google took steps to form Google Energy, a subsidiary formed with sole purpose of buying and selling electricity in bulk. In January, the company filed a request, and yesterday Google Energy has been granted an order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission(FERC) to buy and sell energy at market rates. Then there was the announcement that the company was developing low cost mirrors for use in solar panels. And, of course, there’s the Google PowerMeter, which allows users to track electricity usage, as long as they have the proper equipment to upload the data.

So Google is all set for becoming the Electricity supplier? No, instead, Google wants more control over the high energy costs of its many data centers, and also aims to become greener.

“Right now, we can’t buy affordable, utility-scale, renewable energy in our markets. We want to buy the highest quality, most affordable renewable energy wherever we can and use the green credits.”

“We don’t have any concrete plans. We want the ability to buy and sell electricity in case it becomes part of our portfolio.”

Clearly, there’s a possibility that Google might become an energy provider sooner or later. There is some expectation that Google will actually enter the energy business at some point, whether it sells direct to consumers or partners with existing utility companies. Google will innovate in Greener ways of producing electricity and then sell it off at a much competitive price to the market.

But why would Google want to do something of that kind? Well ,the answer comes from the visionaries, the co-founders who are way to obsessed and inspired by so many things in life. Larry Page and Sergey Brin always have something new to talk about, and it’s never limited to IT.

All in all, Google is now social (Buzz), extended reach to Home Gigabit Internet as ISP, developing Mobile OS, Netbook OS and now they will power them all with, evidently, cheaper Electricity.

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“We don’t want to make a choice between nature and the technology; we just want to bring nature to the same level when you have to take a decision,” Vie said by telephone from Switzerland.

“Jobs are important but not jobs to the detriment of nature,” he said. “We have done that too much and look where we have arrived.”

The new analysis shows 869 species became extinct or extinct in the wild since the year 1500 while 290 more species are considered critically endangered and possibly extinct.

At least 16,928 species are threatened with extinction, including nearly one-third of amphibians, more than one in eight birds and nearly a quarter of mammals.

By comparison, the 2004 Red List showed 784 extinctions since 1500.

PROSPERITY AND BIODIVERSITY

The report said this is not a comprehensive list with only 2.7 percent of the 1.8 million described species analyzed. The main reason has  been stated as the  environmental changes. Larger emission of CO2, and dangerous gases has mad some irreversible changes to the living beings.

Earlier, It was reported that due to high RF usage, certain species of birds suffered heavy losses in number. A certain breed of Sparrow found in Asia has become extinct as it died from RF power emitted from cellular mobiles.

The number of extinctions is “a gross underestimate but it does provide a useful snapshot of what is happening to all forms of life on Earth,” the study authors wrote. “It’s much more severe than the economic crisis or the bank crisis,” Vie said. “You can lose a core industry but you can rebuild one. In nature, if you lose it, you lose it, and you’re losing a lot of capital that cannot be replaced.”

He said the notion that biodiversity is secondary to economic health is largely a view held by countries in North America, Europe and elsewhere, where the connection to natural products is less direct. Technology enabled us to stay as far away from the nature and intake of out un-Natural products has made things worse.

In less developed areas, there is a direct line between human prosperity and biodiversity.

In much of the world, Vie said, “The main problem every day is not to find a job, it’s to find food … and in most places this comes from biodiversity, from nature, from fish and plants.”

For land-based species, the main threat is habitat destruction through farming, logging and development.

Climate change is not now the main threat to biodiversity but that could change, the report said.

In examining 17,000 species of birds, amphibians and reef-building corals, the report found a significant proportion that are not now threatened are susceptible to climate change, including 30 percent of birds, 51 percent of corals and 41 percent of amphibians that are not threatened now.

A very detailed e-article has been published here.

What are these tiny computers we speak of? The chief executive of Marvell Technology Group, one of the companies manufacturing these tiny power-plug sized computers, told the New York Times.

What’s in the plug? It’s a tiny plastic box that you plug into an electric outlet. There’s no display. But there is an Ethernet jack to connect to a home network and a USB socket for attaching a hard drive, camera or other device. Inside is a 1.2 gigahertz Marvell chip, called an application processor, running a version of the Linux operating system.

