Energy efficiency

One the U.K.'s top 10 energy consumers says it's found a simple and straightforward way to save money.

Phone and broadband giant BT (previously known as British Telecom) announced yesterday that it's on track to save at least 13 million pounds (about $20.6 million) in annual energy bills after switching to smart meters and energy management systems in its office buildings, data centers, and telephone exchanges.

The switch has reduced BT's carbon footprint by 5 percent, or the equivalent of powering 23,000 homes annually, the company said.

Of course, the initial layout was … Read more

HP is now the top-ranked tech company, according to Greenpeace's latest guide to greener electronics.

The guide's criteria has been updated to take into greater account energy use, conflict minerals, green products, and supply chain energy use.

Greenpeace released its latest rankings today, showing HP moving ahead three to the top spot. It's a big leap considering that just six years ago HP was targeted by Greenpeace as one of the worst tech companies for using fire retardant materials suspected of being hazardous. At the time, Greenpeace members stood outside of HP's headquarters and handed out … Read more

Designing Windows 8 for virtually any device from smartphone to PC, Microsoft says it's had a key goal in mind for all hardware platforms--energy efficiency.

With laptops and mobile devices slurping up battery power and desktops and servers chewing up electricity, Microsoft has wanted to ensure that any device running Windows 8 can tap into better power management.

"Very small changes done well in Windows can result in very large positive environmental impact because of our scale," Pat Stemen, a program manager on Microsoft's Kernel team, said in the latest Building Windows 8 blog. "In … Read more

The era of American commercial airliners flying on biofuels is here.

A Continental Airlines Boeing 737-800 from Houston yesterday became the first U.S. plane to fly passengers while using an algae-based biofuel. According to an article originally published in the Houston Chronicle, the Continental flight carried 154 customers while using the fuel blend, which was developed by South San Francisco, Calif.-based Solazyme.

"United Continental Holdings, the airline's parent company, estimated that the biofuel blend on the Chicago-bound flight reduced carbon dioxide emissions by an amount equal to what would come from the exhaust of a car … Read more

BOSTON--Startup 7AC Technologies hopes saltwater and high-tech plastic will lead to a more efficient air conditioner.

The Woburn, Mass.-based company is in the process of raising a $1.3 million round, expected to close in two months, to build a commercial prototype of its air conditioner design, said CEO Peter Vandermeulen earlier this week at the Conference on Clean Energy here.

By using a liquid dessicant to remove humidity from air, 7AC Technologies claims it can cut cooling costs by 50 percent to 75 percent and heating costs by about 50 percent. The company has a prototype in its … Read more

Maybe Best Buy can make sense of the smart grid for consumers.

The electronics retailer today is launching a push into home energy management products through dedicated zones at three stores and an online home energy "learning center." The company will announce the plan at the BSR conference on corporate sustainability and begin product demos in stores Sunday.

Customers in Chicago, Houston, and San Carlos, Calif., will be able to see the latest in home energy gadgets, a class of products geared toward saving energy and remotely controlling thermostat, lights, and appliances.

At its stores, Best Buy will … Read more

Start-up Calxeda is making an end run around the limitations of power in data centers by using chips normally used for mobile phones.

The company today is launching its EnergyCore "server on a chip" around the ARM processor, which yields a four-core server that runs at 5 watts and less than half a watt when idle. Hewlett-Packard plans to build a line of energy-efficient servers around EnergyCore.

The EnergyCore processing unit is well suited for "big data" applications that crunch large amounts of data in parallel, such as analytics, media streaming, or in-memory databases, according to … Read more

Expect Facebook's new server farm to be pretty cool.

The social-networking giant is expected to announce tomorrow that it will build its first non-U.S. server farm in Lulea, a town in northern Sweden about 60 miles from the Arctic Circle, according to a report in the Telegraph.

The new farm will comprise three server halls covering an area about the size of 11 football fields and will take advantage of the region's cool temperatures to keep its equipment cold. The Lulea River, which is said to produce twice as much hydro-electric power as the Hoover Dam, is … Read more

It's hard to imagine making thermostats sexy, but if anyone could do it, it would be the "father of the iPod."

In 2008, amid renewed concerns about Steve Jobs' health, Fortune ranked the probable candidates to someday replace the famed Apple CEO. The first choice? Then COO and eventual successor Tim Cook. The second? Tony Fadell, chief of the iPod division and the man credited with the ideas that resulted in the creation of the iPod and its marriage with the iTunes Music Store.

Around that time, Fadell left Apple, his next move unknown, and since then, … Read more