An article which I read the other day was quite telling. A technology blog did a study into power consumption on servers running Windows and Linux operating systems. After some energy efficiency software tweaks, Linux came out to be more power efficient than it’s counterpart. Up to 12 percent as a matter of fact. When talking about servers, that represents a lot of energy!

Finding Energy Efficient Linux Hosting

As a webmaster and voracious nerd, I like to know that my industry is pulling its weight when it comes to the environment and building a sustainable future. Rackspace is a company that is doing just that – they’re selling environmentally friendly web servers to people. Dubbed as “Green Configurations”, these hosting packages use around 30 percent less energy.

Not only does the hardware consume less power, but the operating system is configurable to use a lot less power also.

Take a look at Greenspace for more information.

At first sight, this appears to be a great method for producing oil but since uptake on this source has been slow and relatively under the bridge, I’m a little skeptical about it. Nevertheless, many sources indicate that this source of oil is the only feasible way to replace petroleum completely.

Since I’m interested in this, I did a little reading to find out the benefits and downsides to this form of algae production. These are derived from Oilgae.com. Let’s take a look at the benefits first:

Advantages to Algae Oil Production

• No need to use crops such as palms to produce oil.
• Algae Oil Extracts can be used as livestock feed and even processed into ethanol.
• High levels of polyunsaturates in algae biodiesel is suitable for cold weather climates.
• Grows practically anywhere.
• Can reduce carbon emissions based on where it’s grown.

Disadvantages to Algae Oil Production

• Produces unstable biodiesel with many polyunsturates.
• Relatively new technology.
• Biodiesel performs poorly compared to it’s mainstream alternative.

Oil Produced by Algae Looks OK

So far, from what I’ve read, it appears as though this is a relatively safe source of oil and it’s nice to know that we do have a backup plan for when oil reserves run out.

For more information about algae oil production, have a read of these sites, or refer to my related posts:

Algae Oil Extraction

Algae Bio-diesel Produces Efficiently

Why bother with face to face meetings when you can have a perfectly good holographic meeting? I mean, it reduces travel costs, means you can have a meeting on demand and you can reduce the amount of energy you waste in flights, car travel and taxiing. Perfect solution!

Petrol Prices and Fossil Fuels

It’s no surprise that petrol prices are climbing steadily from a diminishing supply. If we continue to use thes recources they will run dry – no doubt about that. We need to make the switch from combustion engines over toward renewable energy and environmentally friendly sources of energy. Since telecommunication networks all run on electricity, it’s possible to run them from alternative energy sources.

Renewable Energy Alternatives

If you encourage work from home, you can effectively power your operations from renewable energy sources. I’m assuming your energy company uses a portion of renewable energy sources as a part of its plan. Here are a handful of sources:

Solar Power

Solar Power can be based off solar stills or solar arrays. Whilst these babies cost a mint to setup, deploy and maintain, they produce no emissions whatsoever.

Hydro Power

These plants are quite noisy but as a renewable and clean source of energy, the trade off is quite simple. You local government can get free energy by installing hydro power turbines in their dam.

Fuel Cells

As I’ve covered before, this relatively new technology makes use of the abundant resources such as methanol and hydrogen. They’re ultimately clean and they provide a lot of power from batteries, that can power laptops and other communication devices on the road.

Wind Power

Perhaps the ultimate in renewable energy, wind turbines generate power from the wind. Currently China is trying to implement a fair amount of renewable energy in their power grid.

Carbon Offsets

If you still decide to travel around the country or the world for business, you might even like to take on carbon offsets. You can position yourself as the green choice in the market and create a sense of corporate responsibility.

STA Travel does carbon offsets over at their website, now.

The Verdict on Reducing Travel Energy Waste

So, try and see how your business or the business that you work for can effectively reduce travel costs and maximise the use of new telecommunications advances. I’m sure you will be pleasantly surprised. It’s a cool new way to live, work and conduct business across the world.

The days are numbered for the old internal combustion engine, that runs off petrol. Today we’re working towards adopting a new fuel that is renewable and bountiful. That fuel is methanol.

Efoy have developed a range of fuel cells for the environmentally concious market. They’re relatively light, portable and accessible to anyone willing to fork out $3500 Australian Dollars (minimum) over at Neco. Unfortunately, for the purpose of this article, I was unable to obtain an Efoy fuel cell for testing, but that doesn’t stop me from shedding a bit of light on this powerful new technology.

What the Efoy Fuel Cell Does

This brand of fuel cell doesn’t use the traditional hydrogen fuel as a source of power but methanol, a by-product in the production of ethanol. This means sugar cane farmers and sugar companies across the world will be the new OPEC for this type of fuel cell.