They envision a future of tiny ubiquitous computers that do everything from serve files to control home appliances. The plugs currently run $99, but they project prices will fall to $40 within the next two years. We’re dying to hear what projects you’d cook up with access to cheap $40 wall wart sized computers.

Shall i discharge it to peek and then full charge or subsequent small charges are better? Is there a memory problems with Li-ion batteries?

Here are the answers to all your questions and many more. In-depth:

Battery research is focusing heavily on lithium chemistries, so much so that one could presume that all portable devices will be powered with lithium-ion batteries in the future. In many ways, lithium-ion is superior to nickel and lead-based chemistries and the applications for lithium-ion batteries are growing as a result.

Lithium-ion has not yet fully matured and is being improved continuously. New metal and chemical combinations are being tried every six months to increase energy density and prolong service life. The improvements in longevity after each change will not be known for a few years.

A lithium-ion battery provides 300-500 discharge/charge cycles. The battery prefers a partial rather than a full discharge. Frequent full discharges should be avoided when possible. Instead, charge the battery more often or use a larger battery. There is no concern of memory when applying unscheduled charges.

Although lithium-ion is memory-free in terms of performance deterioration, batteries with fuel gauges exhibit what engineers refer to as “digital memory”. Here is the reason: Short discharges with subsequent recharges do not provide the periodic calibration needed to synchronize the fuel gauge with the battery’s state-of-charge. A deliberate full discharge and recharge every 30 charges corrects this problem. Letting the battery run down to the cut-off point in the equipment will do this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate. (Read more in ‘Choosing the right battery for portable computing’, Part Two.)

Aging of lithium-ion is an issue that is often ignored. A lithium-ion battery in use typically lasts between 2-3 years. The capacity loss manifests itself in increased internal resistance caused by oxidation. Eventually, the cell resistance reaches a point where the pack can no longer deliver the stored energy although the battery may still have ample charge. For this reason, an aged battery can be kept longer in applications that draw low current as opposed to a function that demands heavy loads. Increasing internal resistance with cycle life and age is typical for cobalt-based lithium-ion, a system that is used for cell phones, cameras and laptops because of high energy density. The lower energy dense manganese-based lithium-ion, also known as spinel, maintains the internal resistance through its life but loses capacity due to chemical decompositions. Spinel is primarily used for power tools.

The speed by which lithium-ion ages is governed by temperature and state-of-charge. Figure 1 illustrates the capacity loss as a function of these two parameters.

Permanent capacity loss of lithium-ion as a function of temperature and charge level.
High charge levels and elevated temperatures hasten permanent capacity loss. Improvements in chemistry have increased the storage performance of lithium-ion batteries.

The mentioning of limited service life on lithium-ion has caused concern in the battery industry and I will need to add some clarifications. Let me explain:
If someone asks how long we humans live, we would soon find out that the longevity varies according to life style and living conditions that exist in different countries. Similar conditions exist with the batteries, lithium-ion in particular. Since BatteryUniversity bases its information on the feedback from users as opposed to scientific information derived from a research lab, longevity results may differ from manufacturer’ specifications. Let’s briefly look at the various living conditions of the lithium-ion battery.

The worst condition is keeping a fully charged battery at elevated temperatures, which is the case with running laptop batteries. If used on main power, the battery inside a laptop will only last for 12-18 months. I must hasten to explain that the pack does not die suddenly but begins with reduced run-times.

The voltage level to which the cells are charged also plays an important role to longevity. For safety reasons, most lithium-ion cannot exceed 4.20 volts per cell. While a higher voltage boosts capacity, the disadvantage is lower cycle life. Figure 2 shows the cycle life as a function of charge voltage.

Effects on cycle life at different float charge levels (Choi et al., 2002) Higher charge voltages boost capacity but lower cycle life.

There are no remedies to restore lithium-ion once worn out. A momentary improvement in performance is noticeable when heating up the battery. This lowers the internal resistance momentarily but the condition reverts back to its former state when the temperature drops. Cold temperature will increase the internal resistance.

If possible, store the battery in a cool place at about a 40% state-of-charge. Some reserve charge is needed to keep the battery and its protection circuit operational during prolonged storage. Avoid keeping the battery at full charge and high temperature. This is the case when placing a cell phone or spare battery in a hot car. Running a laptop computer on the mains has a similar temperature problem. While the battery is kept fully charged, the inside temperature during operation rises to 45°C (113°F).

