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2011年4月22日星期五

Blueprint publish Olympic Green

22 April 2011 last updated at 05: 34 GMT by Mark Weibersbrunn science and Environment Reporter, BBC News Olympic stadium (Image: ODA/Getty Images) the venues is described with the smallest carbon footprint of a main Olympic Stadium London 2012 Olympic organisers have published games first environmental report for next year so far.

The report says that it is the aim to reduce the CO2 emissions by 100,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions in the procurement of materials and site construction.

Organizers say they are on the way to deliver world's first "truly sustainable" Olympic Games, the end of July 2012 is scheduled to open.

You plan to publish a further two reports in the next two years.

In the report, Introduction outlines the Organizing Committee of Chairman, Mr COE, what he felt were the innovative highlights of the London Games.

Before these games, no one had cleaned two million tons of contaminated soil on the ground said the former Olympic champion.

"No one attempted to calculate the full carbon footprint of a summer games, and no one built an 80,000 seat stadium as light in structure and effects on the environment such as ours."

David Stubbs, head of sustainability, the Committee said that the concept of sustainable development in the entire project is a crucial role.

"It is not only the stadium, it is the velodrome and other infrastructure that we are," he told BBC News.

"All places have history to tell a strong sustainability." "If you have the commitment at the beginning and it set an important part of how to obtain your contractors and designers who, and you in the short people with solutions come."

Thus explains the main stadium features a number of techniques, including recycled materials, was Mr Stubbs.

"Simply put, it is a light multi-purpose stadium and thus has a much smaller carbon footprint."

Go for green

The report focuses on the five main themes of the 2012 Games environmental strategy of: climate change; Biodiversity; Waste; Recording and healthy life.

London Olympic Games, 1948 (Image: BBC)Environmental concerns were not a problem for the games in 1948 Organizer

"What we wanted to do was really understand to minimize the impact and then direct our efforts to them," he said.

"For example, had no one saw all embodied emissions in temporary building infrastructure, which would be used only during the games and Paralympic Games."

"By building, the more places, on what is rental on the market are, then it is possible to choose material that already exists."

As a result, he said, was lowered carbon emissions by 100,000 tonnes, the equivalent of 65,000 cars off the road for 12 months possible.

"I think this is a really important thing," he added.

As well said Mr Stubbs carbon emissions, the development of the main 250-hectare site to contain the aim of developing the largest urban park in Europe for more than 150 years.

He said that 45 acres "ecologically managed" space to promote and support to ensure biodiversity.

"This includes wetlands and river habitats, the country from what previously very loaded, was restored were", he said.

"This is not only good for biodiversity, but we have some 4,000 properties of man-in century flood danger River by re-profiling."

Olympic velodrome (Image: ODA/Getty Images)Another is the velodrome deliver huge carbon savings, says Mr Stubbs

"Instead of straight straight-rivers, she opened out and were areas that may have a function in the flood relief in the wetlands."

However, he realized that not everything in accordance with the bid will be delivered documents, the International Olympic Committee in 2004.

For example, have plans to build a wind turbine, which was scrapped 20% of the site that would have made timely energy to the about.

"If we go back in time and write the bit about an ambitious carbon target the size of carbon footprint, we would not mean that we were in the process, use a certain technology."

"It was a mistake, in a way always to say that we blocked renewable energy."

"As the years have passed, has not taken the development of the market for renewable energy in urban areas."

But he added: as a whole the organizers had reached far more on cutting carbon emissions as was planned at the beginning.

"I think the environmental benefits of our approach is much greater than if we stuck, the very letter of engagement bid and done nothing else."

Former Chairman of the sustainable development Commission Jonathon Porritt, sustainability ambassadors for London 2012, said that good progress has been.

He observed "the report... speaks volumes about the nature and manner in which is translated in 2012 in action on the ground, the very high ambition level for truly sustainable games".

"It is still a long way to go, each is many things to the bear to bring, but previous progress is really impressive."

The Organizing Committee plan to publish two more reports. Next next spring should be published, and the final one are at the end of 2012 or early 2013.


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2011年4月10日星期日

Facebook shares green technology

8 April 2011, last updated at 23:45 pm by Maggie Shiels, technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley Facebook servers in data centre Facebook claims that its data centre use far less power than its competitor facilities Facebook announced that it will be parts of the design secrets behind its new energy efficient data center with competitors.

The network facilities in Prineville, Oregon to use 38% less power than existing centres.

