A landmark along the Tokyo-Osaka railway, Sanyo's Solar Ark is 344 yards wide with an annual output of 530,000 kWh. (Credit: Sanyo)

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is [...]]]> Japan eyes solar panels on all new buildings
by Tim Hornyak, cnet.com
May 24, 2011

A landmark along the Tokyo-Osaka railway, Sanyo's Solar Ark is 344 yards wide with an annual output of 530,000 kWh. (Credit: Sanyo)

Struggling with a continuing nuclear crisis and strains on its power supplies, Japan is thinking of requiring that all new buildings, including homes, come equipped with rooftop solar panels by 2030, according to a recent Nikkei newspaper report.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan may announce the plan this week at a G8 summit in France, the business daily reported. Kan has pledged to review Japan’s energy policy and increase renewable sources following the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, which was hit by the March 11 earthquake and tsunamis.

Kan hopes a solar-energy requirement for new buildings, along with technological innovation, would help reduce the cost of solar-power generation.

The government’s current energy policy includes plans to increase nuclear energy to more than half of the total supply by 2030 as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Japan now gets about 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear sources.

Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) said today that three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant probably suffered meltdowns early into the emergency, and their inner pressure vessels may have been breached. While Units 2 and 3 experienced partial meltdowns, Unit 1 was most severely affected.

An International Atomic Energy Agency team has also begun to look into how Japan has handled the worst nuclear accident in decades, which has left parts of the Tohoku region uninhabitable.

Tepco is trying to get the reactors under control by January. Its April electricity output was down 15 percent from a year earlier and shortages are expected to continue into the summer. Since western Japan runs on a different frequency, Tepco can’t easily import large power supplies from other cities.

Japanese have been cooperating with emergency power conservation campaigns since the quake. As a result, they’ll likely be less keen to use air conditioning, so this summer may be particularly hot and sticky in Tokyo.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/japan-eyes-solar-panels-on-all-new-buildings/8301-17938_105-20065704-1.html

As production of the fuel-efficient 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano begins this fall at the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant, 40 percent of the energy required to build the vehicles will come from burning [...]]]> GM to use landfill gases as an energy-saver at Orion plant
by Suzanne Ashe, cnet.com
May 23, 2011

As production of the fuel-efficient 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano begins this fall at the General Motors Orion Assembly Plant, 40 percent of the energy required to build the vehicles will come from burning gas from a nearby landfill. (Credit: General Motors)

General Motors has taken steps to make the Orion Assembly Plant even more energy efficient including using landfill gas to cut energy costs.

The plant will begin assembling the 2012 Chevrolet Sonic and Buick Verano this fall. With an upgraded paint shop that is heated by natural and landfill gas, the painting process will use half of the energy per vehicle of the one it replaced. The system runs exclusively on landfill gas primarily to generate steam for heating and compressed air for most of the year.

According to GM, both the Sonic and Verano use a new eco paint that eliminates the need for a primer oven and increases quality and appearance due to waterborne base coats.

Running a full three-shift capacity, the Michigan plant will reduce greenhouse gas production by about 80,000 metric tons, the equivalent of 14,000 vehicles per year, and the electricity reduction equals the output from 3,500 homes. This will save the automaker $1.1 million a year in energy costs.

From 2005 to 2009 Orion Assembly Plant workers reduced total waste by 26 percent.(Credit: General Motors)

“Orion is a great example of the latest technologies employed by GM manufacturing around the globe,” said Eric Stevens, GM vice president of Global Manufacturing Engineering. “As we converted the facility to support the small car program, we took every opportunity to engineer in flexibility and lean manufacturing concepts.”

Use of landfill gas is just one of the ways the plant lessens its environmental impact. GM has also made lighting system upgrades that save more than 5,944 megawatts of electricity per year (at a cost savings of $430,000) and has cut carbon dioxide by 3,676 metric tons.

Plant workers track energy use on an hourly basis with sophisticated software, enabling them to see real-time usage by department to improve their equipment shutdown activities, GM said.

“Environmentally friendly choices often translate to higher efficiency and quality,” said Maureen Midgley, GM executive director of Global Manufacturing Engineering.

Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20065400-48.html

Santa Clara U. has installed 60 rooftop solar collectors. (Credit: Chromasun)

If concentrating sunlight works for utility-scale solar power plants, how about for heating and cooling a single building?

Santa Clara University, which sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, said [...]]]> Solar concentrator graces university rooftop
by Martin LaMonica, cnet.com
April 13, 2011

Santa Clara U. has installed 60 rooftop solar collectors. (Credit: Chromasun)

If concentrating sunlight works for utility-scale solar power plants, how about for heating and cooling a single building?

