View of Eath Lights at night

In my last post I mentioned lights at night. Long time readers know I've whined about streetlights and their waste of electricity (and their lack of motion sensors). This incredibly beautiful poster (composite image of earth taken at light exposed for the lights and merged with landforms, clouds removed) definitely influences my opinion on street lights, as do the plight of the astronomers dealing with light pollution or merely sitting on my back porch unable to see the stars most nights.

However on the flip side, I have enjoyed flying over our beautiful country staring out the window, and the shapes of our cities outlined by lights is as entertaining as the view of all the landforms (and both are more than the in flight movie that has been very edited for objectionable content)!

I often try to take pictures of the lights of the city as we are landing but the exposures are so slow that the lights blur (though that can be a cool effect -- see images at left )
Anyway, I have seen cities that look like neuronal cells, cities that are very grid based, cities that clearly illustrate the underlying geographic forms and cities that outline new development by the color temperature of the newer streetlights. But I haven't been able to capture these images to share. However NASA seems to have figured out a stable platform from which to take these pictures (they are a bit higher orbit than united airlines flies!)
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/CitiesAtNight/

My pics:



Note: images are copyright bryn forbes 2007

Map of just roads

Here's a very interesting image http://benfry.com/allstreets/map5.html made from drawing all the maps in the US on the map. It has a similar effect potraying how much of the natural habitats we have made an impact on, as the nighttime view showing all the lights. Of course in this case the rural areas with a road around 40 acre plots is a lot less of an effect than the dense areas.

Another giant yellow hybrid

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9926763-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Speaking of giant sized hybrids that are yellow, GE is making hybrid dump trucks. Now that's what I need for the trips to the grocery store!

Hybrid school buses!

I found out a friend works for a company that make hybrid school buses!
Check em out here

they claim 70% improvement!!!

I hesitate to mention this in case people buying hummers think they can be green (or in this case yellow) and have a hybrid SUV (schoolbus utility vehice)

Lower mercury CFL bulbs

Don't count CFLs out you scrappy LED upstart you!
http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9916140-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

New CFLs have less than 1.5 milligrams of mercury (normal have 5mg). (There's a snide remark about tuna having more in here somewhere -- though I'm refraining since I don't have data for fish bulbs)


Though you have to worry when technology starts to integrate other gadgets (alarm clock/golf bag anyone?) so maybe CFL manufacturers are starting to worry since one is making a CFL that makes your room less smelly (sure to be sold at sharper image if it wasn't bankrupt)

http://gizmodo.com/379136/viatek-cfl-makes-your-rooms-brighter-less-smelly

13W LED bulb

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/04/13w-led-bulb-replaces-100w-incandescent.php
Treehugger reports on a 13W LED bulb as replacement for incancdescents.

It's interesting that it so much more efficient than an incandescent (which wastes most energy as heat) but has a fan inside of it to reduce heat.

They also tout other features of LED long life bulb, less mercury than cfl, etc.
But cost cost cost cost cost?

How many watts hours of solar electricity could you buy for the cost of this bulb?

Motion sensor lighting

This was a cameraphone pic I shot in the hallway of a very very large apartment building in mid town manhattan. Every other light fixture was motion sensitive. Most of the lights near the elevators were constantly on but the ones near the ends would definitely be off most of the time.

Plug in hybrids better for the environment despite being coal powered?

I've often snidely remarked that plugin hybrids are coal powered, but it seems I will have to change that. Here is a link to an article by EcoGeek with some data claiming that they end up being better for the enviroment overall despite the eletrical transmissions losses.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1569/69/

Per capita CO2 emissions

Check out this map of per capita CO2 emissions.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/new-high-res-ma.html

UPDATE: I showed my texas geography ignorance and slandered houston, my apologies!

how much energy is your city consuming?

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2008/04/nuage_vert_energy_power_plant_visualization.html

Infosthetics notes a idea to project how much energy a city is using on the plume of a coal power plant for all to see.

Electrimetric was created with the idea that if we know how much energy we use, and see feedback based on changes, we will reduce our resource consumption. The question is would this help because it reminds people how much energy they are using? or hurt because they see turning off their light is just a cigarette amongst the coal power plants pollution.

It seems like you could do this via a web page reporting how much energy your city is using, and I'm sure there are things like this out there. Avid readers, send those links in!

Dark Vader

A friend was telling me about her father who would proclaim himself "Dark Vader" with an innovative power saving technique. If she or her family left the lights on, he would unscrew and take the lightbulb. Certainly solves the problem of leaving the lights on from then on out! I guess you'd learn pretty quick or else you would leave the switch on all the time but not use any energy (hope you ate your carrots!)


Apologies to the folks at Buy Star Wars Costumes for the bastardization of their image.
Also the artists at
Star Warped

Concept home power monitoring system

I've wanted something like this for a long time. It's just a concept, but would be very cool. I would want to make sure that the monitors don't end up using more power than you'd be able to save by having the information, but for a quantitative data geek like me, cooooool. The Greener Grass via
Gizmodo

Playstation 3 measurements revisited

erac3rX (who is working on a killer gaming setup -- site coming soon at http://www.modsbox.com)
writes with measurements of the older revision of the playstation 3 to compare to the new revision in the 40GB PS3 posted here

Note the interesting difference between cold start and hot start on booting. Are there really 15 watts or more of fans running? Wow!


PS3 (60GB, one of the latest manufactured)
Off: 1
Booting (cold): 140-145, max 156
Booting (hot): 158-160
Menu (XMB) (cold): 156 at login screen, 163 after logged in and ticker tape running.
Menu (XMB) (hot): 167-169 waiting to login, 175 after logged in w ticker tape running.
Resistance Fall of Man: Cut Scenes: 163-164
Playing first level of RFOM: 180-185, peak 190
RFOM paused: 158-159
Loading Bluray/Menu: 169
play Bluray (House of Flying Daggers ch 14): 169-172
30x Fast Forward: 167-169
Paused bluray: 166-167
Running Folding @ Home: 191 w/ active visualization, 175 screensaved
Web page loading sony store page: 167-169

Time Lapse energy video

Check out this time lapse video It's not very quantitative, but it's quite cool. Even if you don't appreciate the message (it's similar to inconvenient truth in it's message) there is very cool imagery in there. The photographer made the video using still photos taken at intervals to make time lapse sequences in black and white.

EnergyConsumption.org

Great minds think alike :)

Check out this great site that also is posting power measurement data
http://www.energyconsumption.org
The data is here http://ec-users.pbwiki.com/Data

CFL light bulb with motion sensor built in

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/09/cfl-motion-detector-motionbulb/
Engadget reports on a compact fluorescent lightbulb with a motion sensor built in to detect motion up to 25 feet away

Going Green: Cyber-Rain XCI Waters Your Lawn When The Internet Commands It

Going Green: Cyber-Rain XCI Waters Your Lawn When The Internet Commands It

This is something I've been wanting, a sprinkler controller that turns off when it's going to rain based on forecast. Of course, you can provide do a lot more benefit to help fresh water resoruces by putting your $349 to wetlands recovery, though with the droughts in california and the southeast you might save some of your power bill if you don't turn off your sprinklers manually.

New revisions of Playstation 3 and XBOX 360

Both the xbox 360 and the PS3 have received minor updates recently which have reduced their power usage. Both the XBox's PowerPC CPU and the Playstation 3's cell CPU have gotten revisions to their manfacturing process (they were 90nm and are now 65nm).

Jump to the end for the power savings. The tale:

XBox360
Microsoft has been introducing them in to their maufacturing lines slowly along without any fanfare (why the heck not one has to ask) and not labelling them. People have resorted to internet forums to be able to identify the lot #s and manufacturing lines of the new ones. http://forums.xbox.com/15804553/ShowPost.aspx The basic gist is if you get Lot #736 and up from Team FDOU (on the label with upc on outside of box) you'll likely have a 65nm version. All the variations seems to be getting the new chip though the halo3 version seems to be easiest.

PS3
The new 40GB cost reduced version of the PS3 has new 65nm version of the cell processor. There was a fairly well confirmed rumor that this new sku was all 65nm which was later denied by sony even though it was confirmed that it uses less power, and then later undenied. So between the removal of the ps2 hardware chip and the new cpu a lot of power was saved. So not only is this new SKU $100 cheaper you could also save $$$ in electricity (though you get a bluray movie instead of a game, a smaller hard drive, less PS2 compatibility and no media card readers)




Both the xbox and the ps3 still have 90nm versions of their graphics chips. The GPUs won't transition to smaller processes until next year (and xbox will probably go to 55nm since it's an ati chip if I recall correctly) the PS3 GPU is called the RSX but I don't know when it will get a new process technology revision.


