After a major fall-off in carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution from coal-fired electric power plants of 13.1 percent between 2005 and 2012, the first quarter of 2013 has seen a substantial jump in carbon dioxide emissions from coal—a 7.1 percent increase in the first three months of 2013 compared to the same period last year, according to a new Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) analysis of recent data from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The drop in carbon dioxide emissions between 2005 and 2012 is due in large part to greater reliance on natural gas, the rapid development of wind energy, moderate demand, and the closure of aging coal plants to avoid pollution control requirements.

Global warming emissions from coal-based electricity are projected to continue to increase throughout 2013, as rising natural gas prices encourage more use of coal.  The latest projections from the EIA indicate that coal-based generation will increase 8.7 percent this year compared to last, although it is not expected to return to the peak levels of 5 to 10 years ago.

The EIP report also highlights the five states and power plants that were the worst offenders when it came to CO2 emissions in 2012. Texas emitted the most tons of CO2 in 2012 from its coal-based electricity generation: 251 million tons, virtually unchanged from 2005, and more than twice the amount emitted by electric generators in any other single state.  The second worst offender was Florida, followed by Pennsylvania, Indiana and Ohio.  These five states accounted for nearly a third of total CO2 emissions from power plants in the U.S. last year.   

Environmental Integrity Project Director Eric Schaeffer said: As natural gas gets more expensive, coal is finding its way back into the U.S. electricity generation picture, and that means higher carbon dioxide emissions. Although power companies plan to retire 45 gigawatts of coal capacity through 2016 due to low natural gas prices, the increased availability of renewables, moderate demand, and the cost of complying with long delayed Clean Air Act rules, a change in just one of those factors (natural gas prices) can encourage plant operators to squeeze more generation out of remaining coal plants."

The Energy Information Administration projects that natural gas prices will increase about 34 percent above 2012 levels while prices for coal remain flat, making it attractive to power companies with the capacity to switch to cheaper fuels.

Additional highlights of the EIP report include the following: 

• With natural gas prices at unusually low levels in 2012, gas-fired generation reached a new height of 1.23 billion megawatt hours in 2012, an increase of more than 60 percent since 2005, while electricity from coal declined nearly 25 percent over the same period.

• Wind powered generation, which releases no greenhouse gas emissions at all, climbed to nearly 141 million megawatt hours in 2012, a more than sevenfold increase from 2005.  It is expected to increase an additional 30 percent by 2014.

• Demand for U.S. electricity is expected to increase only about 1 percent according to the EIA, following flat demand over the last seven years.

Schaeffer added:  "Natural gas releases about half as much carbon dioxide as coal when burned for electricity, but its price can swing widely and that volatility encourages companies to hang on to dirty and inefficient coal plants. It is time for states who have been slow to embrace energy efficiency or no-carbon renewables like wind and solar to step up if we want to decrease global warming emissions in the long term."  

Additional state-specific findings in the report include the following:

• States that still depend on coal emit far more carbon dioxide per megawatt hour (MWh) of electricity generated than those with a more diverse mix of fuels and renewable sources of power. Kentucky was the worst offender in 2012 when it comes to power plants emitting the most carbon dioxide per MWh.  It emitted more CO2 than any other state, nearly twice the national average, and more than four times the state-wide emission rate for California's power plants.

• Second on the list of states emitting the most CO2 per MWh was Wyoming, followed by West Virginia, Indiana and North Dakota.

• The five states with the lowest CO2 emission rates for the amount of electricity produced are: Idaho (lowest), Washington, Vermont, Oregon and Connecticut.

• Emissions data was obtained from the US Environmental Protection Agency's Air Markets Program Database, while net generation data was obtained from the U.S. Energy Information Administration's latest reports. 

ABOUT EIP

The Environmental Integrity Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization established in March of 2002 by former EPA enforcement attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws. EIP has three goals: 1) to provide objective analyses of how the failure to enforce or implement environmental laws increases pollution and affects public health; 2) to hold federal and state agencies, as well as individual corporations, accountable for failing to enforce or comply with environmental laws; and 3) to help local communities obtain the protection of environmental laws.

SOURCE Environmental Integrity Project, Washington, DC

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This launch marks the start of a nationwide investment in infrastructure seeking the ultimate prize of wiping out nearly two-thirds of the nation's heavy goods vehicle (HGV) emissions.

Gasrec's ground-breaking new facility in Daventry is the first of its kind. It will lead to significant cuts in pollution and fuel costs; allow gas-powered or dual-fuel trucks to use Bio-LNG; and will operate in a similar way to a traditional petrol station.

Bio-LNG is Gasrec's proprietary blend of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and liquid biomethane (LBM) - a natural, green source of renewable energy produced from organic matter such as household food waste. Gasrec is Europe's largest producer of this fuel.

Transport Minister Norman Baker said: "The innovation shown by Gasrec and its partners in projects like this can help the UK meet its ambitious carbon reduction targets while creating green jobs to build the economy.

"This announcement represents a significant step towards achieving carbon and air quality benefits and I am very pleased that demonstration fleets from the Government's Low Carbon Truck Demonstration Trial will be refuelling from this site."

Compared with pure diesel equivalents, Bio-LNG can cut fuel costs by 20-30 percent and CO2 by a minimum of 20 percent, while delivering a 90 percent reduction in NOx and particulate matter emissions. Running the UK's HGV fleets on Bio-LNG could cut haulage emissions by up to 65 percent, according to a report by consultants Ricardo-AEA.

Gasrec commercial development manager, Doug Leaf said: "The launch today is a very proud moment for everybody at Gasrec. It clearly shows how our technology, innovation and ambition are leading the way to shrink pollution and costs for the UK's HGV haulage fleet.

"It is a pleasure to see our service not only saving customers significant sums of money but also helping them to play their part in protecting the environment. Big haulage companies are working and investing with us because they understand this intrinsic value.

"This is the important first step of a journey which we have high hopes will be a national success story."

Daventry is the first site identified by Gasrec as part of its national Bio-LNG refuelling network planned to be up and running by the end of 2015, helping the UK meet its 80 percent greenhouse gas reduction target by 2050.

The fuelling station officially launches on Thursday, May 23. The facility opens with Parliamentary Under Secretary for the Department for Transport Norman Baker MP's visit to the Daventry International Rail Freight Terminal site, near Junction 18 of the M1 in Northamptonshire.

The planned network will be conveniently located near motorway junctions so that 85 percent of the UK's HGV population will have at least one location within four hours' drive. The entire system will be monitored from a control centre in Daventry and is set to keep expanding.

Storing enough fuel to fill 700 HGVs a day, each of the manned stations will be equipped with five refuelling lanes and ten dispensers using 'fast-fill' technology accessed by drivers carrying smart key controls.

Key benefits of Bio-LNG:

• Cheaper than diesel
• Reduces the pollution and global warming impact of vehicles more than any other commercially available fuel
• Renewable - supply is effectively inexhaustible and conforms to all criteria set by the Renewable Energy Directive  
• Proven engine noise reduction
• Robust supply chain, providing both security and resilience

Gasrec is specifically looking to serve multi-location logistics organisations and in the last 18 months has already installed eight refuelling stations at customer sites. Clients include B&Q, Sainsbury's, and Tesco.

The facility

The Daventry site is capable of fuelling up to 250 HGVs a day in the first phase from three Bio-LNG dispensers. The second phase will increase that capacity to up to 700 vehicles.

Gasrec will provide training and support to drivers. This will initially be carried out at the station, before customers' own teams are able to train their colleagues.

Fuel is stored at -160 degrees Centigrade and is pumped through vacuum-insulated pipework all the way to the dispenser nozzles. A five-person Gasrec team will staff the station 24-hours a day.

