Efficiency

Yahoo Unveils Super Efficient Data Center

Megan Treacy

yahoo-coop
It was just a little over a year ago that Yahoo announced it was building a super-effiicient data center in Lockport, NY - one that would be powered by Niagara Falls. Just this week, the company unveiled the finished product.

The Lockport facility will indeed be powered by Niagara Falls hydropower, but the impressive part of the data center is the efficient design. Called the Yahoo Computing Coop, the facility was modeled after a chicken coop, with long, narrow buildings that encourage re-circulation of Lockport's cool air. Between the cool climate and the efficient design, the data center will only use one percent of the energy it requires annually on cooling. That is a very significant reduction as most traditional data centers use upwards of 50 percent of energy demand on cooling.

Here are some more numbers. The data center will use 40 percent less energy and at least 95 percent less water than a conventional data center. The energy saved is roughly equivalent to the electricity used by 9,000 NY houses each year and the water saved is equal to the amount that flows over Niagara Falls each minute (about 4 million cubic feet's worth).

Yahoo owes most of the credit to the Lockport location: the cool climate, regular winds and proximity to ample hydropower. But the company capitalized on those things with a smart design and use of more efficient technology, something that other tech companies could easily replicate.

via Yahoo Blog

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Piston-Powered Airplanes More Fuel Efficient (But Is That Enough?)

Philip Proefrock

constellation

A recent article from Low-Tech Magazine brings up the interesting note that only the most recent jet planes are as fuel-efficient as propeller planes. Many people believe that jets are very efficient, but, "on a per passenger mile basis, the most efficient modern aircraft, the Airbus A380, has just managed to match that which was achieved by the piston engined Lockheed Constellation series in the 1950's."

Unfortunately, passenger-mile fuel efficiency isn't the sole metric that airlines have to consider. Fuel cost is certainly a big chunk of the operating budget for a passenger plane, but so is the cost of crew wages and benefits. Jets travel faster, better utilizing the working hours available for each flight crew. Piston aircraft may be more fuel efficient, but there are other things that jets do better.

Piston aircraft cannot operate at the higher altitudes that jets can reach. The Constellation's ceiling was 24,000 feet (7,315 meters), while contemporary jets can reach an altitude of about 40,000 feet (12,192 meters). Flying at higher altitudes allows jet aircraft to avoid weather systems that would delay or halt aircraft operating at lower altitudes.

None of this means that we are in favor of retaining the status quo. While jets can fly higher, they also release their exhaust higher in the atmosphere, which is likely more damaging than exhaust released at ground level. The environmental costs of any form of air travel are not fully incorporated into the costs to consumers. Both technologies should continue to be developed, and we've also seen hybrid propeller-turbines, which are intriguing, too.

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Will Incandescent Bulbs Go Away?

Philip Proefrock

incandescent

The "last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent bulbs in the United States" is set to close later this month. Most incandescent bulbs will be banned from sale in the US in 2014, and many other contries have enacted similar bans on incandescent bulbs within the next few years, as well. But while the deadline has been set, and the manufacture of incandescent bulbs is set to end in a couple of years, there is a growing market for specialty incandescent bulbs.

Against all reason though, bare filament light bulbs are spreading as a trendy fashion in restaurants, as was noted in the New York Times earlier this summer:

...they hover in groups of two and three. ...they snake through the cafe, restaurant and patio. ...they cluster near the entrance as an enticement.

They are not the latest cliques of beautiful people, but something quite old and plain: exposed-filament bulbs, energy-guzzling reproductions of Thomas Alva Edison’s first light bulb. And despite the escalating push to go green and switch to compact fluorescents — or perhaps because of it — their antique glow has spread like a power surge.

Incandescent bulbs are like fireplaces, a vestigial remnant from an earlier time. They can be appealing, certainly. For some they are a symbol of luxury, but they are wildly less efficient than contemporary alternatives. While they may contribute to the ambience of a space, their operating costs are huge, and much of the desired effect can be obtained from other sources, without resorting to the use of a lapsed technology.

If you are looking for a warm, romantic, old-fashioned light source, you might consider the suggestion of one enlightened restaurant owner: "Just light real candles, you know?"

image: CC 2.0 by Jack Newton

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Color Filter Could Boost LCD Efficiency by 400%

Megan Treacy

lcd-filter
Researchers at the University of Michigan have created a color filter that could boost the efficiency of LCDs, the power hog of all your gadgets, by more than 400 percent, and no, I didn't add an extra zero there.

The researchers made an optical film that colors and polarizes the light that passes through an LCD, taking the place of the several layers of optical devices that typically serve the same function in an LCD. Those multiple layers give rise to inefficiencies: the best LCDs out today only emit eight percent of the light their backlights produce. The researchers found that the film allowed 36 percent of the light to make it through - a huge increase.

The color filter is made up of three ultra-thin layers -- two layers of aluminum enclosing a layer of insulating material -- and it only measures 200 nanometers thick. The filter is etched with slits that produce different colors when illuminated by the backlight. The slits are matched in scale to the wavelength of visible light and their length and distance apart determine the color produced.

This grating pattern is where the efficiency boost comes in. In current LCDs, a polarizing filter absorbs half the light (the part with the wrong polarization). The grating on the new filter doesn't absorb the light with the wrong polarization, it instead reflects it back towards a mirror that flips some of its polarization, letting more light pass through the filter.

Researchers are trying to improve the efficiency further and are coming up with ways to mass produce the filters, like with roll-to-roll printers.

via MIT Tech Review

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Are Commercial LED Replacements Ready for Prime Time?

Philip Proefrock

LEDreplacement

There are increasing numbers of LED replacement products for T8 fluorescent lamps, which are widely used in retail and commercial buildings, but the US Department of Energy is warning that many of these do not yet offer comparable performance and light output versus what is supplied by using fluorescent lamps. Just because they are called replacements does not mean they are going to provide a similar level of performance.

Many LED replacement lamps are highly directional, with the LEDs only emitting light in one direction. However, fluorescent light fixtures are often designed with incorporated reflectors that utilize more of the light emitted from fluorescent tubes. If the replacement lamps do not project any light onto the reflector, the overall effectiveness of the fixture may be reduced. To avoid consumer and end-user dissatisfaction, LED replacement bulbs should be carefully considered.

The summary (PDF) from the DOE is fairly stark:

LED linear replacement lamps available today do not compete with linear fluorescent lamps on the basis of light output, color quality, distribution, lumen maintenance, or cost-effectiveness. DOE does not recommend replacing linear fluorescent lamps with LED linear replacements.

We would suggest that there are certainly applications where LED replacements may be useful and the energy savings may be more desirable. A DOE official noted that "they can be a reasonable option in locations where fluorescent doesn’t work well." But this should be an informed decision, and there should be an awareness of what the tradeoffs will be and what light performance can be expected.

We here at EcoGeek are definitely proponents of LED lighting, and we regularly follow the developments in the industry. In the past few years, LED lighting has grown from a rare, specialty niche item to a product that is starting to be regularly stocked on big box retail store shelves. But, while we readily encourage everyone to adopt more energy efficient measures like using LED lighting, we certainly don't want to suggest that you need to take a performance hit in order to be more efficient. CFLs got an early bad reputation because some had poor color. LEDs are going to become a significant part of the lighting market in time. But we don't want to see a lot of people opposing them due to an early bad experience with inappropriate use of LEDs.

Links: USDOE LED Performance (PDF) and LED Replacement (PDF)

via: Green Savings Network

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