Green Tech

BrightSource, the builder of solar thermal projects, has canceled its initial public offering on the eve of its planned debut, citing "adverse market conditions."

"While we received significant interest from potential investors, the continued market and economic volatility are not optimal conditions for an IPO," BrightSource CEO John Woolard said in a statement this evening (PDF). "As a company, we've consistently made decisions in the best interest of our shareholders, employees and customers, and we will continue to do so. Fortunately, we're in a strong financial position and have the support of world-class … Read more

Intel announced its first Atom chip for microservers at a major company confab in Beijing today.

The new Atom, codenamed Centerton, is a system-on-a-chip, which makes it even more power efficient than less-integrated older Atom chips.

Centerton's power envelope -- what the industry sometimes calls TDP or thermal design power -- is six watts. While not as low as the power envelope for Intel's smartphone Atom, six watts is still a lot more power efficient than Intel's more mainstream chips. Those have power envelopes of 15 watts or higher. To date, Atom has been aimed at small … Read more

To a computer company like IBM, plug-in electric vehicles just look like more nodes on the network.

IBM tomorrow is expected to announce a demonstration project with Honda and California utility Pacific Gas & Electric to charge a fleet of Honda Fit EVs without disrupting the grid.

The smart-charging project will also test smartphone and Web-based apps for consumers, giving them an estimate of charge time and location of charging stations.

The power grid as a whole has the capacity to accommodate millions of plug-in vehicles, say experts. But if there's a concentration of electric cars charging at once, … Read more

As the Cleveland Indians play their home games, an experiment in industrial design will be spinning just overhead.

The ball park is hosting a wind turbine that uses a helix-shape tower to squeeze more power out of conventional wind turbines. The structure increases the wind speed, a technique companies have long pursued to lower the cost of wind energy.

The Progressive Field installation is a prototype designed by Majid Rashidi, a professor at Cleveland State University. The 40-foot-high, 18-foot-wide helix turbine will be installed for a year for testing and is expected to generate 40,000 kilowatt-hours a year, or … Read more

Rather than try to reinvent the solar cell, startup Thermata has engineered a high-tech mirror to cut the cost of solar power.

The company, incubated at Idealabs, has completed initial testing on a system executives say can cut the cost of sun-tracking mirrors, or heliostats, in half using cameras and other digital technologies. Thermata plans to start beta testing the heliostats this year with potential customers, which are concentrating solar power technology companies, and with Sandia National Laboratories.

Thermata typifies a new breed of green-technology startup which is targeting a specific niche in energy using technologies from other fields. Its … Read more

Taking a trip but don't want to drive by yourself? Ride-sharing startup Zimride enables drivers to sell empty seats in their cars. For passengers, it means buying a ride with someone already going where they want to go.

Zimride launched on the campuses of Cornell University and the University of California at Santa Barbara in 2007. It has expanded to more than 100 college campuses, but it's also now available off campus too. Trips are typically 50 to 500 miles, and San Francisco to Los Angeles is the site's most popular route.

Being able to establish trust … Read more

The gadgets in your smart home now come with software updates.

Nest Labs today released the equivalent of version 2.0 software for its smart thermostat on the Web, iOS or Android. The software tweaks for the $249 Learning Thermostat are designed to help people better understand how thermostat changes affect energy usage.

The update presents energy history data over 10 days, a longer period than before and indicates when heating and cooling systems turned on. It can also show what caused setting changes -- the weather, a manual adjustment, or an auto-away setting.

A new air conditioning feature, called … Read more

Cree is leaning on high design to get LED lighting onto lamp posts.

The company today introduced new lines of streetlights that use long-lasting and energy-efficient LEDs, including AeroBlades lamps which are an array of LED light sources in blade-like strips.

Cree also updated its traditional LED streetlights for overhead lighting and developed a lamp with traditional bulb designed to fit into historic districts.

The products are the first since Cree, which makes LED light sources, purchased Ruud Lighting to expand its lighting fixture business. LEDs are a good fit for street lights in that they last longer than other … Read more

The unveiling of Fisker Automotive's Atlantic model last night proves once again the EV maker can design beautiful cars. But the company's far away from demonstrating it's a healthy business.

The Atlantic extended-range electric vehicle is a luxury, four-door sedan expected to cost about $50,000. Like the sportier and more expensive Fisker Karma, it has bold styling and the high-tech touches of cars in its class. It's also electric, driven by motors and a gas engine that kicks in to keep batteries charged for longer rides.

As a lower-priced car than the $108,000 Karma, … Read more