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Energy Video: The Artificial Leaf

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Plants and trees have been making clean energy for billions of years using water and sunlight, so why can’t humans do the same? People have been asking this question for over 100 years and Giacomo Ciamician, an Italian scientist, has been dubbed the father of artificial photosynthesis for his research into what he called “the guarded secret of plants.”

Today, chemist and Harvard professor Daniel G. Nocera has taken up the mantle along with fellow scientists, graduate students and post-doctoral researchers. His work and grand vision has been captured in this brief video by filmmaking team Jared Scott and Kelly Nyks (PF Pictures), which recently won a $50,000 FOCUS FORWARD prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 4, 2013 at 11:00 AM

Pentagon Promises Massive Response to Increasing Cyber Attacks

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The Pentagon plans to add more than 4,000 people to its efforts to combat the growing number of cyberattacks in the country and to take the offensive against attacks from foreign countries.

Increasing the Defense Department’s Cyber Command by more than 4,000, well above today’s level of 900, will be a challenge, a New York Times article quoted defense officials as saying. The department said officials know that recruiting, training and retaining that many qualified people will be a difficult chore. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 1, 2013 at 1:00 PM

Energy sector apps?

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 /  Published February 1, 2013 at 10:30 AM

Cleantech Innovation in New York City Gets a Boost

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In the popular imagination, New York City is dominated by finance, media and other professional jobs of the kind likely to feature in glossy television shows. But the steady departure of manufacturing jobs that once employed many of the city’s residents has been embraced by city leaders as a challenge they can meet by leveraging access to the centers of commerce, education and technology for which the city is famous.

New York has traditionally ceded energy and cleantech leadership to other places, notably Houston and San Francisco, but is increasingly building public support for clean energy companies and projects that can replace its traditional manufacturing base and diversify the city’s economy. Hard on the heels of Governor Cuomo’s announcement of a billion-dollar Green Bank to underpin infrastructure development, the New York City Economic Development Corporation says it will open a new NYC Clean Technology Entrepreneur Center. Keep reading →

 /  Published February 1, 2013 at 9:00 AM

GE Goes Into the Software Business: The Energy Sector Industrial Internet

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Utilities are using only one fifth of the data they collect and create in analysis that can create efficiencies and improve performance, GE says, and the industrial giant is turning up its information technology efforts to help those companies better see and optimize their surging data agglomeration.

The new Grid IQ Insight analytics platform that GE is launching at this week’s high-profile DistribuTECH conference is part of the larger company’s focus on the “industrial internet,” a wave of monitored and intelligent infrastructure that can wring $150 billion of unrealized efficiencies out of the economy, Grid IQ insight product line leader Giri Iyer told Breaking Energy in a recent interview. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 30, 2013 at 9:00 AM

IBM: Putting A ‘Human Face’ to Big Data

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It is rare to hear “we can’t do that” in the world of information technology today. Given the scale of potential technology investments and the flood of resulting information the challenge today is more often answering the question “what would you like to do?”

Designing ways to help companies, institutions and cities answer that question has become the mission for big data experts at IBM, the company’s Smarter Cities General Manager Michael Dixon told Breaking Energy in a recent briefing. “The obstacles to progress are cultural and organizational, not financial or technological,” Dixon said. “Individual leaders are asking what to do with data and finding areas of resonance for their communities.” Keep reading →

 /  Published January 29, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Tendril Partners With Hitachi for Smart Home

By Greentech Media


As 2012 came to a close, Tendril emerged from a restructuring as a smaller startup that was seeking partnerships with other companies serious about home energy management, and not those just looking to try it out.

Tendril’s latest partner, Hitachi, certainly fits the bill. Tendril announced this week that its firmware will be integrated into Hitachi’s SuperJ Applications Ecosystem, which operates on the OSGi framework, allowing for multiple types of firmware to run on the same device. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 28, 2013 at 11:00 AM

Cisco Unveils ‘Connected Grid’ Approach for Power Companies

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Reliability has long been the most important element of operations to electricity generators and providers; the modern economy has been built around it. But as new technology evolves rapidly in management of energy consumption and both financial and regulatory limits remain on a comprehensive rebuild of the US electricity industry, the sector has found itself stuck mid-disruption.

A belief that smart meter installation would somehow finish the job of making any utility a connected, operationally forward-thinking powerhouse has been proved wrong by the substantial number of smart meter installations that have failed to alter any part of traditional utilities’ businesses (in many cases data is not even collected, or if collected isn’t acted on). The inability of all the different pieces of the energy system to “speak” to each other electronically has in many cases made traditional reliability practices futile, while not quite bringing the new reliability systems into full practice. Keep reading →

 /  Published January 25, 2013 at 9:00 AM

Petroleum Engineers in High Demand

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The sluggish economy has many workers anxious about job security. Yet despite the nation’s high 7.8 percent unemployment rate, there are careers out there with jobless rates so low as to nearly guarantee a job to anyone qualified to work in those fields.

 /  Published January 24, 2013 at 12:30 PM

Energy Forecasting: A New Approach to Managing Demand

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Intelligent energy management systems company GridNavigator and energy management control systems contractor ATS Automation have installed a new service that provides day by day energy demand forecasts at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, near Seattle, Washington. That ability allows users to provide additional energy efficiency and reduce demand, meaning they can avoid spendy peak energy rates.

Pete Segall, energy services manager for ATS Automation, explained it simply: “Our customers look to us for ways to save money and reduce energy usage while minimizing capital expenses. GridNavigator’s energy forecasting service allows us to predict energy and demand spokes and launch automated reduction strategies before the demand event occurs.” Keep reading →

 /  Published January 18, 2013 at 12:30 PM
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