The supply

Gasrec's liquefied biomethane production plant in Albury, Surrey, is capable of producing more than six million litres of diesel equivalent a year. The plant is located next to a large municipal landfill site and the gases from the decomposition of organic waste are cleaned and liquefied. The fuel produced is guaranteed to be at least 96 percent biomethane and no more than four percent nitrogen.

Bio-LNG is delivered in liquid form and dispensed either as liquid or compressed gas. Unlike other forms of compressed gas, refuelling facilities do not need to be next to a high pressure gas main. This compressed gas has biomethane in its blend.

SOURC: Gasrec

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Press Release

In the wake of the economic recession and reforms instated by the Affordable Healthcare Act (AHA), the impact to hospitals’ bottom line remains uncertain. According to a recent report by Moody’s, the federal government will cut reimbursements to hospitals by more than $150 billion over the next 10 years. While the AHA increases the number of people who have access to care and lowers the levels of uncompensated care, it still remains to be seen whether the incremental revenue generated will offset the potential compression in margins. And recent cuts due to sequestration muddy the financial waters even more.

Facility managers now must find new ways to reduce costs and maintain already tight operating margins while providing quality care to patients and vital support to their communities. Many have simply looked for ways to trim any remaining fat, but some forward-thinking hospitals and health systems are starting to understand that greater energy efficiency can advance patient-care goals and are devoting more attention and resources to conservation initiatives.

To that end, a groundbreaking new study provides an innovative and cost-effective way for newly constructed hospitals nationwide to offset continuing economic challenges by reducing energy consumption by an average of 62 percent. The study, titled Targeting 100!, identifies a process that integrates architectural, mechanical and central plant systems to deliver significant efficiencies. The biggest breakthrough comes from addressing the reheating of centrally-cooled air — the largest contributor to wasted energy in a hospital — which represents more than 40 percent of annual heating energy usage.

“More than any other single research initiative, Targeting 100! is effectively transforming U.S. healthcare to meet the low-energy and low-carbon future,” said Robin Guenther, the sustainable healthcare design leader at architecture firm Perkins+Will. “Every project team should dive deep into this pool of resources and use it to inform early design decision making.”

By combining energy-reduction design solutions — including  sun and daylight shading controls, vacant room sensors, outdoor air supply with heat recovery systems, modified air delivery systems, thermal energy storage, and improved air-tightness and high insulation values in windows and walls — a newly constructed, code-compliant hospital in the range of Targeting 100! saves between $500 and $800 thousand a year in energy costs. By simply redesigning the way that healthcare facilities use energy, they can be both environmentally and financially sound. Hospitals looking to capitalize on AHA incentives to upgrade their current facilities may also improve energy performance by using similar strategies during renovations.

The newly released research, which is discussed in detail at the University of Washington’s Integrated Design Lab’s website, extends an earlier regional study conducted in Seattle in 2007. Those results prompted the U.S. Department of Energy and the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance’s BetterBricks to provide the research team — a close collaboration between the IDL and several partners, including NBBJ, one of the nation’s leading healthcare architectural firms, energy and engineering consultants SOLARC, and construction and cost-management firm TBD Consultants  — with a $1.3 million grant to determine whether the same results were achievable throughout the United States. The research also included intensive peer review by engineers, general contractors, utilities, hospital CEOs and facilities managers.

“That’s one aspect of our work that makes it unique,” said Heather Burpee, a health-design and energy-efficiency research assistant professor at University of Washington’s Integrated Design Lab. “Our peer reviewers — who came from all aspects of the design, construction and operation of hospitals — provided invaluable guidance and grounded our research in reality. Our primary goal is to get this research into the hands of people who are truly able to make a change.”

The new study looked at six distinct and diverse climate zones in the United States’ most populous regions —including New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Seattle — to determine if integrated design methods could cut energy consumption and operating costs for hospitals nationwide. The team conducted a complete reassessment of the architectural systems, building mechanical systems and central plant systems to find a code-compliant path that achieves the highest-quality, lowest-energy hospital design for the least additional capital cost.

The resulting integrated-design approach delivers a 62 percent average reduction in energy consumption across all climate zones—and a 9 percent year-over-year average return on investment. Depending on the climate zone, local construction and utility costs, and design scheme, hospitals can see up to a 51 percent return on investment. (see NYC building type A plant 2).

“We started this research to confirm our ability to meet high performance goals. What we discovered was a world of complex relationships,” said Duncan Griffin, a principal and sustainable-design expert at architecture firm and study partner NBBJ. “We learned that only through integrated design are we able to realize the true potential of human comfort and high performance in a cost effective way. It’s changing the way we practice architecture today.”

NBBJ has designed several healthcare facilities that incorporate Targeting 100!’s strategies, including Seattle Children’s Bellevue Clinic, the University of Washington Medical Center’s Montlake Tower Expansion, and a large hospital in Northern California. That hospital will see an annual energy cost benefit of approximately $1,325,000 — a return on investment of more than 50 percent that will pay back the provider’s initial investment in less than 2 years. According to the project’s engineer, the total investment needed to implement the energy-reduction strategies amounted to less than one year of typical operating costs.

A Healthier Bottom Line

Hospitals are notorious energy hogs. Because they operate 24/7 and must follow strict lighting, air circulation and heating codes, they eat up 2.5 times the energy as a commercial building of the same size — and emit a similar proportion of CO2 into the atmosphere. According to ENERGY STAR, a program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S’s 8,000 hospitals spend a whopping $5.5 billion on energy every year and use approximately 5 percent of all energy consumed in the U.S., including transportation, industry, and buildings. A typical hospital’s energy bill runs $1-3 million a year depending on its size and location.

Because energy represents just one or two percent of hospital’s operating costs, energy-efficiency advocates have long struggled to get the attention of the C-suite. But Targeting 100’s results should make even the most conservative administrators take note. Implementing its strategies requires a minimal 3 percent design and construction cost increase but leads to an average 9 percent return on investment each year.  An average hospital—functioning at a 2-3 percent operating margin—would need to generate an extra $20-30 million in revenue to have the same impact on the bottom line. Put simply, by reducing operating costs, a hospital can improve its operating margin by 25-33 percent.

Reducing operating costs means putting more cash towards other revenue-generating capital improvements like upgraded MRIs, cutting-edge medical technologies, renovations to aging facilities and increased levels of charity care, which in turn means hospitals are able to provide better service to their patients — and better support to their communities.

A Healthier Planet

The average hospital, many of which rely on power generated by coal, oil and natural gas, dumps about 15,000 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year. Such emissions lead to and aggravate health conditions linked to poor air quality, like asthma and cardiovascular disease — an obvious inconsistency with the mandate to “first do no harm.” Yet many major players have been slow to go green.

The average energy savings for one Targeting 100! hospital prevents 4,500 tons of carbon from entering the atmosphere each year. According to the EPA’s greenhouse gas equivalencies calculator, that’s the same as the amount of carbon removed from the atmosphere by adding 3,400 acres of forests, taking 850 passenger cars off the road, or removing 600 households from the grid every year.  When explosive growth in developing countries is factored in — it’s estimated that over the next decade, China will build as many as twice the number of hospitals currently operating in the U.S. — the implications of reducing the carbon footprint of healthcare institutions worldwide are staggering. By reducing energy use, hospitals improve the health of the global environment and their local environment, as well.

Healthier Patients, Staff and Community

Designers, researchers and health professionals have long recognized that healthy, healing interior environments are imperative for patients, but they are now realizing that abundant daylight, fresh air, views of the outdoors, and individual control of light, temperature and fresh air are crucial for staff comfort, as well.

By incorporating strategies like daylighting and improved air circulation, Targeting 100! makes healing and working spaces healthier and more enjoyable. Better work conditions help recruit and retain high-quality staff, which can reduce a facility’s human-resource related costs by hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

These same design strategies make hospitals more resilient in times of emergency, energy crisis and natural disaster. A Targeting 100! hospital can run longer on less energy and continue to function when less efficient facilities might be forced to shut their doors — or severely compromise their services and patient health and safety.

