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I think for geeks, that first computer is a little bit like a first love. You remember it longingly, even though it isn’t anything that would make you at all happy today.
See on www.makeuseof.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Building Design – Architecture & Engineering
San Francisco is greening its real estate records. Ecologically-sustainable building…
Green Labels being recorded by the Assessor’s office are U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Build It Green’s Green Point Rated, Home Energy Rating System II (HERS II), Home Energy Score (US Dept of Energy) and Energystar.
“We are making San Francisco history by including Green Labels in our official property records,” said Ting.
See on Scoop.it – Green Building Operations – Systems & Controls, Maintenance & Commissioning
Despite the lack of attention paid to the issue during this year’s presidential campaign (at least, before Sandy came along), Barack Obama’s first term was a bit of a quiet revolution for climate change policy in America…
“More than 13 percent of the $700 billion American Recovery Act went to energy spending, most of it green. … the largest portion – $32 billion –went to energy efficiency and retrofitting projects. This was the biggest such investment in the history of history. It may even have finally heralded the arrival of a “Negawatt Revolution”….”
“Still, the right incentive structures to encourage the necessary investments in energy efficiency are not yet in place. Energy bills are still viewed by customers in terms of monthly costs that would go up because of short-term investments rather than yearly ones that will ultimately go down because of long-term savings….. The Negawatt Revolution may have begun in earnest during these past four years, but we can’t afford to wait until 2037 for it to finally reach its full potential. The possible benefits to the environment – and the economy – are too great for us to continue to forego.”
See on www.startribune.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Building Operations – Systems & Controls, Maintenance & Commissioning
-Keeping your data center from overheating is important, but it’s not the only element for proper maintenance.
See on www.plantengineering.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Building Operations – Systems & Controls, Maintenance & Commissioning
Green and sustainable cleaning practices are among the key drivers in the commercial cleaning industry, and show no signs of slowing down.
“While the environmental benefits are clear, there is often the notion that sustainable cleaning and green products come with a high cost. However, a growing body of evidence has documented that comprehensive green cleaning programs, in addition to sustainable building practices, have led to significant savings on energy, water, chemicals and waste, while reducing illness and injuries to custodial staff as well as workers’ compensation costs. “
See on www.buildings.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development
DC motor replacement – synchronous motors are increasingly the motor of choice in high power, heavy load applications.
“Synchronous motors provide high efficiency in applications … resulting in low operating and maintenance costs. … include crushers, mills and conveyor belts in mining and quarry operations; fans, pumps and compressors in steel plants; pulp and paper extruders; chippers and de-barkers in wood processing; sewage system pumps; large compressors and fans in chemical and petrochemical applications; mills and crushers in cement works; and water injection pumps on floating oil platforms.”
DC motor replacement
As they have a higher efficiency level, reduced size and higher output rating capacity, synchronous motors can replace DC motors in high performance applications.
Synchronous motors have better efficiency and speed accuracy than induction motors. However, when comparing the two, the design of synchronous motors is more complex. As a result, induction motors are less expensive for a given power level, at power outputs up to 10kW. However, above this figure the higher efficiency of synchronous motors delivers lower operating costs.
See on www.connectingindustry.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development
This performance metric takes center stage as a growing number of users turn to it both to boost the efficiency of their equipment and to compare the performance of machines and production lines.
“OEE is a measure of the utilization of an asset’s productive capacity in terms of three factors—availability, performance (throughput), and quality—expressed as percentages of their ideal values. For example, performance is the actual production rate or throughput expressed as a percentage of the designed capacity of the equipment.”
“…OEE can sometimes be useful for comparing identical and nearly identical equipment, … the metric is not always suitable for this purpose. … OEE is the product of only three factors: performance, quality and uptime. “It doesn’t factor in things like sales and the importance to the business,” he says. “Those are things that OEE just doesn’t have any kind of theoretical basis to address.”
“For this reason, comparing equipment often makes more sense with other metrics, such as the total effective equipment performance (TEEP), the product of OEE and a loading factor computed by dividing planned uptime by calendar time….”
“Users often neglect this loading factor when comparing lines. … The client never planned to run the lines for the same amount of time each day,” he says. So, he maintains that it was unfair to compare their OEEs.”
“Another limitation of OEE, as well as TEEP, is that the metric does not consider sales and the relative contribution that a machine or line makes to the overall business. “You have to factor in the return on investment,” says Kemmann. “If similar lines with different OEEs are serving different customers where your pricing structure is different, then comparing OEEs will not be helpful because you’re not factoring in the effects of their relative value to the business.””
See on www.automationworld.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development
IBM deploys its Tririga building sustainability suite for the U.K. Ministry of Defense.
“IBM bought Tririga in 2011, and has since built on the San Francisco-based startup’s core real estate portfolio management capabilities. For example, IBM has used its in-house sensor and interval meter data sampling and monitoring technology to create a new application, called Tririga Energy Optimization, that uses data analysis to seek out previously unknown opportunities for efficiency, as well as ranking them against one another in terms of ROI, Bartlett said.”
“…This year it landed a contract with the U.S. Air Force to apply the Tririga platform to its 626 million square feet of real estate across 170 sites around the world, and it is also leading a consortium involved in a 50-building energy efficiency project with the U.S. General Services Administration, the federal government’s landlord.”
“…The Pew Charitable Trusts has projected that U.S. military green spending could reach $10 billion by 2030, including biofuels, batteries, renewable energy and other technologies.”
See on www.greentechmedia.com
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In an unusual step, a U.S. congressman is proposing a two-year ban on all new federal legislation regulating the Internet.
“Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California who has been an advocate for Internet freedoms, has posted online a draft of his legislation, the Internet American Moratorium Act of 2012. The bill would “create a two-year moratorium on any new laws, rules or regulations governing the Internet.””
…
“The answer is NOT to ban new regulation. We need regulation,” another said. …”
“”Open internet? That’s a good thing. But a law that keeps congress from governing? That’s not a good thing — the internet is a big place…”
“When asked why the congressman introduced the bill, a spokesman for Issa told CNN, “After SOPA and PIPA (the Senate’s similar Protect Intellectual Property Act), it became very clear that we needed a cooling-off period to figure out a better way to create policy that impacts Internet users, job creators and all Americans.””
See on edition.cnn.com
See on Scoop.it – Green Energy Technologies & Development
All that sunshine doesn’t stop San Diego from investing heavily in reducing outages.
“Advanced metering infrastructure lets us know fourteen minutes before the first customer call,” he said, “and there’s even more savings on top of that if it’s a breaker.” He noted that sometimes the utility has a crew on site before the first customer even calls.
The smart meters can also be used to manage and monitor power flow with a level of granularity that was not possible before. That visibility allows for better planned outages, said Romero.
See on www.greentechmedia.com
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