Blog Feed: Doc's Green Blog

What Adam Smith Said About Making Businesses Sustainable

Published on 2012-10-12 14:04:07

Adam Smith said many insightful things in his book

The Pitfalls of "Green" Standards: Defeat of EPEAT

Published on 2012-07-10 14:06:22

EPEAT®

Gmail Up To 80 Times Cooler (More Energy Efficient)?

Published on 2011-09-08 15:11:42

In a recent blog post David Jacobowitz, Google's Program Manager, Green Engineering and Operations, says cloud-hosted gmail is many times more energy efficient than privately hosted corporate email systems. He says: "We compared Gmail to the traditional enterprise email solutions it’s replaced for more than 4 million businesses. The results were clear: switching to Gmail can be almost 80 times more energy efficient than running in-house email." Dare to Share: You can read the analysis [..]

Ford Mines Drivers' Minds (Behaviors) To Save Gas

Published on 2011-08-28 20:23:51

Can your car anticipate your driving patterns and optimize its performance to use fuel more efficiently, or extend your range if you are driving an electric vehicle (EV)? Can it see into the future? Ford is trying to develop the software and systems to enable it to do so. Dare to Share: Google has been developing technology for cars to drive themselves, but the Ford project has more limited aims. If your car could gather information as you drive, and gradually build a model of your drivi [..]

Sustainability and the CFO

Published on 2011-08-24 21:00:23

Sustainability, environmental issues and "green" have long since moved from "nice to have" parts of Corporate Social Responsibility, often part of the Corporate Communications (PR) portfolio, toward the center of management of the firm. A sign of this is the increasing involvement of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in sustainability issues. Most sustainability and environmental data is like financial data. It is financial data in many cases. (See this previous post for a discussion of the type [..]

The Green Data Firehose: Where Is All This Green Data Coming From?

Published on 2011-08-09 16:59:10

Companies have many kinds of data that they have to manage, and from which they try to learn how to run their businesses better. "Green" or "sustainability" data is a relatively new category, at least compared to financial data which companies have been dealing with for centuries. Here are some of the current and future sources of the data filling the Green Data firehose. Companies are at early stages of figuring out how to manage and benefit from many of these data streams. Essentially every c [..]

Why Did Facebook Opt For Coal Power?

Published on 2011-08-03 19:03:43

The always-excellent Economist blogger Babbage posts about Facebook's new Prineville, Oregon, datacenter. Why did Facebook opt for a location where most of its electricity will be generated by coal? Google, for example, built on the Columbia River and has access to cheap, renewable hydropower. Dare to Share: The answer, apparently, is that Facebook prefers the desert environment of Prineville because it allows ambient outside air to do most of the cooling without the need for energy- [..]

How Much Juice Do Datacenters Use? New Study Says About 1.3% of All Electricity

Published on 2011-08-03 12:53:38

Datacenters world wide use 1.1-1.5% of all electricity, according to a new study. In the U.S. the figure is 1.7-2.2%. Over the period 2005-2010 global electricity use by datacenters grew by around 56%, and in the U.S. by about 36%. Both global and U.S. electricity use by datacenters had doubled between 2000 and 2005, so this is a significantly slower growth rate over the more recent period. Dare to Share: The study, carried out by consultant Jonathan Koomey for the New York Times, is des [..]

How Big is the Green Software Market? Expected worth at $5 billion by 2013

Published on 2011-07-31 20:10:00

The Green software field has been growing for years, but as current estimates have pegged it to more than double in value by 2013, major players in the high tech world are sitting up and taking notice. Chief Sustainability Officers have been added to company boardrooms and corporate sustainability plans can be found on almost all major high tech company websites. The acquisition of companies providing sustainability related IT (“green data management”) solutions by much larger corpor [..]