The Time Is Now

Facility managers, engineers, architects and builders have often passed up opportunities to design and build healthcare facilities more efficiently because the return on investment was not immediate or because they felt they had no choice but to follow traditional models. But the proven Targeting 100! strategies can be implemented today using existing technologies in any climate zone, meaning it has important national — and even global — implications.

“Targeting 100! has delivered to the healthcare sector a compelling and preferred response to deep cuts in federal reimbursements that will require dramatic reductions in operational costs,” said Richard Beam, the construction and sustainability system director for Providence Health & Services. “It prescribes an energy-efficiency remedy that will ensure our shrinking revenue supports quality patient care in an environmentally responsible way.  Targeting 100! is good for the patient — whether the Earth or humankind.”

In the face of widespread uncertainty about the fiscal impact of healthcare reform, these strategies reduce the pressure on hospitals to increase the volume of services to sustain already minimal revenue margins—or to cut corners or shed low-margin services. Forward-thinking, fiscally-healthy facilities can implement these strategies today to provide future opportunities for both gain and good.

To see comprehensive study results, visit the Targeting 100!website. To read an executive summary of Targeting 100! click here.

SOURCE: nbbj

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Texas, the second largest state in the Union, rich in oil and renewable resources alike stands as an internationally recognized energy capital. Already a leader in oil drilling activity, Texas now has at least ten shale plays of production potential that could very well reshape the future of the industry in the US.

Although only a few of those plays are being tapped, Texas oil production reached a 25-year record high of 2.139 million barrels a day last November. According to a study conducted by the University of Texas-San Antonio, the Eagle Ford shale production gave a $25 billion economic boost to the area in 2011. It also supported some 48,000 jobs in the oil and gas market alone.

Before 2011, shale production was practically nonexistent. Once it took off in 2011, it nearly tripled by 2012.

The latest UTSA study revealed something even more spectacular: the 2012 economic impact from Eagle Ford was $61 billion—the biggest oil and gas development in the world last year.

According to an article in Forbes, “there are several studies that point to the Eagle Ford Shale eclipsing the East Texas Field as the biggest oil field ever discovered in the lower 48 states.”

That also accounted for a whopping 116,000 jobs in once sparsely populated parts of the state.

While the US Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that the Eagle Ford recoverable reserves is around 10 billion barrels of oil (two and a half times North Dakota's Bakken shale), complete development of the field is set to take the patience of decades.

But Eagle Ford represents just one of Texas' numerous shale play in a state where more than half of the country's (20 percent of the world's) drill rigs are turning. Initial estimates of Texas' Cline Shale play point to recoverable reserves of 30 billion barrels of oil.

Devon Energy Corp, an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company, has stepped up as one of Cline's early-in players. Under a partnership with Sumitomo Corporation, which has invested $1.4 billion in Devon's activities in that play, Devon's 2013 plans to drill in the area are aggressive (up to 140 wells).

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Nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz was confirmed Thursday as the new US secretary of energy in a 97-0 vote in the Senate.

Moniz previously served as the energy secretary during the Clinton administration and has been working as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though Moniz's nomination had been approved in April, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) held up the process in protest of budget cuts for a nuclear processing facility in their home state. Graham argued that the proposed $200 million in cuts from the state would threaten a plant being built at South Carolina's Savannah River nuclear site.

Moniz supports Obama's “all of the above” energy policy, including fracking, offshore drilling and clean coal technology. Filling the position of former energy secretary Steven Chu, Moniz will have a series of important decisions to make regarding the future on natural gas in the country.

"The Sierra Club and its 2.1 million members and supporters congratulate Dr. Ernest Moniz on his confirmation as the new Secretary of Energy," Deb Nardone, the Sierra Club's Beyond Natural Gas campaign director said in a statement Thursday. "As energy secretary, Dr. Moniz will make important decisions that will shape America’s energy and climate landscape for decades to come, including the agency’s response to 24 proposed liquefied natural gas terminals that could export up to 45 percent of the nation’s total natural gas production. We urge Secretary Moniz to take a time out on exports to complete a thorough economic and environmental assessment."

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Smart wind turbines with batteries will be deployed courtesy of GE and Invenergy in Texas this year, feeding energy into the state's grid from a source that has at times accounted for over a quarter of its total electricity.

GE said Invenergy ordered three 2.5-megawatt turbines that come with sodium-nickel battery storage and power-regulations software for an 86-turbine wind farm going up this year. That announcement comes just two months after GE revealed its “brilliant” turbine and Duke Energy tested a 36-megawatt battery system at a wind farm in West Texas.

The energy captured will be used during times of peak demand, when air conditioners and factories need it the most.

Texas leads the country in installed wind capacity—a figure that continues to grow. As a result, grid operators are turning more to energy storage to gain more certainty from their power sources. Fortunately, GE says its system will allow for predictable energy flow over 15 to 60 minute periods.

“This new marriage of battery storage and advanced software within a wind turbine allows forward-thinking wind energy producers like Invenergy to shift the winds in its favor – increasing wind power’s efficiency and short-term predictability,” Keith Longtin, who manages the wind product line for GE’s renewable energy business, said in a statement.

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Over the past decade, more than 50 major U.S cities have taken significant steps to becoming more sustainable,OurGreenCities.com reports. There's been a focused effort to maintain and grow healthy local economies through smart growth and climate protection, and city leaders are increasingly doing business in a manner that promotes, guides and manages growth. They're improving energy efficiency, helping the environment and raising the quality of life for residents.

These cities are making strong, admirable strides toward sustainability:

Portland, Oregon

Half of Portland’s energy comes from renewable resources, enabling it to replace dirty energy resources with clean energy. Portland created the Clean Energy Works initiative, a program designed to give homeowners free energy assessments and provide $2,000 rebates and loans for home retrofitting.

A curbside composting program was launched in 2011 that resulted in a 38 percent dropin the city’s trash output, city officials reported. Portland is also considered the most bikeable city in the United States, with 200 miles of dedicated bike lanes. This, of course, minimizes dependency on gas-powered vehicles and helps reduce the output of toxins and pollutants.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge implemented a major climate protection plan in 2002, and currently a majority of city vehicles are powered by B20 biodiesel or electricity. Named the “best walking city” by Prevention Magazine in 2008, all new construction and major renovation must meet LEED standards. Cambridge also created a project called “Compost That Stuff,’ in which organic waste from residents, hotels and restaurants is collected for compost. Forward-thinking Cambridge also provides its residents with free Wi-Fi via the Cambridge Public Internet project, enabling users of mobile devices like the 16GB Nexus 4 phone to surf the Web quickly and conveniently.

San Francisco, California

San Francisco created mandatory recycling and composting ordinances that required citizens to not only separate recyclables, but also to separate their packing items and compostable food. City officials announced in October 2012 that 80 percent of its city waste was going to recycling and composting facilities, making it the leader in sustainable waste disposal. San Francisco was the nation's first city to ban plastic grocery bags, and in 2010 Mayor Gavin Newsom declared the city America’s leader in solar energy use.

Eugene, Oregon

Eugene receives 88 percent of its energy from renewable sources, and the city's Sustainability Commission oversees green infrastructure and development. The city's Wayne L. Morse Courthouse made it onto the American Institute of Architects' list of the top 10 green buildings in the U.S., and the city's public transit system was nominated for an International Sustainability award for being one of the first diesel-electric hybrid systems to operate in the nation. Cycling is the preferred mode of transportation in Eugene, made possible by 150 miles of smog-free travel throughout the main metro area.