Removing the battery from the laptop when running on fixed power protects the battery from heat. With the concern of the battery overheating and causing fire, a spokesperson for the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission advises to eject the battery of affected laptops and to run the machines on a power cord. It should be noted that on a power outage, unsaved works will be lost.
The question is often asked, should the laptop be disconnected from the main when not in use? Under normal circumstances, it should not matter with lithium-ion. Once the battery is fully charged, no further charge is applied. However, there is always the concern is malfunction of the AC adapter, the laptop or the battery.

A large number of lithium-ion batteries for cell phones are being discarded under the warranty return policy. Some failed batteries are sent to service centers or the manufacturer, where they are refurbished. Studies show that 80%-90% of the returned batteries can be repaired and returned to service.

Some lithium-ion batteries fail due to excessive low discharge. If discharged below 2.5 volts per cell, the internal safety circuit opens and the battery appears dead. A charge with the original charger is no longer possible. Some battery analyzers (Cadex) feature a boost function that reactivates the protection circuit of a failed battery and enables a recharge. However, if the cell voltage has fallen below 1.5V/cell and has remained in that state for a few months, a recharge should be avoided because of safety concerns. To prevent failure, never store the battery fully discharged. Apply some charge before storage, and then charge fully before use.

All personal computers (and some other electronic devices) contain a battery for memory back up. This battery is commonly a small non-rechargeable lithium cell, which provides a small current when the device is turned off. The PC uses the battery to retain certain information when the power is off. These are the BIOS settings, current date and time, as well as resource assignment for Plug and Play systems. Storage does shorten the service life of the backup battery to a few years. Some say 1-2 years. By keeping the computer connected to the main, albeit turned off, a battery on the PC motherboards should be good for 5-7 years. A PC should give the advanced warning when battery gets low. A dead back-up battery will wipe out the volatile memory and erase certain settings. After battery is replaced, the PC should again be operational.

Longevity of high-power lithium-ion
Generally speaking, batteries live longer if treated in a gentle manner. High charge voltages, excessive charge rate and extreme load conditions will have a negative effect and shorten the battery life. This also applies to high current rate lithium-ion batteries.

Not only is it better to charge lithium-ion battery at a slower charge rate, high discharge rates also contribute the extra wear and tear. Figure 3 shows the cycle life as a function of charge and discharge rates. Observe the good laboratory performance if the battery is charged and discharged at 1C. (A 0.5C charge and discharge would further improve this rating.)

Longevity of lithium-ion as a function of charge and discharge rates. A moderate charge and discharge puts less stress on the battery, resulting in a longer cycle life.

Battery experts agree that the life of lithium-ion depends on other factors than charge and discharge rates. Even though incremental improvements can be achieved with careful use of the battery, our environment and the services required are not always conducive to achieve optimal battery life. The longevity of a battery is often a direct result of the environmental stresses applied.

Simple Guidelines

• Avoid frequent full discharges because this puts additional strain on the battery. Several partial discharges with frequent recharges are better for lithium-ion than one deep one. Recharging a partially charged lithium-ion does not cause harm because there is no memory. (In this respect, lithium-ion differs from nickel-based batteries.) Short battery life in a laptop is mainly cause by heat rather than charge / discharge patterns.
• Batteries with fuel gauge (laptops) should be calibrated by applying a deliberate full discharge once every 30 charges. Running the pack down in the equipment does this. If ignored, the fuel gauge will become increasingly less accurate and in some cases cut off the device prematurely.
• Keep the lithium-ion battery cool. Avoid a hot car. For prolonged storage, keep the battery at a 40% charge level.
• Consider removing the battery from a laptop when running on fixed power. (Some laptop manufacturers are concerned about dust and moisture accumulating inside the battery casing.)
• Avoid purchasing spare lithium-ion batteries for later use. Observe manufacturing dates. Do not buy old stock, even if sold at clearance prices.
• If you have a spare lithium-ion battery, use one to the fullest and keep the other cool by placing it in the refrigerator. Do not freeze the battery. For best results, store the battery at 40% state-of-charge.