Santa Clara University, which sits in the heart of Silicon Valley, said yesterday that it has started using 60 rooftop solar collectors atop its student center to concentrate sunlight to generate heat, a technique typically used only for large-scale solar systems.

The solar collectors were developed by start-up Chromasun, which was formed to adapt solar concentrators for commercial rooftops. By heating water to as high as 400 degrees, the solar thermal system can be used for both hot water and to fuel air conditioners for commercial buildings.

The collectors use optics to concentrate sunlight 25 times, allowing them to heat water to 200 degrees. Santa Clara University, which installed the collectors for student center dining services, estimates it will reduce the building’s natural gas heating load by 70 percent and offset 34 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The collectors concentrate sunlight 25 times. (Credit: Chromasun)

With a California solar rebate program, the return on the initial investment is six years. The university will pay a fixed price for energy from the collectors under a 10-year lease and then own them afterward. The components were manufactured in nearby San Jose.

“The [collector] is visually stunning, is ideal for commercial-scale solar heating and cooling applications, and has an ingenious mounting system that ensures even large-scale systems go in quickly and easily,” Justin Weil, the president of SunWater Solar, a solar thermal installation company, said yesterday in a statement.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20053462-54.html

The Blythe plant will use parabolic trough technology, in which heat from mirrors generates steam that passes through turbines to create electricity. (Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

The world’s largest solar power plant cleared an important hurdle [...]]]> Calif. solar plant, to be world’s largest, wins key approval
by Reuters
September 16, 2010

The Blythe plant will use parabolic trough technology, in which heat from mirrors generates steam that passes through turbines to create electricity. (Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management)

The world’s largest solar power plant cleared an important hurdle on Wednesday, laying the groundwork for a dramatic expansion in solar energy generation in the United States and around the world.

The proposed $6 billion-plus Blythe, Calif., plant, originally proposed by Chevron and Solar Millennium, won clearance to build from the California Energy Commission.

The plant has a capacity of 1,000 megawatts. By comparison, for all of last year, the U.S. installed about 481 megawatts of solar energy, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association. The largest solar plants to date are in the 200- to 350-megawatt range.

The Blythe plant essentially groups four 250MW plants, with the first slated to start generating electricity in 2013. The total price tag is estimated at north of $6 billion.

On Wednesday, Solar Millennium said it and Ferrostaal were the sole two co-developers, working through a U.S. joint venture, Solar Trust of America. Chevron maintained it was still a co-developer through Chevron Energy Solutions.

The commission said it had received no word that Chevron had dropped out. Although Chevron is still listed as a developer on the commission’s Web site, it didn’t mention Chevron in its press release about the approval.

The developers have already struck an agreement with Southern California Edison, which has said it will purchase the full capacity of the first two plants.

The plant will make electricity by using mirrors to heat a fluid that generates steam, which expands through steam turbine generators. The technique is known as parabolic trough technology.

It is one of nine proposed California solar plants that federal and state regulators are trying to evaluate by the end of the year.

Solar plants that begin construction before December 31 qualify for a Treasury Department grant totaling 30 percent of a project’s cost, as part of last year’s economic stimulus package.

Building Blythe would create up to 1,004 construction jobs, a spokeswoman for Solar Millennium says. Unemployment in the area slated for the plant is above the state average of 12.35 percent, commissioners said during a meeting Wednesday.

If all nine fast-tracked plants win approval and are constructed, they will create an additional 4,300MW of solar power. But the bulk of the plants won’t start generating energy until 2013.

For Blythe, the developers still need final approval from the Bureau of Land Management for use of public lands. The BLM is scheduled to rule on the matter toward the end of next month.

To win the most favorable financing from outside investors, the developers must also secure a Department of Energy loan.

The DOE is currently evaluating the Blythe plant’s proposal, including its engineering and financial models.

Having the DOE approval “really lowers the risk to the eventual lender,” says Burt Chao, an analyst at Simmons & Co. “The government’s pretty thorough in vetting these projects.”

The DOE, which has a large backlog of applications, is reviewing them “as quickly and efficiently as possible,” says Julie Offner, a DOE loan-guarantee analyst.

Story Copyright (c) 2010 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20016635-54.html#ixzz0zv1ABnaS

Yahoo thinks its plan for a new data center could eventually help the company achieve carbon-neutral status without having to resort to the purchase of carbon offsets.

Yahoo's David Dibble discusses the company's plans for a Buffalo-area [...]]]> News: Yahoo redesigns data center, ditches carbon offsets
by Tom Krazit, CNET News
June 30, 2009

Yahoo thinks its plan for a new data center could eventually help the company achieve carbon-neutral status without having to resort to the purchase of carbon offsets.

