eBay has bought into new fuel cell technology as one of the first customers of the Bloom Energy Server, which promises cheap and sustainable energy for the mass-market.
Launched at an event at the online marketplace specialist’s HQ in San Francisco, attended by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and General Colin Powell, the so-called Bloom Box is roughly the size of an SUV car and can be installed by companies outside their offices to generate electricity.
According to…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on February 26, 2010 at 3:00pm —
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Piece for Green Hotelier site on water scarcity:While the hospitality industry is certainly not in the same league as food production when it comes to water usage, there is still a pressing need for the industry to take action. That is the view of
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on February 26, 2010 at 2:30pm —
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Smarter information management systems will be a crucial part of efforts to push the development of cheaper and safer nuclear power in the UK, according to IBM. The tech company released details of a survey this week which it claims reveals a more positive attitude to nuclear power in the UK, with consumers more amenable to the technology
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on February 9, 2010 at 11:30am —
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In a perfectly sustainable world, drafting a green travel policy document would involve little more than grabbing a sheet of A4 paper and scribbling the words "all business travel is banned henceforth" in bright green felt-tip pen.
The simplest and most effective way to make business travel more sustainable is to take a default position that it shouldn't happen and then make anyone who disagrees justify why a business trip is necessary.
Unfortunately, back in the real world, some sort of busin…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on January 27, 2010 at 1:30pm —
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A US environmental group has criticised the companies behind science fiction film Avatar for promoting 3D technology, which the charity believes will lead to consumers unnecessarily upgrading TVs and consigning the old technology to the waste stream.
In a blog posting late last week, Silicon Valley Toxic Co…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on January 27, 2010 at 1:22pm —
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The earthquake-hit country is just one of the destinations where the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation wants to send interns and volunteers
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, which has developed a low-cost notebook computer to help children in developing countries improve computer and learning skills, has announced that it is looking for volunteers and interns to help out with projects in countries including Afghanistan and Haiti.
The OLPC organisation announced this week that it…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on January 27, 2010 at 1:19pm —
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The UK's Ministry of Defence (MOD) has announced that it is adopting technology which should help cut road accidents and also improve the sustainability of the organisation's own vehicles.
The MOD announced late in December that it has signed a contract with sustainable driving technology specialist GreenRoad, which will cover around 4,500 vehicles in the MOD fleet for the next three years. Although the deployment is being discussed mainly in terms of reducing accidents from reckless driving, G…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on January 27, 2010 at 1:16pm —
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Tech giant Microsoft has joined the likes of Cisco and Intel, who are keen to bask in the green glow from the summit
Microsoft has joined the ranks of IT companies showing off their green credentials at the Copenhagen climate talks with the launch of its Environmental Atlas of Europe project.
The tool, announced this week, is essentially an online…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on December 17, 2009 at 4:13pm —
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Ecosia is being endorsed by the WWF and billed as an "eco-friendly" search engine but it is also based on Microsoft technology
A search engine project backed by the World Wildlife Fund, and based on technology from Microsoft and Yahoo, heavily criticises the carbon intensity of Google's search infrastructure and also contains a sly dig at Apple.
The Ecosia search engine announced this week in the…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on December 6, 2009 at 7:33pm —
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The Green Grid's John Tuccillo and Zhal Limbuwala from the British Computer Society argue that consuming less IT and upgrading less frequently isn't necessarily the most sustainable approach
IT vendors are very keen on discussing environmental and low-carbon approaches to IT in terms of energy efficiency. The idea that new technology will be more efficient and "greener" than older kit fits nicely with the perpetual upgrade mantra that has been the mainstay of the computing industry since…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on December 6, 2009 at 2:40pm —
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In the same week that the UK updated its electronics recycling laws, a Nigerian national has been questioned by police over the illegal export of waste technology
The UK has updated its main regulations governing the environmental disposal of used IT and other tech hardware but cases are still emerging of electronic waste being shipped illegally to developin…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on November 14, 2009 at 4:42pm —
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Skirting carefully around the fact that fossil fuels contribute to climate change, IBM has plenty of advice for how oil and gas companies can respond to the threat from global warming
Along with other large IT companies such as HP, IBM appears to have an extremely pragmatic take on climate change.
Keen to be seen to be green with a rash of carbon-cutting services and "green" hardware, the vendor is also happy to profit from the lucrative contracts available from oil and gas companies' continui…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on November 5, 2009 at 5:15pm —
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Microsoft is encouraging adoption of its Windows 7 operating system - even if that means replacing working XP machines - but is still critical of unbridled consumption
While on the one hand Microsoft is pushing consumers and businesses to trade in functioning PCs for shiny new devices running Windows 7, on the other the computer giant is characterising the boom years that preceded the current recession as unsustainable and unrealistic.
In a statement released this week, designed to push the ef…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on November 5, 2009 at 5:13pm —
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Carbon cap-and-trade schemes are a dangerous distraction and could trigger the next sub-prime financial crisis, according to environmental campaigners and academics.
In a report released today, Friends of The Earth says that carbon markets have been hijacked by financial organisations that are creating ever more complex products which echo the mism…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on November 5, 2009 at 5:00pm —
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Despite estimates that energy prices could increase by as much as 60 percent, the government has said smart metering could help cut bills in the long term
Concerns that rises in energy costs of up to 60 percent by 2020 could effectively wipe-out any reduction in bills offered by the introduction of smart meters and grids have been denied by the government.
Speaking to eWeek Europe UK, a spokersperson for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) said that it was wrong to sugges…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on October 11, 2009 at 3:45pm —
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Environmentalists have criticised VMWare's choice of hydroelectric power for the damage damming causes salmon stocks and local communities
Virtualisation specialist VMWare has responded to criticism from environmentalists for its use of hydroelectric power in a new facility that it claims has set "the gold standard" for green data centre design.
Earlier this week, VMWare announced that it had opened a US data centre in Washington State. The virtualisation software maker claimed that by…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on October 9, 2009 at 1:30pm —
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The virtualisation specialist claims its latest data centre is "the gold standard" for green design powered as it is solely by hydroelectric energy but environmental groups claim electricity generated from damming rivers is not sustainable or particularly green
Virtualisation software maker VMWare has said it will save $5m a year with its new data ce…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on October 8, 2009 at 9:00am —
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With a 2020 target set for smart meter roll out to UK households and businesses, organisations including the Energy Saving Trust are pushing for minimum standards for the devices
Research by the Energy Saving Trust into the optimum design for in-home smart displays has revealed that consumers want the devices to have clear visual displays which show real-time electricity or gas consumption.
According to the report, The Smart Way To Display, released this week from the government funded…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on October 5, 2009 at 4:43pm —
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Senior executives from HP's energy and environmental divisions have defended the company's green credentials despite its policy of profiting from fossil fuel production exploration.
Hewlett-Packard is commited to cutting its own carbon emissions, but it is also happy to profit directly from the tools and services it sells to utility companies for fossil fuel production and exploration, said the European chairman of HP's environmental board Klaus Hieronymi at HP's 9th Executive Energy Conference…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on October 3, 2009 at 11:56am —
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The only way to curb emissions is to put up energy prices, former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told an HP event

A sustainable approach to energy use can only be driven by higher prices Germany's former Foreign Minister has warned a conference run by Hewlett-Packard.
Businesses and consumers will not begin to use energy in a sustainable way until higher costs force them to take a m…
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Added by Andrew Donoghue on October 3, 2009 at 11:52am —
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