Like the solar-powered charger, this pedal-powered charger is based off the previously mentioned MintyBoost charger (which is simply powered by AA batteries). As opposed to the MintyBoost, which is built to be as easy to assemble as possible, the geek quotient that lies within this Instructable is high. That said, if you’ve got the chops, time, and cash to pull it off (the motor they used cost a whopping $275), it’s a really fun idea.

How to Charge Any USB Device by Riding Your Bike [Instructables]

Virtualization, the technology that found it home for innovation at IBM mainframes with a totally different purpose has now become an integral part of enterprise serving some other benefits. Virtualization is making data centers more flexible and efficient, but the technology is also raising new challenges, IT managers say.

Consolidating onto fewer physical servers is one of the technology’s key benefits but there are some tradeoffs here. The cooling needs of a virtualized server are quite different than the needs of a server running only one application.

With virtualization increasing CPU utilization to 70-80%, “that generates a lot more heat,” says Turner, director of networks and systems at Brandeis. “If you walk behind the racks of virtualized servers, the heat is just pouring out of those guys. … We’re seeing heat dump into these rooms like never before.”

Using VMware and Xen, Brandeis has virtualized nearly all of its servers over the last couple of years, reducing its total number of physical servers from about 120 to less than 30 today. But Turner says his power use has increased on the whole because virtualization has made it easy to spin up many new applications that he didn’t run when Brandeis used only physical resources.

Also contributing to the power crunch is Brandeis’s use of a high-performance computing cluster and Moore’s law of increasing processor speeds. Brandeis has managed growing power needs by increasing the size of uninterruptable power supplies, says Turner, who specified using APC’s Symmetra for its scalability.

“We’re having to adapt the data center  to new demands that in the past just weren’t there,” Turner says.

Ultimately, the goal is to examine usage over time and power down unused nodes, while more intelligently managing live migration capabilities, he says.

Virtualization has improved development environment and made the provisioning of new servers simpler and faster, but not every workload is appropriate for the technology.

“Applications that require a lot of processing power are not good candidates for virtualization.”

Storage-area network technology is also just starting to catch up with the realities of virtualization, with the number of required storage volumes growing as IT packs more virtual machines onto fewer physical boxes, Turner says.

But virtualization will be essential at State Street as it considers building a private cloud network. While the details and implementation date have not been figured out, Meyer says her team is hoping to harness virtualization, Web services and other technologies to build a network that lets users request new services and get them quickly, without having to worry about buying a server or setting up storage.

They can request a service and the service will be there. That’s the idea, The services that users require most often will be easily available to them through the [private] cloud.

State Street is looking at public cloud services but is leaning toward keeping critical data center operations internal. “We’re evaluating the security implications [of public cloud services],” she says. “I am not sure the security is there for our business.”

At IT Roadmap, Meyer will talk generally about delivering IT services better, faster and more affordably. Despite being in a recession, IT can improve its operations and prepare for the future, she says.

“Crises produce opportunities,” she says. “We have a great opportunity ahead of us. This is the best time to position IT, because when the market comes back it will come back so fast that you have to be ready.”

Saving Energy
In the previous Prof. Dealzmodo article, I talked about upgrades like switching to CFLs and investigating options for eliminating wasteful standby power like eco-oriented powerstrips. These kinds of upgrades are affordable on most budgets—real no-brainers. However, if you want to go the extra mile and make upgrades that could increase the value of your home, here are some products to consider:

• Solar Power: Okay, let’s get right to it. When people think “green,” they think of solar panels. But according to the most recent data compiled by the Energy Information Administration, the average US home uses somewhere around 30 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity per day. That translates into $1500 to $2000 a year on electricity bills. Generally, a 1kWh (1000 watt) system is recommended for every 1000 square feet of floor space (depending on where you live) and you can expect to pay around $8 to $10 per watt installed. Throw in an inverter or two to covert the sun’s DC power into AC and a battery bank and you are talking $20000 or more for a complete system.

So it seems that if you don’t live in a home for 20 years or more, you will not see a return on this investment. However, there is a strong chance that your local government and utility companies will offer incentives like tax breaks, discounts or up-front cash rebates to subsidize the cost of your system, provided your homeowners association approves of your plans.

As CNN points out, Texas-based Austin energy currently provides rebates of $3.75 per watt—so right away you could probably shave nearly $4000 off of the $10000 price tag of a 1kWH system. Texas also offers a tax exemption “of the amount of the appraised property value that arises from the installation or construction of a solar or wind-powered energy device.”