Oakland, California

Oakland receives 17 percent of its energy from renewable resources, and there's a plan in place to have zero waste and become oil-independent by the year 2020. The city boasts a hydrogen-powered public transit system, the cleanest tap water in the country and a plethora of farmers markets that offer locally sourced, organic food. It's also home to the nation's oldest wildlife refuge.

Seattle, Washington

Seattle was the first city in America to have a major utility company go carbon neutral. City Light uses hydroelectric dams, which reduce dependency on dirty energy resources. Seattle pledged not to invest its money into fossil fuel companies, a positive green action effort. Twenty percent of Seattle's buildings are LEED-certified or under construction for LEED certification, and residents are encouraged through an incentive program to install solar panels on their homes.

Boston, Massachusetts

Boston's “Green By 2015” initiative includes replacing taxicabs with hybrid vehicles and recycling trash to power homes. The city has pledged to increase its use of solar panels and support use of electric motor bikes. Boston holds regular conferences to educate citizens on living the most sustainable life possible.

Regardless of industry, today's business world requires the utilization of digital tools that allow companies to get more done in less time, while reaching more people. Whether it's recruitment, team building, brand building or taking your product to the next level, online productivity tools are key.

Fortunately, there are an increasing number of online resources available to help businesses operate more efficiently. Here are a few of Energy Digital's favorites:

• Yast—one of the best time-tracking tools out there. The easy-to-navigate interface makes tracking business activities and even unimportant tasks simple, helping people become more efficient both inside and outside the office.

• Bitrix24: The program marries a social intranet system with CRM tools to help manage sales, messaging, activity planning, calendars, etc. It's also free for teams of fewer than 12 people.

• Businessfriend: a social media platform designed by business professionals for business professionals. If used as intended, Businessfriend can significantly increase productivity within almost any organization. Most social networks require daily tracking and significant effort to maintain, whereas Businessfriend can be used for most, if not all, of the user's daily communications within his/her company and outside networking—all while allowing the same “social” functions as other outlets and the ability to interconnect posts to them.

• Trello: With elements like Pinterest and Basecamp HQ, Trello helps users simplify project management—a free tool for teams of any size.

• Sanebox: Defined by its name, “Sanebox” helps users de-clutter their inbox, automatically filtering out newsletters and other low priority emails into a “Read Later” folder. At around $5 a month, many argue that the time saved from not having to sift through hundreds of unimportant emails a month is well worth the fee.

• WriteMonkey: Here's one I can relate to... If you're working on a writing project, WriteMonkey is an extremely useful tool to block out the distractions of standard computer interfaces, transforming your desktop into a full-screen writing environment. Customize it as you prefer and get that report done faster!

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There are now more solar energy workers in the state of Texas than there are ranchers, according to solar research group The Solar Foundation.

The group's data mapping out solar jobs across the nation also showed that there are more solar jobs in California than actors, and more solar workers than coal miners nationwide. Sunny states like California and Arizona topped the list. Wyoming came in last, with just 50 workers, while Utah showed a mere 290 solar workers despite being one of the country's sunniest states.

Even the states with less sunshine like New Jersey and Michigan showed a high number of solar jobs—thanks to favorable tax and regulatory policies that help attract developers to cope with high electricity prices.

Related story: Massive Military Solar Project Commences in Hawaii

The study also showed that almost half of solar jobs involve installing solar panels, paying around $18 and hour ($38,000 a year), which is higher than the median national wage of $34,750, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Related story: Solar Roadways Light the Way for the Future of Infrastructure

About another quarter of those jobs involve the manufacturing of solar panels, lending the other quarter to development, sales and marketing.

Nationwide, some 119,000 people are employed by the solar industry, marking one of the fastest growth rates for any industry in the country.

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Apparently, there's a silver lining in the occurrence of earthquakes—and it comes in the form of gold. Australian scientists recently confirmed the link between the formation of gold deposits as a result of earth's naturally occurring 20,000 annual earthquakes.

Researchers from the University of Queensland and Australian National University released the study detailing the process to Nature Geoscience—the first time the hypothesis has ever been mathematically demonstrated. According to their findings, mineral rich fluids in the earth's crust undergo intense pressure reduction during an earthquake, instantly vaporizing while the minerals inside the solution crystalize almost instantly (within just a few tenths of a second). This process of flash vaporization along 'fault jogs,' the cracks connecting the main fault lines in the earth's crust, forces silica and gold out of the fluids and onto nearby surfaces.

Although scientists have long suspected a link between gold deposits and ancient faults, the study takes the idea to a new extreme.

"To me, it seems pretty plausible. It's something that people would probably want to model either experimentally or numerically in a bit more detail to see if it would actually work," Jamie Wilkinson, a geochemist at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, told OurAmazingPlanet/

A single event would produce just a tiny gold vein, but the process occurs in even small earthquakes. In a single fault system, thousands to hundreds of thousands of small earthquakes could occur per year, which could lead to a sizable buildup of gold reserves.

“Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, you have the potential to precipitate very large quantities of gold,” University of Queensland seismologist Dion Weatherley told Mining Australia. “Small bits add up.”

Repeated earthquakes could even lead to “economic-grade gold deposits,” he says, helping future prospectors find new regions where fault jogs are common.

The study also points to the reason why rocks in gold-bearing quartz deposits are marbled with small gold veins, using the mathematical model to calculate the impact earthquakes have on fluids in certain fault zones.

"They expected for any given vein, depending on its size, it may be years to tens of years for the fracture to fill up with quartz and the associated metals such as gold,” Weatherley told Australia's ABC News.


"The most surprising aspect of the mathematical modeling was that we thought there was a good chance that very large magnitude earthquakes might be able to achieve this, but what we actually found is that even very small magnitude earthquakes [do so].



"It was a bit hard to imagine that very small earthquakes - in the order of magnitude two to magnitude four - would do much work on the fluid.

"But when we did the calculations we found that, in fact, a magnitude four earthquake was far and away large enough to produce a massive pressure differential of the order of about 1,000 times.



"While the amount of gold that would be deposited in any one earthquake is quite small, when you consider that tens or hundreds of magnitude four quakes and thousands of smaller magnitude quakes may occur each year within an earthquake fault system, the possibility exists that over time, large gold deposits may result."

Although most of the world's ore deposits exposed at the surface have been mined, the study could help prospectors tap significant deposits at new depths. The earth experiences roughly 50 earthquakes per day, or 20,000 earthquakes per year, according to the National Earthquake Information Center.

"Our research paper aims to reveal new findings and knowledge about the physical processes that will assist exploration geologists to discover blind ore deposits that are deeper within the Earth," said Weatherley. 

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Reconfirming its commitment to a more sustainable future, Australia proudly announced the opening of the 420 MW Macarthur Wind Farm on April 11—the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere. But the magnitude of the project was not the only impressive feature of the $1 billion venture: it was also the first to purchase the Vestas V112-3.0 MW wind turbine, capable of picking up low to medium wind speed to fully take advantage Australia's vast wind resources. As a bonus, the project spurred job growth and was delivered three months ahead of schedule almost exactly on budget.

Under a joint venture between Australian-based AGL Energy and New Zealand-based Meridian Energy, Vestas, a leading international wind turbine manufacturer, commenced site work in late 2010 with the project partner Leighton Contractors. Vestas' new V112-3.0 MW turbines had never before been deployed, but held tremendous promise to set new industry benchmarks for the cost of energy per Gwh, boasting a larger rotor diameter and efficient power train design.

“Vestas won a project of international significance based on a product that was still just at a blue print stage,” says Giles Rinckes, Project Director. “But because of Vestas' reputation and the faith the customer had in the company, the investment was made swiftly and successfully.”

COME RAIN OR SHINE

That's not to say the project was shy of its own set of challenges. For the past decade, Australia had experienced a period of intense drought—a condition expected to continue throughout the construction phase in Macarthur. When the drought unexpectedly broke, however, heavy rainfall on site posed a number of significant challenges including the redesign of some of its civil works.

