Tour the Renewable Energy Center at Eastern Illinois University

A green gem in the East Central Illinois region is the new Renewable Energy Center at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Illinois. Switching from a coal-fired power plant, the new biomass-burning facility is a clear environmental improvement with an expected 80 percent reduction in net greenhouse gas emissions. This virtual tour shares many more details of the new center that puts EIU right at the heart of researching new means to renewable, sustainable energy sources.

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Earth Day 2012

Every Earth Day, as part of our Energy Saving category here at 404 Tech Support, we compile some of the green tech-related news (2009, 2010, 2011). In 2012, it seems like a lot of companies are pushing their green news in this week leading up to Earth Day. In no particular order, here’s a selection of green news from the past year.

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The 2012 Illinois Electronic Waste Recycling Law

Public Act 097-0287 went into effect January 1st, 2012 for the state of Illinois. It updated the Illinois Products Recycling and Reuse Act to cover seventeen electronic products that must be recycled. It also introduced a number of mandates, fees, and deadlines for manufacturers that sell electronics in Illinois (such as recycling 40% of previous years’ sales, by weight).

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Why an Eaton UPS Should Be On Your Wish List

I picked up my first UPS several years ago as one of the deal items at a Black Friday doorbuster sale. I used it as a battery backup on my PC for several years. Since then, I’ve upgraded to higher wattage uninterruptible power supplies to support more electronics and have more time in the case of a power outage. Using a UPS has saved my computer from lightning strikes that fried my cable modem and has saved my work more times than I’d care to admit when random power outages happen.

Until recently, I’ve been lax on using a UPS in one area of my house that is a concentrated location for electronics – the entertainment center. I bought and used a fancy power strip that promised a “$250,000 guarantee” if your devices were fried, but I didn’t make the same jump to use a battery backup for the HDTV, A/V receiver, TiVo, PS3, and other gadgets up there. Unlike the computer, where I might have unsaved homework, websites, or work-related things that would set me back a few hours, putting a UPS with the entertainment center is more a matter of convenience. Not losing my place in the middle of a movie is convenient and avoiding the lengthy boot up time of the TiVo is a time saver but a UPS actually goes beyond that. … Continue Reading

Book Review: 62 Projects To Make With A Dead Computer (and other discarded electronics)

I passed by this book on display at my local library a few times before I actually picked up 62 Projects to Make with a Dead Computer and I initially picked it up as a skeptic. From the first time I saw the cover of the book, I kept thinking “what about the heavy metals or capacitors and electricity?”. When it comes to computer repair, you’ll often here the stories about how much electricity is stored in a monitor even after it’s been unplugged for a while. I was a little anxious that the book would be unsafe and read through it to find out for myself.

As far as my fears of safety were concerned, they were allayed within the first 40 pages of the book that cover tools, techniques, and safety. In addition to covering the basics of working with electronics, it also seemed very educational by explaining the different components of a computer and how they work.

The chapters in the book include:

• Projects for a post-consumer dwelling
• Fashionable technology
• Fun-Fun-Fun-Fun-Fun-Fun!
• Arts and Crafts
• Making Noise
• Gadget Goodness
• Playful pet Projects

The two projects in the book that I thought were most interesting were the Flat-screen Ant Farm and the iMac Terrarium.

While I am probably far from the target audience of the book (targeted at teens, I would guess), I don’t think I can recommend the book. I’m all for recycling and saving energy but the final products just don’t look that great. It’s not surprising that using trash results in things that look like junk. Being crafty isn’t one of my interests either but if I were to make something, I’d like it to look nicer than some of these results. Properly recycling the equipment would also be better than temporarily transforming the equipment into an arts and crafts project. For teens gathering an interest in computer parts and making craft projects hands-on, this book might be a lot more interesting.

If this sort of thing interests you more than it did me or you’re more in the target audience, you can pick up 62 Projects To Make With A Dead Computer by Randy Sarafan from Barnes & Noble or from Amazon.com.

HP Discover 2011: HP – From Cloud To Devices In Your Hands And Revolutionizing Along The Way

HP is holding a showcase technology event this week in Las Vegas, Discover 2011, that combines several previous customer events. It promises to bring together the people, technology, and ideas to solve the difficult enterprise challenges.

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Earth Day 2011 Tech News

Happy Earth Day 2011!

I was hoping to add solar panels to my home this Spring but the local vendor never got back to me. After crunching some numbers, with current solar panel prices/efficiency, electricity usage, and incentive rebates I decided to put the extra money towards the mortgage as a wiser investment. I’ll be looking to install solar panels at a later date but for now I have already reduced my carbon footprint significantly by changing jobs to a much closer location.

Fortunately for the Earth, Google has a little bit more cash to spread around. Just this month, they’ve reported that they have made huge investments in both solar power and wind-generated electricity. This is in addition to their investment last October in a transmission network off the U.S. East coast to transmit electricity generated from offshore wind turbines across Virginia, New York, and New Jersey.

