Energy

Icelandic singer Bjork, known for her political activism, urged parliament on Monday to review the planned sale of a local geothermal energy company, saying the deal could harm Iceland's interests. Environmental issues have caused friction in Iceland before, with construction of a power plant for an aluminium smelter triggering street protests in 2005. Bjork said she was unhappy with the sale of Icelandic power company HS Orka to Canada's Magma Energy (MXY.TO: Quote) and asked members of parliament to review it.

Information on and analysis of energy risk management to serve, advance, and support the growing global risk management community.

On 1st February 2008, the Isle of Eigg entered a new era, with the switching on of our island electrification project, which makes 24 hour power available for the first time to all residents and businesses on the island. Until then we were entirely dependent upon making our own power and the clattering of generators was always to be heard. Now, the generators are silent and suddenly we have leapt to the forefront of electricity generation using renewable energy resources. Our project is a world leader in the integration of multiple renewable energy sources into a grid system to supply an isolated and scattered small community.

On 10/10/10, thousands of communities will join together to celebrate climate solutions. All over the world, we’ll be putting up solar panels, installing wind turbines, digging community gardens, and more. Will you join us? Install solar panels on your roof, and then enact legislation to make it possible for everyone in your country to join you in the clean energy future. We need you to act symbolically—and then we need you to act for real.

.........living off grid….my thoughts are, will this be depressing, if so I’m not going to do it, I like to enjoy my life. Will it be fun, if yes then I will do it and see what happens. At the moment it feels like a fun idea, so I’m going to start playing with it. I’m not going off grid yet, just playing with what it would mean. Each day I shall tell you how I have been playing, and whether it was fun or not. I may decide not to go off grid, I don’t know yet!

Michael Grätzel is a man with a mission. As the inventor of a low-cost solar cell, he wants to help the world avoid an energy crisis by harnessing the power of the Sun. His translucent Grätzel cells use a combination of titanium dioxide and organic dyes to convert sunlight into electricity, providing a cheaper and more environmentally friendly source of energy than silicon solar cells.

Personal computers in enterprise environments save energy and money by "sleep-working," thanks to new software called SleepServer created by computer scientists from the University of California, San Diego. Sleep-working enterprise PCs are accessible via remote connections and maintain their presence on voice over IP, instant messaging, and peer-to-peer networks even though the PCs are in low-power sleep mode. SleepServer can reduce energy consumption on enterprise PCs previously running 24/7 by an average of 60 percent, according to a new peer-reviewed study presented by UC San Diego computer scientists on June 24 at the 2010 USENIX Annual Technical Conference in Boston. http:// mesl.ucsd.edu/yuvraj/research/sleepserver.html)

Shot primarily from a helicopter, filmmaker Peter Mettler's "Petropolis: Aerial Perspectives on the Alberta Tar Sands" offers an unparalleled view of the world's largest industrial, capital and energy project. Canada's tar sands are an oil reserve the size of England. Extracting the crude oil called bitumen from underneath unspoiled wilderness requires a massive industrialized effort with far-reaching impacts on the land, air, water, and climate. It's an extraordinary spectacle, whose scope can only be understood from far above. In a hypnotic flight of image and sound, one machine's perspective upon the choreography of others, suggests a dehumanized world where petroleum's power is supreme.