Green SmartPhone Apps

Published on 2011-07-29 13:35:20

There are hundreds of "green" iPhone apps. Many of them are junk. Some of them actually can help you live more sustainably. Here are a few I think are cool. Dare to Share: Walkscore "Find a walkable place to live." Of course it is good for that--enter any address and see how convenient it is for walking to the things you need. Great for house- or apartment-hunting. It can use your current location, or you can enter one. My favorite use is to enter the addresses of companies that say they [..]

Move to Cloud Can Save $ Billions, C Millions of Tons

Published on 2011-07-25 10:46:42

A new report from the Carbon Disclosure Project, prepared by consultancy Verdantix, finds that there are significant savings in energy costs and carbon emissions for large companies that shift IT functions from dedicated servers to the cloud. Dare to Share: The findings suggest that as large U.S. companies move a significant fraction of their IT functions to cloud platforms the total reduction in CO2 emissions could be in the range of 100 million tons per year by 2020. Although that is [..]

Carmageddon: Short-Term Pain to Prolong the Agony

Published on 2011-07-17 13:46:23

This weekend's disruptive construction event on the I-405 freeway through the Sepulveda Pass in Los Angeles will, theoretically, increase the capacity of this vital artery. More cars will use it to take advantage of that increased capacity until it is as crowded and choked as it was before. The result of this expensive project ($1 billion in direct cost, plus the costs imposed on society by the delays and inconvenience of having the road closed for 53 hours) will be to encourage more people to m [..]

Is There Scientific Consensus on Climate Change?

Published on 2011-07-03 14:32:11

Research Shows Scientists Agree on Global Warming Researchers at Stanford and the University of Toronto noted that some people dispute whether there is "scientific consensus" on the reality and causes of climate change. They decided to find out how

Propaganda Yes, Safety No

Published on 2011-06-25 11:48:42

The more we learn about the incompetence of Japanese nuclear power operators the more discouraging it gets. This fascinating article in the New York Times reveals some astonishing facts about how much Japanese government and industry invested in brai

Nuclear Power Moves East

Published on 2011-06-01 11:18:00

Nuclear power generation is being phased out and new plants delayed or cancelled in several western countries, even as new plants are planned and built in the East. The Decline of Nuclear in the West Kernkraftwerk Philippsburg The

The End of "Green" Products

Published on 2011-05-11 11:21:38

When Ford Motor Company attributed much of its recent earnings boost to "green" products (see TriplePundit item), did it signal that "green products" has become a meaningless, obsolete category? Has "green" gotten so mainstream that most products can

Rapid Change in the Arctic

Published on 2011-05-10 10:16:27

The Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) has issued its latest Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic report (SWIPA), with recent data on changes in the arctic and how they will affect us all. [Crossposted from A Very Different Eart

Osama bin Laden and Green Business

Published on 2011-05-02 18:52:58

Will the death of Osama bin Laden have any impact on clean tech, green and sustainability trends and businesses? It might, via a potential boost to President Obama. Many comentators immediately suggested that the successful elimination of bin

Where's The "Fukushima Response Fund"?

Published on 2011-04-06 12:44:09

A prominent feature of the U.S. government's response to the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo blowout disaster was the creation of the "Spill Response Fund", a $20 billion escrow account set up by BP to cover anticipated damage claims, clean-up and mitiga

Fukushima vs. Deepwater Horizon

Published on 2011-04-05 14:49:14

There are many parallels between the impacts of the nuclear power plant disaster at Fukushima Number One and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster. But there are also significant differences based on A nuclear facility on land compared to a hole

Is Nuclear Power Too Risky?

