post

GreenMonk talks Sustainability with IBM’s Stan Litow

by

IBM

Photo Credit ChicagoEye

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/redmonk/StanLitowPodcast.mp3]

My guest on this podcast is Stan Litow. Stan is IBM’s VP for Corporate Affairs and Corporate Citizenship.

IBM recently issued their 2008 Corporate Responsibility Report. It is an extremely interesting, very comprehensive overview of IBM’s work in this space. You can download the entire report here (PDF warning!).

Having gone through the report, I was interested to discuss it with Stan and he graciously agreed to come on the show and gave a fascinating look at some of the thinking behind IBM’s initiatives in this space.

Download the entire interview here
(20.3mb mp3)

post

GreenMonk news roundup 12/02/2008

by

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

post

GreenMonk talks to Siemen’s (SIS) Peter Arbitter

by

Peter Arbitter

Photo Credit Tom Raftery

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/redmonk/SiemensSIS-PeterArbitter.mp3]

My guest on this podcast is Peter Arbitter. Peter is Siemens SIS Senior Vice President, Portfolio and Technology Management. I caught up with Peter at the Siemens Technology Day in Salzburg. The theme of this year’s Technology day was IT for Sustainability.

We had a wide-ranging discussion around Siemens energy and sustainability initiatives both internally and externally for their customers.

Download the entire interview here
(34.4mb mp3)

post

GreenMonk news roundup 12/01/2008

by

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

post

GreenMonk news roundup 11/30/2008

by

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

post

Utilities are too top-down, command and control

by

Top-Down

Photo Credit Mikey aka DaSkinnyBlackMan

Utilities are top-down.

Whenever I talk to utilities about Smart Grids and Smart Meters they always trot out the same speech. They want to use Demand Response for peak shaving and they want to implement it by having a mechanism whereby they can come in to their customer’s houses at times of maximum demand and turn down the settings on the aircon, immersion heater, etc.

Unfortunately this kind of traditional top-down, command and control attitude is more likely to turn people off Demand Response programs than to sell it to them.

I know that as a consumer I want to be able to program my appliances myself so that I decide when they turn on/off in response to price signals from the grid. The same is true for fridges/freezers and water immersions – I want them to change thermostat settings to take in electricity at times when energy is cheap and not when it is expensive by MY definitions of cheap and expensive.

I want control of my appliances. I do not want the utility deciding to come in and adjust or turn them on/off for me because it suits them.

Demand Response programs will be hugely beneficial to the utilities and consumers alike but they are complex to explain. If you couple that with the utility having control of your appliances they suddenly become a far harder sell.

Give customers more control of their electricity bill. Allow them reduce costs without reducing usage, by owner controlled, programmatic, time-shifting of consumption and suddenly Demand Response programs becomes an easy sell.

And when you couple that with how Demand Response will stabilise the grid facilitating greater penetration of variable supplies (i.e. weather-based renewables like wind and solar) and you have a win, win, win!

post

GreenMonk news roundup 11/24/2008

by

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

post

GreenMonk news roundup 11/23/2008

by

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

post

GreenMonk news roundup 11/22/2008

by

  • Energy Outlook

    The US Geological Survey released a report estimating that 85 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of technically recoverable gas hydrates are accessible on the Alaskan North Slope. If produced over 20 years and combined with the conventional gas supply from the North Slope, which has been waiting for a pipeline south for many years, this deposit could supply up to a third of total US natural gas consumption. But that barely scratches the surface of the overall potential of gas hydrates.

    The reason this announcement is so significant lies in the words “technically recoverable.” Geologists have known about gas hydrates for a long time, and estimates of global hydrate deposits have been refined to a range of between 100,000 and a million TCF, with the best estimate of US hydrate deposits currently at 200,000 TCF. To put that in perspective, one TCF of natural gas represents about 1% of US annual total energy consumption and contains the same energy as 180 million barrels of oil or 10 billion gallons of ethanol. In other words, that 200,000 TCF estimate is the equivalent of a 2,000-year energy supply for the US, at current consumption levels, of a fuel with half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal.

    tags: methane hydrates, fossil fuel

  • A high-tech network cuts down on electricity use – Nov. 19, 2008

    Reliant operates in a competitive, deregulated electricity market. If homeowners get cool technology that helps them avoid the unpleasant surprise of a big electric bill, Jacobs believes Reliant will retain more customers. And then there’s the green angle. “We as an industry are the single largest emitter of greenhouse gas, and our goal is to help our customers use less, spend less, and emit less,” says Jacobs

    tags: smart grid, smart meter, reliant

  • Applications | Whalepower

    Tubercle Technology and wind turbines were made for each other. Tubercles allow turbines to overcome the three major limitations of wind power:

    * poor reliability when winds fall or fail
    * noise – especially tip chatter caused by tip stalling
    * poor performance in unsteady or turbulent air

    tags: wind turbine, tubercle technology

  • The Auto Execs didn’t walk!!! But don’t ask about their pay…

    The chief executives of General Motors Corp. (GM) and Ford Motor Co. (F) said Wednesday they wouldn’t accept a $1 salary in exchange for government aid to their imperiled companies, as the head of the former Chrysler Corp. did a generation ago.

    During a hearing Wednesday, a member of the House Financial Services Committee told Rick Wagoner of GM and Alan Mulally of Ford that reducing their annual salaries to $1 would be an important symbolic gesture as they lobby for $25 billion in loans funded by tax dollars. Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca worked for that wage when his company was bailed out by the government in the 1980s.

    tags: gm, ford, chrysler, bailout

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.