The Environmental Protection Agency announced today that after a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court, it has issued a proposed finding that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare. While briefing members of Congress in advance of issuing this ruling the agency said that it had found the science supporting the so-called endangerment finding “compelling and overwhelming.”
The Smart Grid will require substantial information processing, storage and data mining resources. An entire new software sector is rising to meet the challenges and fill the many new needs opened up by its arrival. Spending on the smart grid is estimated to be $165 billion over the next 20 years (Source: EPRI) and a good portion of this will be on software and data services. Here is a list of seven of the up and coming software companies that are actively offering software for the Smart Grid, for Smart Meters, for Power Analytics, for systems focused on improving the energy efficiency of the grid, and for energy management systems for homes and businesses tied to Smart Grid networks and designed to operate with it.
Researchers from North Carolina State University have shown that Duckweed, a tiny aquatic plant much loved by Ducks can thrive in the effluent waste water produced by large feedlots, such as hog farming operations and potentially in urban sewage water as well. This hardworking little plant not only cleans the waste water of the excess nutrients, but in the process it produces large quantities of valuable starchy biomass. Biomas that can be harvested and used to produce ethonol in the same types of facilities that are currently being used to make ethanol from corn starch.
The clean tech green energy sector is hurting badly – along with the rest of our economy. A lot of promising new firms are on life support finding it very difficult to raise desperately needed venture capital. We need to be laying the foundations for future growth now and there is no time to waste, I would argue that this is a paramount issue of national security, that it is not just about jobs or being “green”, but that it is an urgently vital necessity for our country’s future security. This is not an optional choice; it is not a luxury, a nice to have kind of thing; this is the very life blood of our country, of our industrial society. An industrial society needs energy and lots of it. America needs to urgently begin a national crash program of investing in domestically controlled renewable energy supplies, such as wind and solar right now while we still have a little breathing room to begin laying the foundations for a new American energy economy. It is a matter of national security.
Gov. David Paterson announced a new $10.7 billion state rail improvement plan that calls for improving service between New York City and Niagara Falls and increasing freight rail usage by 25 percent. Under the proposed plan the speed of intercity passenger rail service from Albany to Niagara Falls would be increased to 110 mph by adding a third track to the existing rail corridor. Previous studies have estimated that new tracks allowing speeds of up to 110 mph could bring the trip time under 4 hours a significant improvement over the more than 5 and a half hours the trip currently takes.
Smart meters, which are meters that are hooked up to a network so that they can deliver information about current usage in a timely manner, are rapidly becoming ubiquitous. Smart meters will enable real time energy decisions in response to current conditions. They form a critical cornerstone of the smart grid; in fact in many ways they are the “smart” in the smart grid. This opens up a whole slew of new opportunities for smart software developers and smart entrepreneurs [no pun intended] to build the software applications and services to support and to add value to these new smart networked grids. What kinds of software opportunities exist in this newly opening sector?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has introduced legislation to support president Obama’s vision of a green grid. The Clean Renewable Energy and Economic Development Act will promote investments in transmission to facilitate access to renewable power, and also establish a streamlined planning and siting process for transmission lines. This legislation will make it easier for renewable energy suppliers to deliver clean energy from the often remote areas where it is harnessed to major population centers across the country.
California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced last week that the state was creating a California Green Corps that will work to protect the state’s ecology, and provide valuable experience and training to the young people who go through the program, to help them prepare for employment in the emerging green economy. The program will provide at least 1,000 young people between the ages of 16 and 24 with jobs and training. The governor stressed that the program is targeted toward youth considered “at-risk” of failing academically, foundering in the workplace or getting into trouble with the law, and will consist of a minimum of 10 regional Green Corps throughout California.
Many people in the software industry have heard the buzzword cloud computing. Cloud computing promises to revolutionize how computing is done and huge investments are being made by the major players in the industry to stake out a portion of this sector. The infrastructure that underlies the cloud is a massive energy consumer. What is needed is for the idea of a green cloud to also catch on within the industry. A green cloud is cloud computing that uses intelligent power management and cooling to minimize its energy needs for some given level of service.