It hopes by the innovations public the amount of electricity consumed the industry.

Despite Facebook's progress, some environmental groups have criticized the company on its green credentials.

Work under the title of compute project open, is Facebook specifications and mechanical drawings of the building and its server publish.

"It is time to stop treating data centers such as fight Club [talk not about it],", said Jonathan Heiliger, Vice President of technical operations of the company.

His comments are likely be interpreted as a dig at other Web companies like Google, Twitter and Amazon who have kept their own designs under lock and key.

Makes hungry

Data centers use large amounts of electricity to run their computer equipment and to keep it cool.

Environmental group Greenpeace estimates that its 2 trillion kw/h is achieved total global energy consumption by 2020.

So far, Facebook gave your server, and lease space from other companies.

Mark Zuckerberg talking about data centresMark Zuckerberg said, would facilitate new services to add the new data center

The Prineville plant is the first custom built facility and costs $188 m (£ 117 m). Much has its environmentally friendly specifications.

Among the innovations Centre make extensive use of outside air, in contrast to air conditioning, to cool the rows of the server.

The machines themselves are also specifically designed for the new cooling system to maximize.

"The best way to reduce CO2 and improvement of the environment is to reduce energy consumption and that's what we do," said Mr of Saint.

Facebook has not required parts, paint, logos and stickers - store, claims more than 6 pounds of materials per server.

Greenpeace said however, the company further prove his commitment to sustainability are gone.

Will Facebook be a really green company, it needs to reduce the emissions, said Casey Harrell, a climate campaigner.

"This is the way to do footprint decouple growth of its emissions with clean, renewable energy to his business instead of dirty coal and nuclear energy to make dangerous."

Greenpeace campaign in the last year on Facebook to stop one of his business with energy from suppliers that use coal turn on call.

More than 101,000 Facebook users have so far click on the button "how" of the Greenpeace campaign, titled "Facebook: Unfriend coal".

Tailor-made cool the main story you read on
it's time to stop treating data centers such as fight Club. "
End quote Jonathan Heiliger Vice Decree of technical operations, Facebook for save as even money to makes the company, said that running your own data center to enforce would help future changes on the site."

"We have noticed that a lot of stuff, the mass manufacturers were hinausbringend wasn't what we needed, so that we fit social applications, customized it better", says Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Jonathan Heiliger continues: "with this control over our infrastructure a ton of flexibility, especially when you turn on is a new function us."

"Comment on live or I requires friends search for buddies this enormous amount of computing and the fact we can do this and be innovative and have this control, the flexibility of these products are to our engineers develop, which potentially exist would not."

Money and makes

Facebook claims that by sharing their design innovation, the Web economy as a whole especially small start-ups benefit.

Social gaming company Zynga said it was perhaps some of the designs, view with while computer maker Dell said it would definitely.

"It is a very important step in helping the industry drive efficiency end-to-end," said Forrest Norrod, Vice President of Dell BBC news servers.

"This project is also very important in promoting the understanding of this technology and represents an opportunity that Turbo charge innovation to data centre efficiency."

Exterior Facebook data centrePrineville is Facebook's first custom built data center. So far it has leased server capacity

Dell announced that it plans 1 billion $ spend (£ 600 m) building 10 data centers around the world.

The PC maker is a partner in the open project together with HP, AMD and Intel compute.

Rackspace managed server for smaller companies, believes that the cost savings can not be ignored.

"This is a great leap forward and save millions and millions of dollars," said Graham Weston, Chairman of Rackspace.

"A good size data center spending probably about 10 million $ per year on makes and these new designs, that costs about 40%, or 4 million $ should go."

Facebook claimed that if a quarter of U.S. data centers specifications published by the open Project calculate the used, the saved energy more than 160,000 houses could.

Blue, not green

While Facebook hopes to significant savings with its new data center, the company was completely unfrozen.

An area was on the team splurged on to the server room.

Amir engineer Michael said he wanted to use blue LEDs but was told they each, 7 cents costs compared to green, were the 2 cent per LED.

He chose the blue, the anyway.

"I thought it would be really cool if the data center in blue lit." "It is a fairly large area and I a little character, a little bit of style, wanted to add", said Mr Michael.


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2011年4月1日星期五

"Big rise" in green energy fund

1. April 2011 last updated at 14: 29 GMT Wind farm wind power can rival without State subsidies from fossil fuels, compete WEF global says investment in clean energy projects saw a large increase in the last year and is ready for further strong growth, suggests a report.