“Vestas and Leighton Contractors didn't leave or stop the progress,” says Rinckes. “We worked through the rain.”

It was a massive, technically complex job that required meeting high standards of grid compliance, pulling equipment from all over the world and intensive operations, coordination and planning on the ground.

“Despite all of the challenges, we finished in January of this year—three months ahead of schedule,” says Rinckes. “That's just a bonus to the quality of the job successfully delivered to the client.”

ECONOMIC BOOST

With a total of 140 of Vestas' V112-3.0 MW turbines, the Macarthur Wind Farm has a contracted power output of up to 420 MW, or enough to power 220,000 homes in Victoria. In a country where coal reigns, that equates to the diversion of some 1.7 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, according to Vestas.

In light of uncertain economic conditions, careful consideration was taken into account to ensure the farm would exceed its return on investment.

“We wanted to make sure that our business will survive in tough market conditions,” says Rinckes. “These turbines were selected specifically to match Macarthur's wind conditions and provide optimum generation for the customer over the next 20 years.”

During the construction stage, direct, indirect and induced employment resulted in 2,100 jobs and 115 long-term jobs over the life span of the farm, 30 per cent of which were filled by local workers. A number of local businesses, including manufacturers of turbine towers and leading travel tower fleet like Summit Tower Hire also contributed a fair share of contracted work.

“It's great to work with local companies close to the wind farm that we can invest in,” says Rinckes. “There's a whole host of Australian companies that are extremely competent in the wind energy space.”

With the Macarthur installation, Vestas has contributed to more than half of the cumulative wind energy capacity in Australia. Thanks to the country's efforts to reach its Renewable Energy Target of generating 20 per cent of its electricity from renewables by 2020, Australia is now enjoying the benefits of large-scale clean energy investment. But the project's successful commissioning down under could have an even larger impact abroad.

GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS

With the majority of sites bearing high wind speed conditions already developed, Vestas' flagship turbine responds to one of the greatest limitations facing the industry: the ability to tap the huge potential available in low to medium wind sites in markets around the world.

“Based on the 3 MW turbine platform, we also just released a series of new turbines based on that same technology,” says Naveen Raghavan Balachandran, Senior Director, Business Development and Public Affairs at Vestas. “The new designs will be able to cater to the entire wind spectrum.”

The new variants include the V112-3.3 MW, the V117-3.3 MW and the V126-3.3 MW, all based on the same proven technology of machines deployed in Macarthur, enabling customers to benefit from energy production across low, medium and high wind sites.

“That's going to open up the possibilities for wind power in a lot more markets in environments no other wind energy company could successfully operate before,” says Balachandran, a revolutionary addition to the overall renewable energy market.  

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1. VENEZUELA

Early in 2011, recently deceased President Hugo Chavez announced that Venezuela held the largest proven oil reserves in the world—a whopping 297 billion barrels worth, topping the previous long-term world leader, Saudi Arabia, by more than 30 billion barrels.

The country also contains oil sands deposits, less viscous than Canada's, meaning they can be produced by more conventional means but are buried deeper and, thus, harder to extract.

Although the country continues to be one of the US' largest suppliers, the development of its oil reserves has long been affected by political unrest.

Under Chavez, Venezuela's tens of billions of dollars worth of oil earnings were redistributed in the form of cheap gasoline (18 cents per gallon or less) both at home and in parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. Production, however, declined during his reign due to inadequate investment in energy infrastructure and the replacement of skilled labor with political loyalists. The next president will be forced to confront the economic and political consequences of that regime.

1. SAUDI ARABIA

Coming in second place, the Kingdom's reserves are estimated to be 267 billion barrels of crude, about one-fifth of the world's total conventional oil reserves. Although the country has about 100 major oil and gas fields, over half of its supplies are found in eight massive fields, including the world's largest, the Ghawar Field.

1. IRAQ

Although Iraq has only officially confirmed reserves of 143 billion barrels of oil, recent geological survey and seismic data have led the government to believe that the country has the world's largest oil reserves (over 350 billion barrels). Due to military occupation, official statistics have not been revised since 2001.

1. CANADA

The majority of Canada's oil reserves (over 95 per cent) can be found in its oil sands deposits in the province of Alberta. Whether or not a 2,100-mile pipeline will be built to carry some of that crude to refineries in the southern US through the Keystone XL pipeline continues to see heated debate between proponents and environmental groups in North America.

1. IRAN

Tying with Canada in third place, Iran has about 150 billion barrels of proven oil reserves—roughly ten per cent of the world's total proven petroleum reserves. Iran is also the world's fourth-largest oil producer and OPEC's second-largest producer after Saudi Arabia.

1. KUWAIT

OPEC's third-largest oil producer claims to hold around 104 billion barrels, including the five billion barrels in the Saudi-Kuwaiti neutral zones shared with Saudi Arabia. Most of those supplies are located in the Burgan field, the second-largest conventional oil field in the world.

1. UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

With about 98 billion barrels, the UAE is a tiny country with vast reserves, most of which can be found at the third-largest oil field in the Middle East, the Zakum field.

1. RUSSIA

Russia's oil production has been up and down for decades due to factors including the collapse of the former Soviet Union, privatization of the industry, fluctuations in global prices and the use of newer technologies to rejuvenate old oil fields. Today, the country is the largest producer and exporter of oil in the world.

1. LIBYA

Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the fifth-largest in the world (about 77 billion barrels worth of oil as of 2010). Due to the low cost of oil production in the area and its proximity to Europe, Libya is an extremely attractive place for development. Sanctions and disagreements with foreign oil companies, however, leave much of the country yet to be explored.

1. KAZAHKSTAN

With an estimated 49 billion barrels worth of proven reserves, Kazahkstan holds a significant portion of global oil supply. Of its over 200 discovered oil and gas accumulations, the Kashagen, Tengiz and Karachaganak fields are considered giants.

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As the global population reaches nearly nine billion people and counting, the demand for energy is moving at a pace in which the world can hardly keep up (while emissions rise to levels it can hardly afford). In the first half the the 21st century alone, energy demand is expected to double, leaving governments scrambling for solutions. Like President Obama, leading energy companies agree that it will take an “all of the above” approach—even Big Oil.

Royal Dutch Shell's CEO Peter Voser recently said that the US and world need to take climate change seriously and increase the use of renewable energy-generating sources, but that ultimately the abundant supplies of natural gas will be the backbone of an immediate cleaner future. As the world's largest gas producers, both the US and Shell will lead the way.

“The world needs to follow America’s lead and take full advantage of the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, and that’s natural gas,” Voser said during a speech at a luncheon held by the Boston College Chief Executive’s Club of Boston. “Increased use of natural gas is the biggest single step that the world can take today to begin reducing [carbon dioxide emissions].”

With the biggest share of the market, Shell has some 22 million tons of it refers to as “LNG equity,” not including the company's stake in other projects like Chevron's massive Gorgon gas project in Australia and the 7 million tons of uptake expected to come from a recent deal with Repsol SA after acquiring assets in Trinidad and Peru.

"Beyond this, we have a lot of projects that we are studying,” Andy Brown, Shell's Upstream International Director, said in a press conference. “That really reinforces our position as a the leading LNG trader across the world.

“Actually, if you look at Shell today we produce about as much gas as we do oil. And of all the majors, we probably have the largest proportion of gas... It really is our commitment to this industry and the environmental benefits that we see behind gas that underpins that positioning.”

TIGHT AND SHALE GAS

Further exploration in tight and shale gas, particularly in the US, is providing a richness of opportunities for the company and country alike.

“Tight and shale gas has been really what has transformed our industry in the last few years,” says Brown. “It has doubled the amount of recoverable gas in the world and transformed the energy outlook of the US.”

Flashback to five years prior, and it was a different picture. “We thought we would be gas short,” Brown adds. “The tight and shale gas revolution has transformed the picture” to essentially the opposite, driving a “reindustrialization of the Midwest.”

LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Leveraging its position in the market, Shell is not only using natural gas to power its own drilling rigs, ships and heavy trucks, but encouraging others to make the same transition as the company invests heavily in building the infrastructure to fuel trucks and boats to run on it.

And despite the challenges—from funding projects to economic uncertainties—Shell's approach makes the pursuit of natural gas economic while prices are low.

“If you’re just producing natural gas and selling it into a pipeline, of course it’s a pretty challenging market right now,” Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co., the company’s Houston-based U.S. Arm, told Fuel Fix. “If you have the ability to play through that whole value chain of producing, marketing, liquefaction on through to transportation and then delivery to a higher market, you see that’s a better business.”

The company also believes that despite a massive increase in natural gas production in the US, there is “not going to be a flooding of the LNG market” and that, in time, other areas will develop, Brown says. China's LNG demands will increase by a fivefold, while European markets standby until CO2 pricing schemes make the fuel less expensive and public concern over the effects of “fracking” for the fuel eases.

For now, Shell is working on changing those public perceptions in collaboration with industry and NGOs to develop standards exploring those resources, which the company believes can be done without posing any harm to the environment or nearby communities.

“It's so important for us to set the standards the industry has to apply,” says Brown, which will ultimately put the outlook of natural gas on “much better footing.”

The company also highlights the important role a natural gas-powered market would play in renewable energy.

“Gas is the natural ally of renewables like wind and solar,” Voser says. “Wind and solar are intermittent energy sources [but] natural gas can keep the electricity flowing when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind fails to blow. Unlike many other energy sources, gas can be switched off and on quickly, and its global supply is increasingly diverse, which enhances energy security.”

The potential for transformation in America is huge. Though the US imports 20 percent of its energy today, in just a matter of years the shale gas boom and an influx of clean energy technologies will put the country on track to becoming completely self-sufficient.

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Construction has started on the first phase of a massive solar project by Forest City Military Communities and SolarCity® to provide solar electricity to 6,500 military family residences at Ohana Military Communities (OMC), which serves Navy Region Hawaii and Marine Corps Base Hawaii. The latest SolarStrong™ project is scoped for a planned 24 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity, which would make it the largest SolarCity has undertaken to date. SolarCity and Forest City have finished installing the first 700 kilowatts of solar capacity at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and will soon initiate the first installations on Navy Region Hawaii. Representatives from Forest City and SolarCity will join in a traditional Hawaiian blessing today to celebrate the initiation of the project. SolarStrong, SolarCity’s five-year plan to build more than $1 billion in solar energy projects for U.S. military housing communities, is expected to create up to 300 MW of solar generation capacity that could provide energy to as many as 120,000 military housing units.

Related Story: Army Scientists Scout Energy Solutions for the Battlefield

Primarily financed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the new project at Marine Corps Base Hawaii and Navy Region Hawaii is expected to reduce Hawaii’s dependence on the imported oil it uses to produce the majority of its electricity. The projects will help the state make a significant advance toward its ambitious Clean Energy Initiative goal to use 70% clean energy, including 40% renewable energy, by 2030. The project will also help the Department of Defense, currently the largest energy consumer in the United States, make additional progress toward its goal to have 25% of its energy requirements met by renewable energy by 2025.

Forest City is a leading developer and manager of distinctive and diversified real estate projects, with properties in 26 states and the District of Columbia. The company currently manages military family housing units in eight states from Hawaii to South Carolina for the Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force under the Armed Forces’ Public-Private Venture (PPV) Privatized Family Housing program.

“Our partnership with SolarCity on this renewable energy initiative is a strong positive for the military and for the environment. Sustainability is a corporate core value at Forest City,” said Thomas Henneberry, president of Forest City Military Communities. “This is our first involvement with the SolarStrong project and we’re hopeful to find opportunities to expand it to other portions of our portfolio.”

"Top Navy leaders support these initiatives because we are stronger, safer and less vulnerable when we embrace renewable energy and support sustainability -- in all of our communities,” said Rear Admiral Frank Ponds, Commander, Navy Region Hawaii. “We need to diversify our energy resources, and we need to build strong partnerships. For example, through the joint energy security initiative here in Hawaii we have a strong commitment to solar energy as well as other promising alternative and renewable energy sources and solutions. We are moving forward together at every opportunity to promote sustainability and security. This is the right thing to do for the Navy, for Hawaii and for the nation -- not only now, but also for generations to come."

Related story: The US Army's Great Drive for Renewable Power

"This project not only benefits our military ohana, it reduces our energy costs which directly affect how our tax payer's dollar is spent. Additionally, it reduces our reliance on foreign oil, and helps contribute to Hawaii's goal to generate 40% clean energy from locally generated renewables by 2030," said Col. Brian Annichiarico, commanding officer, Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

“Project by project, our SolarStrong initiative is assisting the Department of Defense’s impressive effort to change the way our nation’s military consumes energy,” said SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive. “The road to the Department’s goal of 25% renewable energy by 2025 is being paved, in part, with solar panels by sustainable developers such as Forest City.”

“We are pleased to be able to help finance the most recent and largest planned SolarStrong project so far,” said Jonathan Plowe, head of New Energy & Infrastructure Solutions at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “Bank of America Merrill Lynch remains a leader in financing solar power, and is proud to work with SolarCity, Forest City and the U.S. military to promote the use of clean, renewable energy and create jobs for Americans, including veterans and military family members.”

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In addition to SolarStrong, SolarCity is pursuing a veteran hiring initiative as part of its Workforce Development program. The company has hired more than 100 veterans this year in various positions within the company including IT, sales, managerial, administration, design and installation. The company has collaborated on hiring processes by partnering with several veteran programs across the country, including Veteran Affairs national offices, JPMorgan Chase & Co’s ‘100,000 Jobs Mission,’ Swords to Plowshares, The California National Guard, The California Conservation Corps and Veterans Green Jobs.

In addition to the Navy Region Hawaii and Marine Corps Base Hawaii projects announced today, there are additional SolarStrong projects underway at Fort Bliss and White Sands Missile Range in Texas, Hickam Community Housing at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Los Angeles Air Force Base, and Peterson and Schriever Air Force Bases in Colorado. Each project was financed in part by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

SOURCE: SolarCity

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Saving energy is a beautiful thing—a phrase taken quite literally by the creators behind the world's first “learning thermostat,” the Nest. Its sleek and sexy interface is enough to win over the hearts of the iPhone generation, but its technological genius is starting to win over the power market. Last month, Nest Labs revealed the new and improved Nest v3.5, while at the same time making its energy-saving features available across the nation with the help of a few strategic partnerships in the US utility market.

While most of us hardly notice thermostats, the tiny boxes adorning the walls of every home in America control a whopping ten percent of the country's energy consumption. Tony Fadell—one of the great minds behind many generations of the iPod and iPhone—didn't think they mattered either until he realized they also account for half of homeowners' energy bills. Inspired and disappointed by the lack of options available on the market, he decided to redesign the inefficient and boring looking “beige box from the 90s,” and create something that makes more sense for consumers in the 21st century.

Although Nests have been abuzz throughout Silicon Valley circles since the product first came to market in late 2011, it wasn't until now that a few strategic partnerships with power companies enabled its true accessibility across the country. NRG Energy subsidiaries like Reliant, Green Mountain Energy, Austin Energy and Southern California Edison will deploy Nest's next-generation thermostats around the US this year, offering instant online rebates to Nest customers. With minimal effort, the Nest will help most users save around 20 percent on energy bills each year, teaching them how to do even better over time.