Yahoo's David Dibble discusses the company's plans for a Buffalo-area data center with New York Senator Charles Schumer (right, red tie) and other state officials. (Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo designed its forthcoming data center to let outside air cool the servers at all times, borrowing the idea from the design of a chicken coop, according to Yahoo co-founder David Filo. The company joined New York officials such as Governor David Patterson and Senator Charles Schumer Tuesday to unveil plans for the data center, the design of which Yahoo is attempting to patent.

Data centers are vital to huge Internet businesses such as Yahoo, and companies throughout this industry have started paying more and more attention to the amount of energy consumed by facilities that can have thousands of servers running all day, every day. Google has talked up its own push for greater efficiency in its data centers, and Microsoft just announced plans for two new data centers geared around energy efficiency.

As part of the announcement of the new data center in Lockport, N.Y., just outside of Buffalo, Yahoo also revealed that it will no longer purchase carbon offsets as part of its energy strategy. Carbon offsets have been controversial in some quarters, but they allow companies to claim they are “carbon neutral,” in that purchasing offsets diverts money to green projects.

Yahoo plans to focus its green strategy on projects such as the Buffalo data center rather than the purchase of offsets, which means it will take them some time to return to the carbon-neutral goal set in 2007. “We believe creating highly-efficient data centers will have a greater long-term, direct impact on the environment and gives us the best opportunity to play a leadership role in addressing climate change,” Filo wrote.

Corrected at 3:05 p.m.: Yahoo clarified the new data center will be in Lockport, N.Y., just outside of Buffalo.

Source URL: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10276103-54.html?tag=mncol;title

At Abengoa Solar's facility in Spain, mirrors heat a liquid in a tower, on right, that produces steam to make up to 20 megawatts of electricity. (Credit: Abengoa)

At Abengoa Solar’s facility in Spain, mirrors heat [...]]]> News: Spain plugs in largest solar-tower power plant
by Martin LaMonica, CNET News
April 28, 2009

At Abengoa Solar's facility in Spain, mirrors heat a liquid in a tower, on right, that produces steam to make up to 20 megawatts of electricity. (Credit: Abengoa)

At Abengoa Solar’s facility in Spain, mirrors heat a liquid in a tower, on right, that produces steam to make up to 20 megawatts of electricity.

Abengoa Solar of Spain on Monday reported successful tests of its second solar tower in operation, in which the sun’s heat is used to make electricity.

The 531-foot solar tower, located near Seville, Spain, features a number of improvements on the first design and has exceeded the anticipated output. Called PS20, the installation is the largest in the world with a capacity of 20 megawatts, enough electricity to supply 10,000 homes, according to the company.

A solar tower configuration uses a field of heliostats, or mirrors, to concentrate sunlight onto a receiver held in the tower. The heat creates steam which turns a turbine to make electricity. The PS20 project has 1,255 of these heliostats, with each heliostat having a surface area of 1,291 square feet.

Concentrating solar thermal technology has been used in desert areas in Spain and the southwest U.S. for decades and is seeing a resurgence as utilities seek out cost-effective solar power.

The traditional solar concentrating power uses rows of mirrored troughs that follow the sun over the course of the day.

Solar tower technology is considered the successor technology to mirrored troughs and is being pursued by a number of solar companies, including renewable energy powerhouse Abengoa and California start-ups BrightSource Energy and eSolar.

Abengoa Solar said that this installation improved on the first solar tower in Spain with better control systems and solar thermal energy storage system.

This story has been updated. See below for details.

Oracle, not IBM, will be buying Sun Microsystems.

Oracle and Sun announced Monday that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun [...]]]> News: Oracle to buy Sun in $7.4 billion deal
by Jonathan Skillings, CNET News
April 20, 2009

This story has been updated. See below for details.

Oracle, not IBM, will be buying Sun Microsystems.

Oracle and Sun announced Monday that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Oracle will acquire Sun common stock for $9.50 per share in cash. That puts the value of the transaction at about $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.

Oracle President Safra Catz said in a statement:

We expect this acquisition to be accretive to Oracle’s earnings by at least 15 cents on a non-GAAP basis in the first full year after closing. We estimate that the acquired business will contribute over $1.5 billion to Oracle’s non-GAAP operating profit in the first year, increasing to over $2 billion in the second year. This would make the Sun acquisition more profitable in per share contribution in the first year than we had planned for the acquisitions of BEA, PeopleSoft and Siebel combined.

Sun made its name as a supplier of server hardware during the dot-com heyday, but its best-known technology is software: the Java programming language. In the Monday morning announcement, the two companies said that Java is the “most important software Oracle has ever acquired.”

An early take from my colleague Larry Dignan at ZDNet:

My hunch is that (Oracle CEO Larry) Ellison saw the possibilities of integrating hardware and software with Oracle’s Exadata database machine. Ellison boasted that the Exadata machine has seen strong demand on Oracle’s earnings conference call.