Published on 2011-04-04 11:36:52

Are some energy investments so unpredictable and potentially unprofitable that governments should promise to cover the downside risk for private companies involved? The nuclear power generation industry seems to think so. Many energy investm

U.S. Energy Flows

Published on 2011-04-01 20:34:56

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has come out with its "Estimated U.S. Energy Use" flow chart covering the year 2009. These charts are always fascinating. Chart by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory from DOE/EIA data. The full-size ch

The Cost of Fukushima

Published on 2011-03-31 17:32:00

How much will the Fukushima nuclear power disaster cost the Tokyo Electric Power Company, the Japanese economy, and the Japanese taxpayer? A rough estimate based on current conditions is something around $50 billion. TEPCO's salable assets are only w

Fukushima vs. Chernobyl

Published on 2011-03-28 13:52:10

How does the Fukushima nuclear power station disaster compare with that at Chernobyl in 1986? Fukushima Chernobyl Cause Natural disaster, design flaws Human error, design flaws Amount of radiation released The amounts of radi

How Much Radiation Is Bad For You?

Published on 2011-03-23 18:38:30

Putting Fukushima In Perspective This excellent chart puts in perspective the various amounts of radiation we might be exposed to. I know you can't read the reduced version shown here, so click on the image or go to the xkcd site to see the full-siz

Fukushima, Nuclear Power, and Coal

Published on 2011-03-16 13:08:23

The simple message from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster is that unlikely events can and do happen. So when representatives of the nuclear power industry and their regulators re-assure us that modern plants are designed to withstand all "likely"

Is "Dangerous Interference" Inevitable?

Published on 2010-11-23 10:19:22

[Shared from sister blog A Very Different Earth.] Should We Just Throw In The Towel? The Stern Review warned that adapting to climate change would be significantly more expensive than avoiding it in the first place (see this earlier post)

Cool It--Movie Review

Published on 2010-10-27 11:44:58

Cool It is a documentary about Danish political scientist Bjørn Lomborg and his views on how the world should, and should not, address climate change. He insists that the approaches taken so far to mitigate the threat of climate change just haven't

What Is Google Doing In Cleantech?

Published on 2010-10-15 20:14:40

Google Inc. has invested a lot in cleantech and green ventures. Is there any pattern? Here is a summary of Google's investments and projects to date, and thoughts about where it is going. The Arms of Google Google has several "arms" where cl

Green Business Blog Carnival #19

Published on 2010-10-15 10:07:51

Another selection of the best of the green business blogs! They guess your weight and tell your fortune in carnival midway style. (Check Ecolocalizer to see last week's show if you missed it. The sidebar to the right has links to past Carnivals.)

Green Blogs List

Published on 2010-10-13 08:23:15

What is a Green Blog? There is no clear line between blogs and many other web-based information channels. Many lists of "blogs" on the web include a lot of sites that are not blogs in any useful sense of the word. So here is a new, focused list of gr

Cleantech Open: $180,000 to California Finalists

Published on 2010-10-11 17:13:05

The Cleantech Open, the world’s largest cleantech business competition, announced the finalists in its California competition for 2010 last Friday. The mission of the Cleantech Open is to find, fund, and foster the big ideas that address today’

Storms of My Grandchildren--James Hansen

Published on 2010-10-05 16:57:47

Serious Science for Critical Times Dr. James Hansen has written a personal, idiosyncratic, urgent, heartfelt book about climate change, past and future. The reader can feel his frustration at the stubborn inaction of governments in the face of what h

Climate Change--What We Know and What's Uncertain

Published on 2010-09-30 19:07:28

[Crossposted from Science In Action] The Royal Society has published Climate change: A summary of the science. It has the aim "to summarise the current scientific evidence on climate change and its drivers." It is focused on how Earth's climate is

Geoengineering Today

Published on 2010-09-29 12:49:15

Geoengineering . . . You're Looking At It "Geoengineering" refers to large-scale efforts to manipulate the climate. There are several current and recent activities that have been undertaken for other purposes, but which have the effect of changing cl

"Peak Coal" And The Future Of Energy

Published on 2010-09-18 18:52:13

Is coal the fuel of the past? Will the rising price of energy from coal make alternative energy sources more economically competitive? Recent research says "Maybe." Peak Coal How Much Coal Is There? The large-scale burning of coal is contributi