On top of that the Federal Government offers substantial tax credits for installing photovoltaic systems. As far as home values are concerned, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates that the value of a home rises $20 for every $1 in reduced monthly electricity bills.

Obviously, the effectiveness of a photovoltaic system depends on a number of factors like the amount of sunlight your location receives and the position of the panels in relationship to the position of the sun in the sky. But when you add up all of the possible incentives, and you figure out just how sunny it is where you live, the expense looks like it might be worth it.

• Wind Turbines: Harnessing wind power is often a great way to supplement an existing solar array and can generate a surprising amount of power if you live in a suitable climate. A small residential turbine rated between 5kWh and 15kWh generally costs somewhere between $6000 and $22000 installed. Again, there are local and federal incentives that can help to cut costs and recoup your expenses faster. The downside is that if you don’t live in a very windy area, or can’t get your neighbors to permit you to reach the height required to get a turbine really going, it’s a non-option.

• Energy Star Appliances: This was mentioned in last week’s article but it bears repeating. These devices use 10% to 50% less energy than their power-sucking counterparts, and you don’t have to ask your homeowners association permission to install them (for the most part). Do a little math, and you find that the premium price of these appliances will be paid back in good time—plus the energy savings will be attractive to buyers if appliances are part of the deal when you eventually sell your house.

• Greenswitches: If you want a simple way to reduce the power consumption in your home, check out a company called GreenSwitch. By quickly re-wiring your home with single-control outlets, each outlet can be designated as green or standard as needed. All you need to do is flick a single switch and all of the electronics in the home that run on standby power—and plugged into green outlets—are turned off. A system like this can save 8% to 10% a year in energy bills and “costs between $500 and $1000 for an average home.” That means it’s paid off in three to five years. If the installation prices get cheaper, it will be a pretty fast money-saver.

• Argon-Filled Windows: Most double-paned windows are vacuum sealed, so there’s nothing between them at all. But windows filled instead with argon or krypton gas are said to help insulate the interior of a home better, and block UV rays. Prices of the units and the money saved vary of course, but some sources claim that the results are dramatic. Finehomebuilding.com has provided a handy guide for anyone looking for more information.

• Solar and Gas-Powered Tankless Hot-Water Systems: Solar power isn’t just for producing electricity. There are also systems that are devoted to producing hot water—a process that can generate as much as 25% of our utility bills. There are several different configurations involving one of three types of solar collectors and storage tanks. These systems can be either active systems with circulating pumps or passive systems without pumps. Setting up a basic system can run you around $7000 to $8000, but like traditional solar arrays, these installations are often subsidized by local utility companies and the federal government, and add value to a home. Keep in mind that in most cases a traditional water heater will be necessary to fill in the gaps from time to time because hot water cannot be stored indefinitely—or sold back to the utility company.

Speaking of more conventional water heaters, replacing your standard electric or gas heater with a tankless version can save as much as 50% on your hot water bill. The main point: If you’re not using hot water, it’s not using energy to keep water hot. The life expectancy is twice that of a conventional heater, it takes up a lot less space, and it produces hot water whenever you need it, with a near instant “recovery time”—no more having to deal with people hogging all the hot water by taking really long showers. Systems like this will cost over $1000 but, again, there are incentives in place. For example, if you purchase a tankless heater from Rinnai between Jan 1, 2009 and December 31st 2010 you will be eligible for a tax credit equal to 30% of the full purchase and installation price, up to $1500.

Saving Water
The water bill is another expense that can really bite you in the ass—especially if you live in arid climates or do a lot of yardwork. If you are looking to go beyond simple rain barrels, here are some wise investments for homeowners looking to reduce their water consumption:

• Low-Flow Toilets and Showerheads: Low-flow toilets have come a long way in recent years. Newer models can handle anything you and your butthole can dish out—all while using a modest 1.6 gallons per flush (about half of a standard toilet). Low-flow shower heads have also progressed to a point that they provide great water pressure with low consumption rates that range from 0.5 to 2.5 gallons per minute.

• Gray Water Systems: In a nutshell, a gray water system recycles the water used in showers, sinks and washing machines—but not your toilets—to irrigate your lawn. “Gray water” makes up as much as 80% of our residential wastewater—water we could be re-using to save money. A basic gray-water irrigation system can run as low as $500 to $2500 for an average home. Apparently, untreated water is fine for most irrigation needs, but there are also companies like Pontos out there that use a bioculture and UV light treatment to purify the water. It’s just for yard use, though—you’re not supposed to drink gray water.

• Efficient Irrigation Systems: I’m not a big lawn guy, but I am a big gadget guy, and speaking of yards, some of the lawn-watering systems out there these days are quite impressive. For example: Toro’s TIS-612 Intelli-Sense controller uses pre-programmed information about your landscaping and collects daily weather information via satellite to determine how much water a specific plant should get and when. Units range from 6 to 24 sprinklers, with prices falling between $320 to $1000. A subscription to the WeatherTRAK Everywhere Data Service will cost you a measly $48 per year in additional costs. That’s pretty affordable, but the kicker is that because the system is so customized, the makers claim you can save between 20% and 60% on your monthly water bills.

With all of the focus on reducing energy costs and dependence these days, green tech is poised to become one of the biggest draws in the housing market in the decades to come. You have to spend money to make money as they say, but government and utility company incentives combined with energy cost savings make many of these upgrades surprisingly doable and profitable over time. For information on the incentives available in your area, check out DSIRE.

Most importantly, if you’re pondering any kind of green upgrade, don’t spend a penny until you hear how many pennies are gonna come back your way. If the dealer is mum on the subject, tell him to take a hike, because these subsidies are real.

Rule of the Thumb: Don’t spend energy to heat and cool the outdoors! Air leakage and improperly installed insulation can waste 20 percent or more of the energy you pay to heat and cool your home. Typical homes have so many leaks, it’s like having a window open all the time, winter and summer.

Well-sealed and properly insulated walls, ceiling, and floors help maintain even temperatures throughout the house and save you up to 20-25% on heating and cooling costs. A tighter home also reduces the amount of humidity, dust, pollen, pests, and noise that can come inside, as well as prevent any slow-destructions in your walls, vents.

With new and more rigorous EPA guidelines to earn the label, ENERGY STAR qualified homes are quieter and more comfortable than ever, have lower utility bills, and help protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Look for a home with the ENERGY STAR, the government-backed symbol for superior energy efficiency.

A research team at Hanyung University in South Korea, led by Professor Cho Jaephil (pictured), have made a breakthrough in battery technology that has the potential to extend the life of a lithium ion battery by 800%. This is made possible by the use of a three-dimensional porous silicon core to replace the graphite cathode material in standard lithium ion batteries, which can store eight times the amount of lithium ions.

If successful, this technology will improve longevity for all kinds of portable devices ranging from cell phones to cameras and laptops. Currently, our most commonly used devices only last for a few hours max when in use, so the possibility of being able to use them for 16 or even 32 hours on a single charge is definitely a big deal. The Hanyang researchers have applied for the patents for their battery prototype so we may see some new developments on this soon.

Anyone who has a lawn to mow knows just how tedious it can be. Now that chore can be delegated to man’s new best friend: robots.

Standard lawnmowers are generally very clumsy, heavy, and not to mention messy. The Husqvama Automower is a Roomba-esque type of robotic appliance that is solar powered and zero-emission.

The only requirement of using the Automower is that you must install a low laying or buried wire perimeter to mark the boundaries of the lawn, so that the mower can detect them and know not to cross. The Automower can cut an acre every ten hours, and can even retain lawn clippings and disperse them across the lawn as mulch at a later time. The unit weights less than 20lbs and produces a noise level around 63dB, as opposed to the 100dB of a standard mower.

Chemical engineers at the University of Illinois have developed the world’s smallest fuel cell. At just 3mm across, the cell could replace standard graphite and lithium ion batteries in our portable devices, allowing them to become even more compact and pocket-friendly. The small hydrogen fueled cell is capable of storing far more energy in the same space than a standard battery.

The major downside to current fuel cell technology is that the cost to produce them is much greater than the cost to manufacture regular batteries. The University of Illinois team, however, managed to solve that problem with their tiny hydrogen cell.

The cell itself is comprised of a central chamber containing metal hydride, around which is a thin, porous membrane that allows water to enter the chamber where it reacts with the hydride and forms hydrogen. As the hydrogen is depleted, an electrical current is generated.