This is interesting … for US$100,600 per machine (White Goat), you will be able to take shredded office papers and turn them into a 40-sheet roll of toilet paper in 30 minutes. Here, have a look (and be amused) >
Archive for the ‘Going Green’ Category
White Goat?
Sunday, February 7th, 2010SAP bets on Software for Sustainability
Sunday, February 7th, 2010A recent article on CNET reported that SAP is trying to get ahead of the curve in environmental sustainability. An excerpt of it has been reproduced below.
What’s an enterprise software company doing getting into sustainability? After all, the environmental footprint from software production pales in comparison to resource-intensive industries such as power generation or even running data centers that deliver Web services such as search. (more…)
The Sustainability Consortium
Saturday, February 6th, 2010
It all started last July when Walmart announced it would begin surveying its suppliers on their environmental performance in order to one day rate the sustainability of its products. Since that landmark announcement, academics from the Arizona State University and University of Arkansas launched the Sustainability Consortium, a group representing government, NGO, academics and business interests that would develop the standards to be used to rate the sustainable attributes of products. Today, the consortium is made up of 26 Tier-I members and 6 Tier-II members (for clarity on the distinctions between Tier-I and Tier-II memberships and their costs, refer to the consortium’s application form). (more…)
What does Sustainability mean?
Thursday, February 4th, 2010There are probably many definitions of the term “sustainability”. Asks 10 different person and you’ll probably get 10 different answers.
One known definition of sustainability or sustainable development is by the World Commission on Environment and Development, from a 1987 UN conference, which defined sustainable developments as those that “meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs”. This definition provides an ideal premise, but however, it lacks in clarity on what specific human and environmental parameters to be used for modeling and measuring sustainable developments. (more…)
Syracuse University Data Centre goes Off The Grid
Monday, December 7th, 2009The latest news on the wire is that IBM has taken Syracuse University’s (SU) data centre off the electric grid. SU’s data center will be supported by tri-generation, which burns gas to provide heating, cooling and electricity in one. This is being touted as one of the world’s greenest with the on-site power generation system, liquid cooling and DC power.
In a statement released this week, IBM and Syracuse said that the $12.4 million (£7.5m) , 12,000-square-foot facility is set to become fully operational in January and will use around 50 percent less energy than an equivalent sized facility according to IBM. The computer giant, which is backing the data centre to the tune of $5 million, is also planning to build a Green Data Centre Analysis and Design Centre in 2010 to help other organisations who want to create similar facilities.
Ammonia – a more efficient energy source?
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009I read with interest the developments around using Ammonia as an alternative, cleaner, easier to transport and easier to store energy source. This reminds me of the movie Mad Max, where ammonia from pig’s urine was used as their fuel source.
Since 2004, the Iowa Energy Center has brought together researchers, investors and government officials to set the course for ammonia energy to provide relief from the U.S. reliance on imported petroleum.
Ammonia is molecular compound made up of Nitrogen and Hydrogen, and exists in a trigonal pyramidal shape (as shown in picture). Its chemical formula is NH3. Combined with Carbon Dioxide, it is what we know as urea (the main component in urine). Although Ammonia is found in trace quantities in the atmosphere and ammonium salts are also found in small quantities in rainwater, it is one of the most highly produced inorganic chemicals in the world. There are dozens of chemical plants worldwide which produces ammonia and in 2004, 109 million metric tonnes were produced (28.4% of these were from China alone, 8.2% from the U.S.). However, majority of these ammonia produced is used for fertilizing agricultural crops.
What else can we talk about Data Center designs?
Sunday, November 8th, 2009Larry Dignan wrote on his blog about Data Center design 101, but his knowledge about the data center essentially boils down to one word: Money. Larry attended two Gartner IT Symposium presentations to learn more about data center designs and shared his views about why companies are building new data centers and how the vendors are “killing each other to be the data center king“.
In his blog post, he shared what he had learned, which are: (more…)
Air Management in Data Centers
Thursday, September 10th, 2009Air Management is a discipline to address and minimize re-circulation of warm air and by-pass of cold air in the data center. The main objective of air management is to achieve energy savings and a better thermal condition for the data center. The picture below illustrates what by-pass and re-circulation means:
