Black Is The New Green ?  

There has been quite a bit of chatter lately about "green being the new black" in the fashion industry and elsewhere. So I was somewhat surprised to find that black could be the new green. Will this circular reference result in both being sucked beyond the event horizon ?

Black holes turn out to be "green".

These monstrous matter-sucking drains in space are the most fuel-efficient engines in the universe, researchers said.

Just how efficient? If a car could use this kind of engine, it could theoretically go about 356 million km on 1 litre of gas, said Steve Allen of Stanford University in California.

Unfortunately, no earthly car could do this, as black holes are fuelled by matter lured by the holes' vast gravity. Their pull is so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape.

Most of the energy released by this matter as it gets close to the black hole's point of no return - known as the event horizon - shows up in the form of high-energy jets, which spew forth from magnetised disks of gas.

While you'll never have a black hole in the basement churning out energy for you, you could at least get a power supply for your computer that doesn't waste more than half the energy delivered to it. WorldChanging has a post on "80 Plus Power Supplies" - maybe you should add one to your shopping list as a small gesture towards Earth Day.

Your computer wastes as much energy being a space heater as it does computing, because most computer power supplies are less than 50% efficient. Want to cut your desktop's power use by almost half, help it run cooler, and make it more reliable, all at the same time? Get a machine with an 80 Plus power supply.

80 Plus is a certification program for power supplies which says the device must be at least 80% efficient and have a power factor of at least .9. According to their fact sheets:

- "Efficient power supplies directly save 85 kWh per desktop PC per year, and 300 kWh per server per year."
- "reduced heat output increases computer system reliability by up to 40%."
- "higher power factor reduces current draw by roughly 50%, which means that up to twice as many computers can be placed on the same branch circuit."
- "computers with 80 PLUS power supplies will reduce building cooling loads."

They also mention that 80 Plus power supplies can eliminate the need for a fan, making your computer quieter and more pleasant to be around. This is one of those great situations where being greener means being higher quality across the board, with multiple benefits. So get yours today! I'm not aware of any big-name brands that use 80 Plus certified power supplies, but a small Oregon computer maker, Computer Technology Link (CTL), sells them. (Their circuit boards are lead-free, too.) And the 80 Plus website has a page describing how you can specify certification from manufacturers when making purchases.

TreeHugger also has a post on gadgets that will save energy (and money).

Here are three gadgets that can actually pay for themselves, and can even start to save you money in the long run.

The first is the Spin-X dryer which uses centrifugal force to dry clothes quickly and efficiently. By rotating at 3300 RPM, the dryer removes a quart of water from clothes using the same amount of energy a regular clothes dryer uses in the first 15 seconds of operation.

The second is the Vornado IntelliTemp Heater. These efficient space heaters can keep a room at a even temperature using a electronic thermostat which you set. Spacing heating uses much less electricity than whole house heating in general, unless you already have a very efficient system installed.

The third efficient gadget is the Rayovac 15 Minute Battery Charger. These chargers do indeed charge the special Rayovac NiMH batteries in 15 minutes. The batteries are quite reliable and hold up well after many recharges. One drawback is that the batteries only reach 85% capacity in 15 minutes — you have to leave them in the charger overnight if you want something close to a 100% charge. Despite this, they are one of the most convenient ways to keep a supply of batteries available.

Heading back to WorldChanging, a post on the American Institute for Architecture's "Ten Greenest Buildings".

We've been covering the American Institute for Architectures efforts to promote green building for some time now, but their latest list of the top ten green buildings of 2006 is no disappointment. It even includes my favorite new public building here in Seattle, the Ballard library:

The Ballard Library and Neighborhood Service Center draws on this Seattle neighborhood's Scandinavian and maritime roots while focusing on the future of the community, composed of a young, diverse population.