PS3 (40GB bought 11/2/07)
Off: 0
Booting: 135-136 (max 144)
Menu (XMB): 139-140
Resistance Fall of Man: Cut scenes: 137-138
Playing first level of RFOM: 144-150 (mostly 147-149, peaked at 155)
RFOM paused: 134
Loading Bluray/Menu: 134-135
play Bluray (SWAT ch 16) 134
30x Fast forward 134
Paused bluray 133
Running Folding @ home* 157
Web page loading sony store page 135-138

Xbox360 (lot 737 team FDOU, 2 inductors)
Off - 2 watts
Xbox live active download 95
booting 102-109
media center paused 100
Playing media center 100-105
UPDATED
loading halo 3 104-106 (max 111)
halo 3 menu 121
halo 3 campaign 126-132 (tsavo highway legendary rally point alpha)
paused 129-131
multiplayer matchmaking 115-116
multiplayer 116-124 (most commonly in range of 116-118)

xbox360 hddvd player
off 0-1 flips back and forth
idle 1
opening 3
booting 4-6
spinning up max 10
idle with disc in 6
playing hd dvd 6

UPDATE 2007-11-13

Old XBox 360 (90nm original motherboard)
Off 1-2
peak measured 162
playing project gotham intro 145


All measurements made with a kill-a-watt


So the 90nm version of PS3 used about 200 watts I'm told, now down to 135ish. So 65 watts saved for a gamer playing 10 hours per week, would be 2762 Watt hours per week and , which isn't much at current electrical rates, but if you factor in air conditioning for have the year (let's say doubling elec. usage) and elec rates for clean energy / building carbon sinks might save 5 bucks a week worth of elec. in the summer if you are a really hard core gamer.




* it uses more power but it helps science and might lead to new advances in protein science which could lead to better ways to make ethanol, or anti cancer drugs, alzheimers research, or technology to reduce power usage (proteins can be catalysts which for you engineers, are like having a special purpose processor that can do a calculation in 1 watt that it would take the CPU all 100 watts to do), if you already leave your PS3 or your computer on, or want to donate 150 watts to science please consider running it! more info at http://folding.stanford.edu

Use Electricity Wisely (TreeHugger)

Treehugger has found an excellent billboard

Use Electricity Wisely (TreeHugger): ""

PG&E purchases 177 megawatts of solar energy from plant to be built in San Luis Obispo - CNET

CNET is reporting that PG&E has entered in to a contract to purchase 177 megawatts of solar thermal power from Ausra who is building a 1 square mile plant in San Luis Obispo CA.

They already buy 533 megawatts from a plant in the mojave. This is the first I've heard of a major power company purchasing a solar contract though clearly it's happening already. PG&E plans to expand this 1 gigawatt in the next 5 years.

If anybody has any data on what PG&E will be paying per kilowatt hour for this I'd love to hear it, because they we can get a more true cost of electricity (taking in to account the extra costs for low co2 emission energy and/or renewable resources)

In North Carolina, the NCGreenpower program enables consumers to add extra money to their power bill to have Duke Energy buy their power from renewable resources. Though adding $20/month to your bill (you choose how much you want to add) probably only shifts a fraction of a homes power usage to renewable, it's a start.

So electrimetricers when you are measuring how much power things use and calculating how much this costs you annually, or you calculating off your current bill, future bills, or future bills that use renewable resources?

Inquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE: the linked article in the cnet article says solar thermal currently costs about 13 cents per kilowatt hour. But how much will PG&E be charging consumers?




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PG&E links with Ausra for 177 megawatts of solar thermal power | Green Tech blog - CNET News.com: "The utility is shooting to get 20 percent or more of its electricity from renewable sources, not including traditional hydroelectric power, by 2010. It currently gets 12 percent of its electricity now from renewables and has contracts that push it up to 18 percent. Most of its renewable energy so far comes from wind and biomass: PG&E right now gets only a little of its power from solar."