November 15, 2009

11/15 Energy & Environment Links


Streetlights of the Future to be Powered by Trash
It's an idea that just seems to make a certain amount of sense: cities need streetlights, and cities need places for people to throw away their trash. Streetlights, which must stay on all night (unless they're these nifty sensor controlled ones), are a pretty sizable energy drain. But what would happen if all those people could toss their garbage into bins attached to a new kind of streetlight that could use it as fuel? And that's what we have here today. Introducing: the trash-powered street lamp.

Setting Sail Into Space, Propelled by Sunshine
About a year from now, if all goes well, a box about the size of a loaf of bread will pop out of a rocket some 500 miles above the Earth. There in the vacuum it will unfurl four triangular sails as shiny as moonlight and only barely more substantial. Then it will slowly rise on a sunbeam and move across the stars.

Microsoft Hohm: First Seattle City Light, Now Xcel Energy
Microsoft's Hohm home energy platform will soon be able to deliver monthly energy use data for all of Xcel Energy's 3.4 million customers across eight states, all without smart meters. The two companies plan to announce the news on Friday at an event at Microsoft's campus in Fargo, N.D., a Microsoft spokesperson said Thursday.

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