Google

Google’s $168 million investment in a solar power plant in California’s Mojave Desert is a great step towards increasing the amount of renewable energy generated as the largest solar project in the world. It will provide 392 MW of solar energy over the course of its life. The plant will use some interesting technology to maximize its ability to generate power which you can read more about at the Official Google Blog post.

On Monday, Google announced they have also invested $100 million in wind generation, also via the Official Google Blog. They have invested in Shepherds Flat Wind Farm near Arlington, Oregon which will produce 845 MW of electricity.

This project brings our total invested in clean energy to more than $350 million, including our most recent investments in a German solar photovoltaic plant and in the BrightSource Ivanpah solar power tower—the largest solar energy project in the world. We’re excited about helping deliver clean energy to the grid and we hope this latest investment encourages other companies to think about ways they can help accelerate the deployment of more renewable energy. We remain on the lookout for more projects that make business sense and will help all of us take advantage of clean, renewable energy.

Yesterday, Google announced their third big purchase in the renewable energy industry this month. Google has agreed to purchase all of the energy generated by the Oklahoma-based Minco II wind farm through Google Energy LLC. This subsidiary company allows Google to participate in the wholesale energy market. To explain Google’s involvement in the renewable industry and their thoughts behind their current steps, they’ve published a white paper (.pdf) that might be of interest to some.

We’ve made the commitment to be a carbon neutral company, and this purchase is part of our effort to minimize our impact on the environment. We’ve managed to reduce our energy consumption by over 50 percent by building highly energy-efficient facilities, but we know that efficiency alone isn’t enough to eliminate our carbon footprint. We’ve been exploring ways, such as this PPA, to reduce emissions further by increasing the amount of renewable energy we use to power our operations; we purchase high-quality carbon offsets for any remaining emissions.

Google also has a project called RechargeIT.org on-going to invest in electric and more environmentally-friendly vehicles. In addition to the RechargeIT program, they are also helping the adoption of these vehicles by listing electrical vehicle charging stations on Google Maps.

Data Center Energy Usage

Peer1 Hosting has created an interesting infographic showing the energy demands of data centers from top sites online like Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, WordPress.com, Plenty of Fish, and Peer1 Hosting. You can see the full infographic here or by clicking on the thumbnail below.

By better understanding the energy needs of data centers, we can better address the problem while still understanding the needs for high availability, speed, cooling, and around the clock requests.

Product Review: Evolve Ladybug Water-Saving Showerhead

Although not computer technology, the Evolve Ladybug showerhead is energy-saving, water-saving, and cost-saving technology, all of which are other interests of mine. The Ladybug is a three-inch long adapter that fits on the end of your shower pipe between the showerhead. It’s designed to turn your shower down to a trickle as soon as the cold water is flushed from the pipe and your water is up to 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

If you’re the type to turn on the shower and go about your morning routine while you’re waiting for it to warm up, this will save your hot water in case you get tied up with your multitasking. Depending on how recently the hot water was last used and how far your shower is from your hot water heater, there could be a considerable amount of cold water in the pipes to flush out. With the Evolve Ladybug, this will become your new routine:

1. Turn the shower on to fully hot.
2. Go about your business. When the water reaches 95 degrees, the shower will go down to a trickle.
3. Give the Evolve Ladybug cord a tug and adjust the water temperature to what you want.
4. Hop in the shower. Lather, rinse, and repeat.

If your routine fits with what Ladybug expects, you should end up saving money. The package claims $75/year for a typical household. At ~$27, you could see a return on investment within 4 months of purchase and installation. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will end up saving me too much money because I already loiter around the shower with a hand in the water, waiting for it to get warm, and I find the water to be sufficiently warm before it reaches the 95 degree mark. If I adopted the Ladybug routine, I could actually be wasting more hot water than I am currently. However, for the flexibility and since I already bought it, the Evolve Ladybug adapter will remain installed.

The package includes an installation package and the adapter with rip-cord. The adapter can come in a chrome polish (pictured), brushed nickel, oil-rubbed bronze, and polished brass.

Installation is a breeze. The only thing that doesn’t come in the package that you’ll need is plumber’s tape. The rest of the process is almost identical to installing any other showerhead. The adapter is sized for the standard 1/2″ pipe fittings. You just screw on the adapter and then screw on your showerhead. If you’d like the Ladybug adapter with a showerhead, you can purchase the Evolve Roadrunner.

The only problem I would see with having the ladybug installed is that it could make your showerhead an inch lower on already low showerheads. I had a little more difficult time installing the Ladybug than I should have because the water-saving showerhead I currently have in that shower has a nut that attaches to the back. The nut and the toggle switch of the Ladybug ran into each other but I was able to get around the issue by rotating the nut 90 degrees.