Cleantech Authority

Freezers are some of the most energy hungry appliances in grocery stores, homes and science labs. They consist of a thermally insulated compartment and a pump that transfers heat into the external environment. The larger the freezer, the more heat needs to be removed, the more energy hungry the pump. In addition to sizing considerations, portability also comes into play when dealing with lab environments and research stations.Ideally, labs would want to have several freezers in order to separate specimens and reduce contamination. Team or researcher level ownership also helps to reduce clutter and messes forming in a common space....

[UPDATE: This article has been featured on Matter Network and Reuters and I have created a follow up article here]With the launch of Sony's newest PlayStation Portable (PSPgo) just around the corner, slated for October 1st 2009, many people are weighing their options as the old PSP 3000 unit will still be available. On the one hand, the new PSPgo is more expensive and doesn't come bundled with any games. At $249 it's nearly $50 more than the PSP 3000 bundle which includes a game, a 2GB flash memory card and features a larger screen. On the other hand, the...

Last Day to Register for the Renewable Energy Technologies Workshop hosted by the Deming Center for entrepreneurship at CU Boulder. We posted this on our cleantech events calendar a couple weeks back and just wanted to bump it once more here, details follow:Do you have staff who need training on this subject?Looking to break into the renewable energy sector?Wondering how to assess energy options for your company?Need cutting-edge information on energy technologies and policies?The Deming Center and the CU - Boulder Energy Initiative have teamed up to offer a unique event to answer these questions.  Please join us at...

We just received this notice from our partners at CarbonFund.org - an organization that helps us offset the CO2 produced through the operations of our website and business. The CleanTech Authority Network has been carbon neutral since 2007.Just a few moments ago, the US House of Representatives passed the historic American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), otherwise known as cap-and-trade.The vote passed 219-212. The bill's goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 83% by 2050. While the bill still must go through the Senate and then conference before heading to the President, it represents a major accomplishment in...

While this isn't exactly clean technology it's definitely worth sharing! This year at the Maker Faire in Silicon Valley there was a 10 foot tall Van de Graaff Generator that had the crowd going wild. A Van de Graaff generator demonstrates a number of principles including the relationship between charge and voltage, Q = CV, where C is the capacitance of the dome. The capacitance of a sphere with respect to infinity is about 1.1 pF per centimeter of radius. The electrical energy stored in the Van de Graaff generator is CV2/2. Energies below about 10 joules (corresponding to a...

The CleanTech Authority Network is opening its doors to local publishers. Now anyone around the world who has an interest in Solar, Wind, Biomass, Electric Vehicles, Green Home, Hydro, Geothermal, or other Clean Technology can contribute his or her story to our site and in turn get published under their own name.A perfect article would be a product review, a "how to" guide for the solar rebates offered in your state or town, a research paper from a class you took, or a story about how you converted your car to a plugin hybrid.Our aim is to amass the most...

Over the past few months (March 7 - May 2, 2009) I took part in the Certified Nanotechnology Clean Technology Certification (CNCP) course being offered by the California Institute of Nanotechnology in San Jose, CA. The cohort I was part of was their third ever official class and this article is meant to give an overview on the course as it was at that time, provide guidance for prospective students, critique the offering, and identify alternative clean technology courses.I first discovered the Certified Nanotechnology & Clean Tech Professional course on Craigslist while adding events to our CleanTech Authority Events Calendar....

This past week I was hanging out with a good friend of mine who has an old IBM Thinkpad laptop, much like the one pictured below. Now the laptop has seen better days, the keyboard was recently replaced after apple juice got spilled on it, and ultimately he had to bargain with some Russian friends to replace the ram and try to reformat the hard drive because it got some kind of virus, he thinks conficker but who really knows? The whole thing was a little sketchy, eventually it stopped working completely. The thing is, my friend has a couple...

High in the Rocky Mountains, the town of Aspen, Colorado is home to the Aspen Institute and the annual Aspen Forum. Every year, scholars, leading professionals, and influential people from all over America, gather at an altitude over 7,500 feet to discuss and debate ideas. This year, the topic was "Powering the Planet: Energy for the Long Run". The forum lasted 4 days, from March 25-28, and touched on subjects ranging from climate change to efficiency, to the future of energy technology and policy. Just a few of the people who appeared there are: Lisa Jackson - Admin of the...

Today Hewlett Packard announced the launch of a new line of environmentally conscious and efficient personal computers called Z. Aside from the standard gains in performance and aesthetics, including physical size, that typify a normal PC line upgrade, the Z series delivers improved energy efficiency and serviceability.The new Z series computers will be the first to use Intel Nehalem processors including the Xeon 5500 series which represents a substantial boost in performance. In order to support the gains in hardware performance the Z series is built on a completely new line of chassis created by BMW DesignWorks. These new computer...