doe

DOE: Common security holes leave energy grid vulnerable

The U.S. is leaving its energy infrastructure open to cyberattacks by not performing basic security measures, such as regular patching and secure coding practices, according to a report prepared by the Department of Energy.

Researchers at the Idaho National Laboratory tested 24 industrial control systems (ICSs) between 2003 and 2009 and published the results in a report completed in May and publicly released last month. (Click for PDF.) Steven Aftergood, secrecy expert at the Federation of American Scientists, blogged about the report on Monday.

The report comes on the heels of a discovery of malware written specifically for systems … Read more

Energy Dept. funds CO2 recycling, 'solar fuels'

The Department of Energy announced two technology clean-energy research projects to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the same day that the Senate dropped efforts to include carbon limits in an energy bill this summer.

As part of a $106 million stimulus funding program, the Energy Department on Thursday named six companies which will be testing methods for using the CO2 from industrial processes as input for products, such as cement, fertilizer, or plastics.

The Energy Department also said that it will create a "solar fuels innovation hub," a research center focused exclusively on converting sunlight into liquid fuels. This … Read more

First 4,400 Volt buyers to get free chargers

General Motors will offer the first 4,400 buyers of its Chevrolet Volt the option of having a 240-volt charging station installed in their home when the car is released this fall, the company said Thursday.

The Volt is General Motors' upcoming plug-in electric car that promises a range of 40 miles on electricity alone before one is forced to switch to gas for fuel. GM refers to it as an extended-range electric vehicle, or EREV, instead of a hybrid because the gas engine generator is not directly tied to the car's transmission.

The 240-volt charging stations will be … Read more

Start-up launches DOE-backed green server

Start-up SeaMicro has launched a green server based on Intel's power-sipping Atom processor. The company is backed by about $25 million in venture capital and a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

SeaMicro's SM10000 packs 512 Intel Atom processors, storage, interconnect technology, and server management into a relatively compact 17.5-inch-high server. The size is referred to as 10 RU, or rack unit (1 RU equals 1.75 inches). This design saves lots of energy, reducing power consumption by 75 percent, according to SeaMicro.

In a radical departure from standard server architectures, the start-up selected Intel's Atom, a processor most commonly used in Netbooks--tiny laptops. The chip was designed by Intel to be its most power-efficient chip.

Atom, however, was not designed with servers in mind, though SeaMicro believes it has found a niche. "In the Internet data center, the challenge is to handle millions of relatively small, independent tasks like those needed for searching, social networking, viewing web pages, and checking email," SeaMicro said in a statement.

SeaMicro claims there is a mismatch between Internet server design and current central processing units or CPUs. "Volume servers failed to adapt to this fundamental change and remain optimized for (for more traditional server tasks). This mismatch between volume servers and the now dominant Internet workload is the primary cause of the rapid increase in server power consumption and is responsible for the multi-billion dollar power problem in the data center," SeaMicro said.

Three primary technology innovations define the system, according to SeaMicro:

Smaller circuit board: A patented technique in CPU I/O (input/output) virtualization, which reduces non-CPU power draw by eliminating 90 percent of the components from the motherboard. This CPU I/O virtualization allows SeaMicro to shrink a server motherboard from the size of a pizza box to the size of a credit card. Power-efficient interconnect: A supercomputer-style interconnect fabric that can link 512 mini-motherboards into a single system, reducing power draw and space. This fabric provides 1.28 terabits per-second throughput,… Read more

DOE funds to stretch solar power via salt storage

The Department of Energy is funding a series of projects that marry concentrating solar power with storage, which offers the potential of solar power plants that operate 18 hours a day.

The DOE said Friday that it has made $62 million available to 13 companies to test equipment and materials, such as molten salts, to add storage to solar power systems that use heat to produce electricity.

Concentrating solar power, in which the sun's heat creates steam to drive an electricity turbine, is seeing a renaissance because it can be used for large-scale power plants in deserts. Adding storage … Read more

Raise high the 'smart roof' carpenters

A group of scientists with funding from the Department of Energy has presented a new type of roof coating that would allow all the benefits and none of the drawbacks of black and white roofs combined.

It's long been agreed that a white roof, because it naturally reflects sunlight, reduces the amount of heat a building absorbs in extremely hot and sunny situations, thus, contributing to keeping the building cool (think Greece). Some have even gone as far as to propose white "green" roofs as a geoengineering idea for reducing global warming because they may both reduce air conditioning use and reflect more sunlight … Read more

It takes a village (of scientists) to reinvent energy

National Harbor, Md.--Attending the ARPA-E Summit this week was sort of like roaming the halls of clean-tech high school, one investor quipped when I asked him what he thought of the conference. It's an analogy that holds up pretty well.

There were the popular "kids" that everybody wanted talk to--high-profile green-tech investors like John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. Authority figures who set the rules were out in force as well, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, multiple senators, and other high-level Department of Energy officials.

And then there … Read more

Vinod Khosla: In energy, ignore the experts

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.--Monkeys throwing darts have the same predictive powers as experts forecasting the price of oil or when grandmas will surf the Web with mobile phones, says Vinod Khosla.

The high-profile investor, who raised over $1 billion for a green-technology fund last year, argued here Wednesday that technology change in energy will happen faster than most expect because energy has now become a focus on technical innovation.

Khosla spoke at the ARPA-E Summit, a conference dedicated to showcasing breakthrough clean-energy technologies, where he challenged attendees to think big.

As an example of missed forecasts, he cited McKinsey's … Read more

Green tech seeks its 'Netscape moment'

Updated at 11:00 am PT with correction to Podesta's comment.

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md.--If you're wondering what the next big thing in green tech will be, this is a good place to look.

The ARPA-E Summit, a conference designed to showcase potential breakthrough clean-energy technologies, started on Monday, attracting some 1,700 investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers all vying to reinvent the energy infrastructure to be cleaner and more efficient.

Given the makeup of the group, the mood is optimistic that new technologies can shake up even the slow-moving energy business. At the conference, scientists and entrepreneurs showed … Read more