Green Product Reports:
Briefs on Batteries, Cables, CFLs, Controls, LEDs, Lighting, Meters & More
GE’S GREEN CHIEF TALKS — the GreenInc blog (on the New York Times site) ran a 3/26 item on the thinking of Steve Fludder, VP of GE’s Ecomagination unit. The unit’s annual revenue is $17 billion, after several years of 20% annual growth.
GE, SMART METERS & THE OLYMPICS — GE plans to “provide a range of smart meter systems” to the 2012 Olympic Village (in London). More.
BUILDING ADVISORY ENDORSES LEDs — “With so much emphasis being placed on energy efficiency, green buildings, and sustainability — how can you ignore a technology that could reduce your lighting costs by 50-90%?” asks Realcomm. Answer: You can’t.
LIGHTING FROM NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC — Yes, seriously. The National Geographic Preserve Our Plant Hybrid Lighting Collection becomes available May 1 — exclusively through LAMPS PLUS — offering green features. Release.
LIQUID BATTERIES = GREEN POWER STORAGE — a Discovery Channel report says MIT scientists are “developing large, eco-friendly stationary batteries made entirely from liquid metal.” The idea: To store large quantities of power (from wind farms or solar cells). From Don Sadoway, MIT scientist: “Our batteries have no solid materials in them; no solid electrodes, no solid membranes, no solid anything.”
MALFUNCTIONING CFLs DON’T SAVE ENERGY — that’s the gist of a feature in the 3/28 New York Times (link — you might have to register, which is free, to see the article). A critic willing to be quoted by name: Michael Siminowitch of the U. of California at Davis: “In pursuit of the holy grail, we stopped on the consumer.” On the Energy Star CFL standard: “The standard essentially establishes a floor, which sorts out the junk, with the expectation that the rest is good. It’s not.”
PRODUCTS FOR GREEN RETROFITS — BuildingGreen.com named the Top 10 products for “affordable” green retrofits. Of possible interest: Lighting & Plug Load occupancy sensors, energy dashboards, and LED exit signs.
SUPERCONDUCTOR FOR LOWER MANHATTAN — scientists in March “fired 60,000 amps through a cable during a critical test.” The scientists were at Oak Ridge National Laboratory; they were testing a superconductor cable to be installed next year in New York City’s financial district. According to the Associated Press report, cables like this “could prove key to the smart, secure, super grid of the future.”
VERIZON TO ENABLE GREENER HOMES — from a Fast Company magazine report: “Verizon can remotely update home routers, which means that customers can, too. So once we give thermostats and window shades IP addresses, we can turn down the heat and schedule the shades to open or close on a daily schedule — all from our cell phones.”