Going green has become an important goal for many communities, and beach towns are no exception.
Many beach and resort communities are taking steps to reduce their ecological footprint and be kinder to the environment.
Here’s how a few beach towns are doing it:
Southbury, South Carolina (more…)
Here’s an article that raises some interesting points about the future of smart grid. Billionaire Tom Siebel of customer relationship management fame is asserting that companies like his, whose expertise is enterprise software, are going to be the leaders in smart grid analytics, rather than the hardware giants like GE and Siemens. This strikes me as a similar argument to the one that Bob Lutz, ex-co-chairman of GM, made about the future of electric vehicles, where he posited that only car companies can build cars, and that smart people shouldn’t be looking for Silicon Valley to enter the auto market with any success.
Obviously, the jury is still out here. The automotive world is rightfully pretty impressed with what Tesla has done with its ability to deliver something stylish, profoundly appealing, and incredibly innovative in an industry that has been dominated by rehashing old ideas and actively repelling innovation. If the Tesla case study means anything at all, it’s hard to rule out new players with new ideas competing effectively in important industries.
Next week I’m headed to the East Coast for a series of meetings, heading north from Washington DC to Philadelphia to Newark (NJ), and finally New York. Where I would love to do all this intercity travel by train, I’ll need to rent a car for the first few stops, drop it off in Trenton and take the train from there.
Recently I’ve been helping a few of the clients of a DC-based lobby firm that happens to be in cleantech apply for government grants, and this trip will enable me to meet some of the key players here in person for the first time; I’m looking forward to that.
On my way home later in the week, I’ll be making a stop at the CSP (concentrated solar power) show in Las Vegas. These people have done a terrific job for this fledgling industry, and I try to support them whenever I can.
Perhaps the largest impediment to the adoption of electric vehicles is owners’ worry about the battery, i.e. what happens when it reaches the end of its life and needs to be replaced. When you think about it, there are no analogies anywhere in a consumer’s life: the purchase of a roughly $10,000 item that becomes worthless over a period of a few years.
Fortunately, the EV industry is acutely aware of this frailty, and is working hard to alleviate the related concern. Here’s a breakthrough that Nissan just began offering for its LEAF drivers who have reached the end of the standard vehicle/battery warranty: a plan that, for $100 per month, enables the customer to transfer all that risk and expense back to Nissan.
Given the recent bankruptcy of battery-swapping innovator Project Better Place, it may appear unlikely that battery-swapping has any chance of success – even in the long-term. Yet I’m not sure that’s true – especially in regions with small footprints and huge imperatives to get rid of gasoline (like Israel).
Here’s Tesla CEO Elon Musk at his best, demo’ing the “Tesla Station” which offers drivers a choice: a fast-charge that is free (and always will be) or a battery-swap, for people who want to get back on the road quickly (93 seconds – much faster than filling their gas tank).
Eco-friendly is quickly becoming the talk of the town and some countries are really taking the green initiative seriously.
Whether it’s by way of reduced emissions, alternative energy, or large scale recycling campaigns, countries all over the world are going green and saving the planet as a result.
Here are the top five greenest countries in the world according to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which rates the standards of countries in terms of environmental policies:
1. Switzerland, EPI 76. 7 (more…)
Even though fossil fuels are used to generate power in most homes in Australia, environment friendly people still prefer clean, renewable sources of energy like sun. Be it home or business, the demand of solar energy is gripping very fast.
On the basis of financial aspects, commercial solar these days, makes huge sense for large as small scale business. So, are you also an environment fanatic? Do heavy electricity bills bother you? If yes, then installing a solar power system from a reliable company should be your first call. (more…)
Social media has a lot more uses than just posting cute pics of you and your besties on a fun night out.
The impact it can have on the green energy push is pretty huge, and many companies are using their social media forums to do this. Because social media can reach so many, it’s a perfect venue for anything in the social realm, green energy being one of these.
So how can companies, organizations and individuals use social media to promote green energy? (more…)
Gone are the days when people were totally dependent upon the electricity from the power grids and even then remained upset with frequent black outs and heavy power bills. But now it is the era of sustainable energy, a type that is readily available at your service at any point of your life.
Energies of such types include sun, wind and water etc out which sun is considered to be the most promising option. (more…)
The winter chills are setting in and your house is freezing (Really? It’s summer in the northern hemisphere, where far more than 90% of the world’s population lives. -ed.) You want to install a heater but you’re not sure which one to buy; which one is the most affordable outright, vs. which one has the lowest ongoing costs? Which heater is the right size for my current home (“my?” You switched from the 2nd to the 1st person? Why? – ed.), but also offers the option of extension if I decide to add more rooms? And perhaps most importantly, which heater is the safest system to heat my room? These are some questions you may ask yourself as the colder months approach and you become desperate for a heating solution. (more…)