Rush Hour Rewards, Seasonal Savings

Coinciding with moves to put Nests in thousands of new homes, Fadell and fellow former top Apple employee Matt Rogers have taken Nest functionality to the next level with tech-driven features to help reduce energy demand during peak periods, without customers losing control of their own comfort. Today, energy companies spend billions of dollars in unsuccessful efforts to incentivize people to reduce power demand during peak times like hot, summer days.

Nest's Seasonal Savings and Rush Hour Rewards features make use of the built-in Auto-Tune program, designed to automatically reduce power at key moments, while employing pre-cooling or personalized air conditioning cycling techniques to keep homes at comfortable temperatures. The system essentially learns about peoples' homes and behaviors to provide feedback and options that require minimal effort.

“By expanding our relationship with NRG, we can continue working together to turn the conversation away from cost alone toward a broader discussion about energy choices,” Fadell said in a statement. “Bundling the Nest Learning Thermostat with energy plans was a great first step. Now, the integration of Nest’s new Rush Hour Rewards and Seasonal Savings services promises to spark even more conversations about energy among NRG’s customers.”

That takes a huge load of the shoulders of local utilities, often forced to power up other plants or buy more power from third parties at higher rates as everyone cranks up the AC during summer.

"We understand when peak demand is coming," Fadell told CNET, "and work with your Nest, moving the energy load around so we don't have a peak energy problem."

Nest v3.5

Following last summer's record breaking hot months, the next-generation Nest (v3.5) is revealed at an ideal time, with a number of smarter features, including:

• Sunblock: the ability to track sun patterns within a house, automatically adjusting to correct temperatures under direct sunlight. Connected to WiFi, the Nest will also take into account sunrise and sunset to avoid cooling too much in the summer or heating too little in the winter.

• Advanced Fan Control: modes that allow users to control when and how long fans throughout the house should run for any given day.

• Cool to Dry: AC that kicks in when humidity reaches excessive levels and becomes damaging to a home.

• Improved Auto-Away to predict how long the house is vacant to help users save even more energy.

• Apps, available on mobile and tablet devices, with improved messages/alerts and easy remote access to the Nest

"These services are new--radically new--and dramatically different than any previous efforts by energy providers and thermostat makers to get their customers to save energy," Fadell said in a post.

The new approach to a very traditional and vital industry is just the beginning of a larger conversation sweeping the nation. For now at least, here's to a better summer.

For a more in-depth discussion, watch this interview with Tony Fadell at LeWeb Paris 2012:

UPDATED: In another announcement this month, Nest Labs, Inc acquired MyEnergy, a service that allows people to track their electric, gas and water usage in one place online, with users in all 50 US states, cover over 1,500 utility territories. 

“With less than 25 percent of the U.S. population connected to the smart grid, we’ve focused on developing technology that makes it easy for people to access the information they need to make decisions about their energy use,” said Ben Bixby, co-founder and CEO of MyEnergy. “We’re excited about the opportunity to join Nest to continue giving people useful, actionable information.”

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The May Edition of Energy Digital is now live!

Read the May Edition of Energy Digital here

Say hello to a clean energy future as we report on some very significant projects developing around the world in this month's issue:

Oil and Gas: Shell Takes the Lead on Natural Gas, Welcomes the Future of Clean Energy

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell takes the lead in natural gas, a move the company says will be the most significant in reducing CO2 emissions and serve as a complement to renewable energy. Thanks to the US shale boom, energy independence is closer than ever.

Renewable Energy: Revolutionary Wind Turbine Platform Premiers in Massive Wind Farm Project

Meanwhile, Australia brings its massive 420 MW Macarthur Wind Farm project online, making it the largest wind farm in the Southern Hemisphere. The country's biggest utility companies join forces with a wind turbine manufacturer that has managed to develop a technology that can tap even low to medium wind speeds—a huge win for Australia and the future of the wind industry as a whole.

Mining: Earthquakes Prove to Produce "Economic-Grade" Gold Deposits

Apparently, there's a silver lining in the occurrence of earthquakes—and it comes in the form of gold. Australian scientists recently confirmed the link between the formation of gold deposits as a result of earth's naturally occurring 20,000 annual earthquakes.

Green Tech: Nest Partners with Utilities, Aims for Peak Energy Efficiency Across the US

Nest Labs reveals the new and improved Nest v3.5, while at the same time making its energy-saving features available across the nation with the help of a few strategic partnerships in the US utility market. Saving energy is a beautiful thing—just look at these iPod-generation thermostats!

Top Ten: Oil Reserves in the World

Which countries actually have the largest reserves?

The May issue is also packed with great content and in-depth interviews with some of the world's leading companies and key players, plus much more.

Enjoy!

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By Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture)

When President Obama stated at his second inauguration that we have a moral obligation to fight climate change, Pennsylvanians saw it as a call to action. Over the past 100 days, a coalition of environmental groups including PennFuture, National Wildlife Federation, Clean Air Council, PennEnvironment, and Sierra Club have joined with Pennsylvania citizens to help fulfill that obligation by holding events across the state and generating more than 6,200 grassroots activities directed toward policymakers. These actions highlighted the need for the President and his administration to follow through on his promises to limit industrial carbon pollution that causes climate change and endangers the health of our communities.

"President Obama called climate action an 'obligation' and we spent the last 100 days showing the President we support his fulfillment of that obligation and look forward to his prioritizing American leadership on climate and clean energy during his second term," said Joy Bergey, federal policy director for PennFuture. "Right now, after the Obama Administration missed a recent court-ordered deadline, the EPA can finalize a Carbon Pollution Standard for power plants and then immediately turn its attention to curbing carbon pollution from existing power plants. These are the largest producer of dangerous carbon pollution, and a strong carbon pollution standard would be a major step forward in protecting public health, especially of our children and seniors."

In addition to the efforts in Pennsylvania, groups across the nation participated in many local actions over the last 100 days to highlight our climate action obligation that included:

1. 13,899 participants in climate change activities nationwide; and

1. 17,226 grassroots activities nationwide, such as climate change awareness events, letter writing, and phone calls to policy makers.

Those who participated say we've waited long enough for our leaders to act to protect our health and build our economy using cleaner, safer energy technology.

"People of faith recognize that we have a moral calling to care for each other and for Creation. Every year, power plants dump more than two billion tons of dangerous industrial carbon pollution into our shared air, impairing our children's health and their futures. We can work to make our lives as energy-efficient as we can, but neither individuals nor congregations can change the way power is generated," said Cricket Eccleston Hunter, executive director of PA Interfaith Power & Light. "The EPA should complete the final version of the proposed and reviewed new source standards without further delay."

There are also benefits to the economy of moving forward. "Just as the Obama administration's clean car standards are helping rebuild the American auto industry, these power plant standards to protect human health will promote the innovation and investment needed to create jobs," said Christina Simeone, director of the PennFuture Energy Center.

PennFuture is a statewide public interest membership organization, founded in 1998, with staff in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Wilkes-Barre. PennFuture's activities include litigating cases before regulatory bodies and in local, state, and federal courts; advocating and advancing legislative action on a state and federal level; public education; and assisting citizens in public advocacy.

The Philadelphia Inquirer called PennFuture the "state's leading environmental advocacy organization;" the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette named the organization "one of the 10 most influential groups on the issue of natural gas drilling;" and StateImpact Pennsylvania, an online collaboration of NPR stations across the state, called PennFuture "the commonwealth's main environmental advocate."

SOURCE Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture)

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The ocean covers over 70% of the planet, but is threatened by multiple stressors such as bottom fishing, pollution and climate change. Coral reefs support the livelihoods of almost half a billion people; marine litter affects around half of all marine mammals and kills almost a million seabirds per year. These threats require active and urgent intervention to ensure global sustainability of human livelihoods and biodiversity. Currently, habitat remediation or restoration can only be achieved in small patches. In deep sea ecosystems, these tasks are also too dangerous for direct human intervention.