The gently curving green roof absorbs water, reducing stormwater runoff. The periscope and observation deck invite visitors to engage in the roof's ecology above the street. Daylighting studies allowed the team to maximize the use of varying intensities of natural light, and metered, photovoltaic glass panels shade the Neighborhood Service Center lobby, demonstrating the effectiveness of photovoltaic technology in the Pacific Northwest. The design team hoped to create a facility that would be a dynamic teaching tool for green design and environmental awareness. The project illustrates that green building is feasible within a modest budget and presents an ideal example of some of the benefits that can be realized when green design combines with extraordinary architecture.

The summary doesn't go into all the library's green features, which are detailed here. It really is an extraordinary building, one which points the way to bright green architecture and fits wonderfully into the neighborhood.

In a piece of synchronicity I also came across the AIA at JD's temple of anti-doomerism recently - while some of his rants seem just as wildly biased as those of the doomers who vex him so, he does occasionally come up with some pleasantly Viridian links - so here's a rare link to a POD post (to which he'll probably correctly point out that as he gets far more comments, and presumably readers, than I do he's hardly in need of it) on the subject of natural air conditioning - an architectural technique which looks entirely appropriate to Australia too.

By accident, my apartment has this strange natural air-conditioning. I noticed it when I first moved here. Every summer when it gets hot, I just open the front and back windows, and an incredible draft blows through. The blow rate is roughly equivalent to the medium setting on my 45 watt fan.

It blows constantly, always in the same direction, and I wondered about it for quite a while. The explanation seems to be this: Out back there's a black asphalt parking lot, which is usually about half full. The air rises off the asphalt, creating a convection current which draws in cool air from the shaded courtyard at the front of the building.

I spoke to some people, and apparently this technique has a long history. The romans used it, and it's a classic motif of middle-eastern architecture -- often enhanced by adding shade, trees and water in the courtyard, and tall convection chimneys.

These ideas are catching on in the architectural community. One example is the Eastgate Center in Harare, Zimbabwe...

Heading back to TreeHugger, they also have posts on a new entrant to the green chemistry arena, a Missouri bioplastic factory and the potential of HDR geothermal energy.

We first hinted at the potential of hot rocks mid last year. Then it seemed little more than a distant and esoteric sci-fi type idea. However with nuclear rearing its ugly head, as a possible and supposedly greenhouse-gas-neutral panacea to our looming energy woes, new alternatives are keenly sought. (Though as the International Herald Tribune noted this week “Nuclear power plants would take too long to build, would need subsidies and may cut carbon emissions less than expected, the [British] House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee said.”) No doubt in light of such views, the Australian state government of Victoria recently requested commercial interest in 31 exploration drilling permits to find the state’s best hot rock sites. Part of their goal to have 10% of Victoria’s energy go ‘green’ by 2010. The concept is simple really. Pump water down into the Earth’s core, so it can be super heated by contact with those hot rocks, returning to the surface as steam, which in turn drive turbines to create energy. The water is basically in a close loop, so after spinning said turbines it’s sent off down into the bowels once more. Links to more articles on the Geothermal page of ::Alternative Energy News.

See also Hot Rocks at Australian National University and Geodynamics. A similar project to the Australian ones is underway in France. More on this in the MIT Technology Review.

While GeoDynamics' quest to harness the power of the earth is still slowly grinding forwards (I get a steady stream of company announcements about the various technical drilling challenges they face in my in tray), another Australian alternative energy company that I'd filed under "highly speculative" seems to be having more success than I'd anticipated - albeit by going to alternative energy friendly Germany for funding.

Large Solar Wafer Production Operation Destined for Germany

Prime Solar Pty Ltd., a Perth based company, will set up a manufacturing facility in Germany to produce 680 megawatts (MW) per year of silicon wafers at an estimated project cost of US $525 million. The facility will operate 24 hours a day and offer more than 1,000 full-time employment opportunities.

The wafers produced by Prime Solar will be used in the manufacturing of silicon solar cells by Q-Cells of Germany. The first phase of the project of 50 MW per annum capacity will be set up at Thalheim, Germany's Solar Valley, approximately 50 km north of Leipzig, in 2006-2007 with a total project cost of US $45 million.