Sun’s board has unanimously approved the transaction. The deal is expected to close this summer, subject to Sun stockholder approval, regulatory approvals, and closing conditions.

Last month, reports surfaced that IBM wanted to buy Sun, but Sun didn’t like the terms that Big Blue was offering.

Update, 5:59 a.m. PDT: On a conference call to present the deal to investors, Catz emphasized that Oracle expects to make money from its Sun property.

“We intend to ensure that it is profitable,” Catz said, having noted that Oracle will combine the software assets quickly after closing the deal. “We believe we will be able to run Sun at substantially higher margins.”

In its most recent quarter, Sun reported a net loss of $209 million, or 28 cents a share, on revenue of $3.22 billion. Revenue was down 11 percent year over year.

Also on the call, Ellison said that Java is “critical” to Oracle’s middleware and that the company’s middleware offerings are on track to be as big as its database business. Sun’s Solaris software, he said, is “by far best Unix technology available on market,” though he also spoke well of Linux.

Sun Chairman Scott McNealy and CEO Jonathan Schwartz joined Oracle’s team on the call.

“We’re thrilled to be acquired by Oracle,” McNealy said.

Historical footnote, 6:35 a.m. PDT: Ellison didn’t always see Sun as a desirable takeover target. In 2003, when Oracle was in the throes of trying to acquire PeopleSoft, Ellison said that buying Sun would be a “bad idea.” At Oracle’s annual shareholder meeting that October, Ellison said: “I don’t think Oracle should be in the hardware business, so I don’t think you’ll see us buying any hardware companies.”

Update, 9:50 a.m. PDT: Sun’s shares jumped about 35 percent when the stock market opened Monday to $9.07, following Friday’s close at $6.69, and have been holding at about that level through the morning.

Oracle’s shares opened about 7 percent lower, at $17.77 versus Friday’s closing price of $19.06. The stock has since risen to about $18.60.

Sun stock movement:

Sun's stock jumped around 35 percent first thing Monday on word of Oracle's takeover bid. (Credit: Yahoo Finance)

Reporters caught up with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer in Moscow to get his take on Oracle’s deal to buy Sun, but apparently Ballmer, who is rarely at a loss for words, didn’t exactly have a sound byte at the ready.

“I need to think about it,” Ballmer told reporters. “I am very surprised.”

Oracle is, of course, one of Microsoft’s chief rivals in the database and business applications space–a fact that Ballmer highlighted in an interview in February. Sun is also a longtime rival, although the two companies have had a technology partnership in recent years stemming from their settlement of legal hostilities back in 2004.

Lithium ion battery company A123Systems has received a $69 million investment round from General Electric and others, the company announced Monday.

With its latest funding, A123Systems plans to expand its facilities in Massachusetts and Michigan, [...]]]> A123Systems receives $69 million from GE, others
by Dawn Kawamoto – CNET News
April 13, 2009 12:21 PM PDT

Lithium ion battery company A123Systems has received a $69 million investment round from General Electric and others, the company announced Monday.

With its latest funding, A123Systems plans to expand its facilities in Massachusetts and Michigan, as well as build new facilities in Michigan. A portion of the proceeds will also be used to develop applications for the smart grid, such as utility-scale storage. The company has its headquarters in Watertown, Mass.

GE invested $15 million toward this latest round, bringing its total investment stake to 10 percent in the company. A123Systems also announced GE will receive a seat on its board of directors.

“We’ve accelerated our plans to expand our U.S. manufacturing. We do not believe our country can afford to wait to develop advanced batteries,” David Vieau, A123Systems chief executive, said in a statement.

A123′s battery cells are used in hybrid electric vehicles and electric cars. The company’s batteries and battery systems are also used for grid energy storage and portable power.

Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are both courting microblogging service Twitter Inc. because of its search ad revenue potential, according to a report Thursday.

A Wall Street Journal blog reported that many experts think Twitter’s instant 140-character [...]]]> Report: Google, Microsoft court Twitter
by Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
Thursday, April 9, 2009

Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are both courting microblogging service Twitter Inc. because of its search ad revenue potential, according to a report Thursday.

A Wall Street Journal blog reported that many experts think Twitter’s instant 140-character format will be next big thing for search, which is dominated now by Mountain View-based Google (NASDAQ:GOOG), with Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) lagging behind.

Earlier this month media reports said Google was in talks to buy Twitter, with figure of $250 million to $1 billion bandied about.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone downplayed but didn’t refute the rumors in a blog post later, writing “It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects,” he said. “Our goal is to build a profitable, independent company and we’re just getting started”

A deal for Twitter has long been rumored.