The Coralbots team is comprised of scientists and engineers committed to addressing these threats using innovations in computing, marine biology, and undersea robotics to revolutionize how such threats are addressed, combining autonomous underwater robotics with 'swarm intelligence.' Nature shows how groups or swarms of organisms (e.g. bees and termites) operate collectively to achieve complex objectives. The Coralbots team plan to deploy teams of autonomous underwater robots to restore and rebuild damaged coral reefs.

The first future mission will restore reefs damaged by hurricanes and ship groundings in Belize. Running until May 26th 2013, the team have a project on Kickstarter to help accelerate this mission. Individuals, schools and corporations are invited to work with them, by contributing directly to the Kickstarter campaign, and taking up the opportunity to be directly involved. Involvement will be centred on helping the team accelerate development around the many 'artificial intelligence' tasks in the project, ranging from recognition of coral in images, to robot stability in strong currents, while the team will provide educational packages and interaction with schools.  This project represents a glimpse of the future, where robotic intelligence works alongside human activity to repair, restore and protect the future of the global environment.

SOURCE Coralbots

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Image: Sarah S. Bedair, Ph.D., an electronics engineer with U.S. Army Research Laboratory, is adjusting the settings on ink-jet printer used to deposit nanomaterials onto the surfaces of micro-devices.

By Joyce P. Brayboy, U.S. Army Research Laboratory

What if scientists and engineers could scavenge energy for warfighters, like bottom feeders scavenge in the ocean?



The U.S. Army Research Laboratory, or ARL, along with the Army science and technology community, is pursuing novel technology aspects of the Army's Operational Energy Strategy.



Energy Scavenging is just one way ARL experts are getting more from existing resources, said Dr. Edward Shaffer, who is the Energy and Power Division Chief at the lab. Energy harvesting is critical to realize "net zero" energy use, a key element of the Army's Operational Energy Strategy.


There are a number of technology areas enabling operational energy, such as energy storage, alternative energy sources, high-density power converters and micro grids that the lab is pursuing.


Department of Defense operational energy is an emerging area being shaped. It is what is required to train, move, and sustain forces, weapons, and equipment for military operations. It accounted for 75 percent of all energy used by DOD in 2009, according to the Energy website for DOD.



Related story: Military Calls for Energy Innovation, Less Foreign Oil

It was in May 2011, when the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy, Plans and Programs defined an operational energy strategy, and then published Operational Energy for the warfighter, a guide that would transform the way the DOD consumes energy in military operations.



"We want to develop technologies to enable future energy networks for the warfighter," Shaffer said. "The challenge is to develop something that could be valuable to Soldiers 15 to 20 years from now -- based on what we know today."



A past history of success in areas like electrochemistry is "informing the way forward for other technologies," he said.



"In the recent past, ARL electrochemists discovered a way to increase the duration of high-energy batteries with an electrolyte additive. Now, other teams are thinking about high-efficiency, miniature power supplies that could give small, unmanned systems bursts of power "on-demand," Shaffer said.



"Technology is ever changing," he said.



The basic research at the laboratory now will help the Army to be better in the next conflict, said John Carroll, action officer for the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command Power and Energy Technology Focus Team. "The fuel challenge won't go away. We have to fix it."



Related story: The US Army's Great Drive for Renewable Power

Shaffer originated the concept of Smart Battlefield Energy on-Demand, or SmartBED. 



"SmartBED is one way we think Soldiers would be able to link up to the power they need. It will ultimately bring complex pieces together -- generator, solar systems and energy storage -- in a flexible, resilient way into an energy network," said Carroll, who retired from the Navy as a nuclear propulsion engineer before coming to ARL.



"The essence of SmartBED is being able to get energy seamlessly when and where it is needed, but yet not wasting it," Shaffer said. "Currently, we waste energy and it limits availability because often a single power source is tied directly to a single load."



We want Soldiers to plug into the energy they need to keep their sources, batteries and devices topped off, yet drawing energy only as needed," Shaffer said. "SmartBED is designed to improve energy capacity for Soldiers while they are at base camp or otherwise on the move."



Shaffer has a wide view of the energy needs across Army, DOD and interagency forums that explore complimentary ways of addressing energy and power technology gaps and reduce duplicated efforts, including the DOD Energy and Power Community of Interest and the Interagency Advanced Power Group that includes agencies like the Department of Energy and NASA.



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These communities are comprised of scientists, engineers, subject matter experts, technologists and program managers with a common interest in promoting innovative energy and power solutions for the nation.

"One of the good things is to be able to see the flow of technology and communicate at each level," Carroll said. "We come together as a science and technology community and see what investments are necessary to better get Program Executive Offices and Program Managers the operational energy tools they need when they need it."



The Army acknowledges energy and power challenges to its operational energy concept and strategy, beyond technological improvement -- there are cultural, policy and procedural concerns that leaders are addressing.

There are ongoing research initiatives within the Army to explore alternatives and technology improvements in order to offset long-standing issues, like delivering large amounts of JP8 to the front lines, Carroll said.

The good news is that within and beyond the Army there are partners that are finding solutions and pushing technologies ahead together more smartly, he said.



At ARL, the future is a seamless energy architecture that begins with concepts like SmartBED, Long-lived Power and Fuel-Reforming for better energy convergence.


ARL will share a series of four stories that focus on far-reaching concepts of the Army operational energy strategy. The next article in the series will focus on Smart BED. Scientists and engineers at ARL forecast solutions that empower and protect Soldiers into the future with a portfolio of basic and applied science.

SOURCE: US Army

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Global wind and solar company, Mainstream Renewable Power today announced its sponsorship of a rowing expedition attempting a world first through the infamous Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic this summer. Three experienced Irish adventurers and one Canadian are attempting to become the first ever people to cross the 3,000 km passage by human power alone in a single season - a feat which is only possible due to the melting ice which normally renders it impassable.

Irishmen Paul Gleeson, Denis Barnett and Kevin Vallely along with Canadian Frank Wolf will set off from Inuvik in the North West Territories on the first of July in their 25ft long customized rowing boat "The Arctic Joule". The four men will row in continuous shifts 24 hours a day, seven days a week as the route will be in constant daylight for the majority of the journey, which is expected to take two to three months, ending at Pond Inlet in Nunavut.

Eddie O'Connor, Chief Executive of Mainstream Renewable Power said: "Mainstream is proud to sponsor this expedition because it draws attention to the disasters of global warming. The expedition can only happen because the polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate. The melting of the permafrost and the release of methane hydrate is perhaps the biggest single calamity that mankind faces and it's all down to human-induced global warming. This expedition allows us to demonstrate to the world that there is an answer to global warming. We don't have to do without electricity. We can have our electricity supplied by renewable sources."

He continued: "Just last month, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said that if we have any hope of keeping climate change below two degrees Celsius, the peak year of carbon emission has to be 2016. I hope this expedition will show world leaders that we need to act now."

This announcement comes as EU Environment Ministers met at Dublin Castle last week to discuss a range of important environmental and climate issues as part of the Irish Presidency agenda.

Speaking about the expedition Paul Gleeson said: "We are very pleased that such a successful, Irish renewable energy company with a global presence feels as passionately about this as we do. It wasn't long ago that the Northwest Passage was the sole domain of steel-hulled ice-breakers. We hope by making this traverse completely under human power in a row boat, without sail or motor, in a single season we will be able to demonstrate first-hand the profound effects climate change is having on our world."

The Northwest Passage is a route through the various islands of the Canadian archipelago which over the years has witnessed some incredible tales of courage, disaster and hardship. In 1845, fellow-Irishman, Francis Crozier from County Down joined Sir John Franklin on the same expedition in the HMS Terror, an expedition which ended in disaster and to this day remains unsolved.

SOURCE Mainstream Renewable Power

Photo sourced via PR Newswire

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