Investment topped $243bn (£ 152bn) in the year 2010, spent an increase of 30% to $186bn a year earlier, said the World Economic Forum (WEF).

It added that more clean energy sources could now compete with fossil fuels.

Higher energy prices were also expected to increase demand for clean energy, WEF said.

China boom

According to the WEF figures, clean energy investment stagnation in 2009, with an increase of 4% over the previous year.

The rebound in 2010 was even on the three regions by the Forum and Bloomberg new energy looked finance to distribute.

Investments in Europe, Middle East and Africa increased by $19bn to $94 billion, while America a jump from $17 to $65 billion saw. In Asia and Oceania increased investment of $20 to $82 billion.

The report said, was investing $51 billion in clean energy projects in China alone, an increase of 30% at 2009 levels.

China has also outside of the sector clean energy, including coal-fired power plants, the rapidly growing demand to make heavily invested.

Many other countries have also increased their expenditure on fossil energy projects since the downturn.

WEF said that doubling to $59 billion in the last year took investments in small clean energy projects with global investment. In Germany, for example, living room and rooftop solar capacity by a record amount.

Also rapid growth saw other countries with feed-in tariffs, such as the Czech Republic, Italy and the UK.

Solar power parity

High public debt by the global downturn meant however, that some countries on the promotion of clean energy cut back the report found.

As a result decreases in feed-in tariffs have been said likely this year. WEF highlighted also the continuing lack of a federal climate and energy bill as an obstacle for clean energy in the United States.

"But none of them was sufficient to the sector to derail progress" it concluded.

Looking ahead, so the report that the sector seemed to be poised for "further strong growth", supported by the fact that a growing number of clean energy sources now power generation without State subsidies could compete with traditional fossil fuels.

Clean energy projects were dependent on subsidies, as they need to become economically viable have not yet reached the critical mass as alternatives to traditional energy sources.

"Today, geothermal, wind, and biomass projects can use compete and Excel fossil rivals in the increasingly important markets of energy," according to the report.

Solar power generation, it added parity reached already with current retail prices in some parts of the world, "and will no doubt to as elsewhere soon".


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2011年3月31日星期四

Petroleum Common in Some 'Green' Products

What if you were told that the "all natural" or "plant-derived" eco-friendly cleaning products you purchase aren't what they claim to be?


Would you still buy them?


Seventh Generation, a company thriving in the eco-friendly market, reports that some "green" cleaning products are still heavily derived from petroleum. The project, presented at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, emphasizes the lack of standards in commercial markets for "green" products.


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At this point, no authority regulates eco-friendly claims, two representatives of the company say. Seventh Generation wants to change this by creating a system -- much like carbon dating -- through which companies can measure carbon isotopes in their products and establish standards more in line with what ad departments are promoting.


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Based on the company's testing, laundry detergents, hand dish liquids and hand washing soaps claiming to be friendly to the environment still contain between 3 and 57 percent petroleum-derived carbon.


But this range among companies wasn't what concerned scientists as much as the lack of carbon-14, an isotope that serves as a signature for natural, renewable resources. Other forms of carbon derived from petroleum can be identified in the form of petrochemicals.


Some products tested contained less than 50 percent of carbon-14, indicating the lack of natural, renewable materials used in their creation.


In a press conference video, the company's representatives gave no indication of which brands were studied and focused on promoting their technique rather than brand bashing.


Discovery News has contacted the company in efforts to find out which products were studied, but has not received a response yet.


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Findings aside, it's important to keep in mind that this study has not been peer-reviewed and was conducted by a company with an interest in the market.


Still, Seventh Generation representatives say they hope techniques used in the small study will inspire independent labs and other companies to standardize ways to measure plant-derived and petroleum-derived carbon in products.


As Cara Bondi, who presented the findings in the video, puts it: "We believe this is really an opportunity to align and move forward in a way that adds value to the consumer and to the industry."


UPDATE: Seventh Generation does not plan to release the names of products involved in the study. The company did, however, pay a third-party laboratory to examine the 22 products (instead of conducting the research in its own labs). Bondi, a senior research chemist with the company, says because there is no legal definitions or restrictions for labeling certain products as "green" or "sustainable," it's difficult to assess whether products are derived from renewable resources.


"We really need to start moving toward a unified understanding of what these terms mean and how we're talking about them," Bondi told Discovery News.


Photo: woodleywonderworks/Flickr.com