Basically, the fuel cell generates power and charges batteries located within the system. This provides stable power on demand.

No Need to Worry About Hydrogen

If you’re concerned about taking a tank of volatile hydrogen with you, you can probably feel a bit safer with the Efoy fuel cell technology. Since you’ll just be taking a bottle or two of methanol, you don’t have to worry about it any more than you do with petrol. That said, methanol does scare me in some regards.

Taking the Efoy Fuel Cell, Camping?

As a self confessed internet addict, this would be a perfect accomplice for taking camping. You could bring your laptop along with you on a trip and

Plane Trips / Cafe Visits Efoy Fuel Cell, Style

Unfortunately, this is not one of those things you can take with you down to the local cafe to power your laptop. Fuel cells are still, much too large for every-day practical use, despite recent advancements (namely Toshiba’s smallest fuel cell). Realistically, you’re not going to cart around an 8kg package and methanol containers to match.

Let’s not even talk about the practicality of taking this through an airport terminal! After liquids have been banned, they’re certainly not going to let you aboard with 10 liters of methanol.

Who Needs an Efoy Fuel Cell?

If anyone needs one of these cells, it would have to be the outdoor tourism business. If you’re needing to power a computer, lighting setup, communications system or any other electrical component that chews through serious power, one of these Fuel Cells is for you.

Next on the list would be people using mobile homes. Stick one of these babies in your caravan and you’ll be powered on methanol for days. Combine that with solar power and you have a pretty solid system in place.

Where to Find the Efoy Fuel Cell?

Efoy has a website which you can browse around here. Although, if you’re looking to purchase one of these, you should take a look at neco. Neco is one of my favourite eco-super stores.

I went for a walk the other day and came back sweating like an animal. Instead of taking a warm shower and getting comfortable in the shower, I decided to go caveman style and take a cold one. It was amazingly chilling but at the same time, energizing. I couldn’t stand to be under it for more than 2 or 3 minutes so I quickly soaped up, washed my hair and jumped out.

Not only was this much quicker than my usual indulgent showers, I also saved water and energy. Now I think I might have cold showers more often. If you look at it this way, I’ll become adapted to the shock of taking a cold shower and I’ll feel more refreshed as I leave the shower.

I dare you to live on the edge and try one out for yourself! It’s staggeringly refreshing and it conserves vital resources, too.

Anyway, I’m going to go and have some lunch then leave for my afternoon walk.

Today, I’m going to show you a different way of saving energy that I doubt you’ve thought of.

When you go out camping or venturing into the outdoors, you always need a torch, right? Well what happens when you’re energy hungry bulb sucks all the power out of your battery? You have to dispose of it or recharge it, if you’re lucky enough to use rechargeable batteries. What you might not have considered, is there are alternatives out there to using these power hungry devices – they’re new and they’re in fashion.

They are LED Lanterns.

Amazon are currently selling one (shown above), for $40. Not only will this last for 400 hours, it will also be much brighter than traditional bulbs. Perhaps when you go camping next, instead of sitting around a fire every night for light, breathing in smoke, you could opt for LED Lantern and save energy instead.

Well you’re in luck!

Scientists from the UK firm, Ecotec, have developed a process to turn by products of chocolate production into biofuel. Therefore, the waste which used to be sent to landfill, can now be made to run cars for us.

Ecotec even produce a number of domestic biofuel converters so you can produce biofuel from your own home, using stock feed or used cooking oils. They claim that it’s better for the environment and also, non-carcinogenic.

For more information checkout Ecotec’s article at reuters about it’s newest revelation in renewable biofuels.

So, go and grab yourself a nice 1kg slab of chocolate, content with the fact that you may one day save the environment with your addiction.

PS. If you’re really serious about helping the environment, you might consider eating organic chocolate.

This technology is called Concentrated Solar power and it works just like a normal power station by generating steam to turn a turbine, except it uses a vast array of mirrors to direct sunlight energy into heating the water.

Here is a video about the new plant which has just opened, called the Nevada Solar One. Check it out and see what you think:

This technology could be powering your home sometime soon, so you might need to get used to it . For more information about Concentrated solar power and how it could be a sustainable solution to powering your home, visit ConcentratingSolarPower.info.

Where I live, in Brisbane, Australia, we have many power outages in summer time, caused by people stressing the power grid with air conditioning. There are ways people can eliminate this problem, just by keeping the temperature at an acceptable level.

The website, Keep Australia Beautiful Week, suggests that you should not set your heater above 20 degrees celsius or set your air conditioner lower than 26 degrees celsius. They state that each degree can make a difference in power consumption by up to 15%! That is staggering.

So, in an effort to reduce your environmental footprint and the risk of power outages this season, make sure you keep your temperature controls at an acceptable level.