energy saving Archives – The Green Optimistic

Energy Saving Tips to Save on Electricity Bills and Make Your Home Eco-Friendly

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 10:26:30 +0000

The world, as we all know it, is already suffering from the adverse effects of climate change. Unless we make drastic changes to corporate and government goals, there’s pretty much nothing we can do to mitigate it. However, you can take part in the green initiative by reducing your home’s carbon footprint and reducing your […]

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Building This DIY Solar Air Heater Can Save You $1000 per Winter

Matias Prieto — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 17:37:24 +0000

The solar air heating collector is a quick and simple way to get started on alternative energy. Although is a quite simple array, it can make you save a lot of money on energy bills. Just basic thermodynamics, not moving parts, cheap and effective. How does it work? Thermosiphon Diagram – Hot/Cold Air Flow The […]

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This Energy-Saving Device Could Cut Your Bill by 70%

Arsenij Percov — Sat, 21 Jul 2018 19:54:11 +0000

If you have to pay a lot for electricity, it is bad for both you and the environment. In most of the cases, you do not have to use that much energy, but you just forget about something turned on, or do not think about it at all. So, how can you save some money […]

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Flow Loop: a Water-Recirculating Shower That Recovers Heat

Janina Lazo-Cruz — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 18:36:54 +0000

Taking hot or cold showers consume a lot of water and energy even for just a few minutes compared to ordinary baths. Thus came the invention of recirculating showers that allow lesser water and energy consumption, but with an expensive price. A new, cheaper, and improved energy- and water-saving shower was designed by Flow Loop, […]

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Qube: The Cheap Smart LED Lightbulb You’ve Been Waiting For

Mila Luleva — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 20:09:03 +0000

The Qube smart LED bulb is fully controlled via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it provides light in millions of colors, and it comes at a super affordable price. Everything is “smart” these days- homes, phones, gadgets, you name it. Technology is advancing so fast, that even our own minds cannot keep up. But, as fast as […]

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New Technology Recovers Energy from London’s Underground

Mila Luleva — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 08:39:52 +0000

New hybrid technology, tested on London’s underground system, can recover enough energy to power busy stations and lead to great energy savings. The underground system in London is one of the busiest in the world with over a billion passengers boarding the fast trains on annual basis. Unfortunately, the great popularity and convenience of this […]

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Shower of the Future, Saves Water and Electricity

Mila Luleva — Fri, 14 Aug 2015 12:28:58 +0000

The Shower of the Future is a smart technology, which lets you spend as much time as you need under running water, yet limits your water use to only five liters and saves energy. Fresh water shortage is quite a pressing issue these days, but regardless of how much effort we all put to save […]

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Building Made of Bio-concrete Heals Its Own Cracks

Mila Luleva — Mon, 18 May 2015 19:38:01 +0000

Self-healing cement, made entirely of bacteria, is now out of the lab and in the walls of the first building that can repair cracks on its own. It is a well known fact that the cement industry is one of the most polluting ones, right up there with coal burning power plants. This is why […]

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Does Daylight Saving Time Really Cut Down On Our Energy Bills?

Mila Luleva — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 13:08:38 +0000

For most states in the U.S., except Hawaii and Arizona, daylight saving time (DST) was officially over this weekend. The clocks went one hour back, meaning we not only get one hour extra sleep in the morning, but we also get a bit more light. The whole concept of changing time was initially introduced to […]

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How to Make a Bubble Wrap Window Insulation

Mila Luleva — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:01:28 +0000

Here we would like to show you how to improve your window insulation by using bubble wrap. Over the last few days we published a series of articles showing how to save energy and cut down electricity bills at home. Undoubtedly, the first step towards having an energy efficient house is to ensure that there is a good and […]

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Department of Energy Sponsors Contest to Find Top Energy-Saving Monitors

Leigh Hutchens — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 15:05:15 +0000

In an effort to lessen electricity usage, the US Department of Energy (DOE), in partnership with the International Clean Energy Coalition, is sponsoring a contest to find the more efficient energy-saving monitors. This initiative is part of the Clean Energy Ministerial that was launched in 2010 – a global forum launched by the DOE and […]

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Micro Antenna Boosts Mobile Connectivity and Battery Life

Benji Jerew — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:40:26 +0000

Are mobile phones and other wireless personal electronic devices green? While we don’t boast how big our gasoline-powered mobile phone generators are, we have to realize that these devices suck up a lot of energy. Generated by power plants, the electricity powering our mobile devices is hardly clean, and when you consider there are billions […]

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Online Tool Helps Saving Energy and Reducing Carbon Footprint

Mila Luleva — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 20:13:24 +0000

The U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE)’s Urban and Community Forestry Program, and EcoLayers developed a tool that helps property owners estimate the benefit of planting trees in terms of energy saving and carbon footprint reduction. It is an online tool that uses Google Maps […]

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Self-Healing Concrete Could Save Money and be Safer

Benji Jerew — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:05:35 +0000

The beauty of concrete as a construction material is its strength under compression, but over time, with exposure to sun and rain, traditional concrete begins to break down. While reinforcing fiberglass, steel rods, and other additives have helped to make concrete more resilient, even these tend to break down, or worse, crack. Repairs, unfortunately, are […]

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Nest’s New Learning Thermostat With Better Design and Energy-Saving Features

Mila Luleva — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 08:29:51 +0000

The release of next-generation Nest Learning Thermostat was announced yesterday by the leading manufacturer Nest Labs Inc. Not even a year after the official introduction of the product on the global market, the new model is already available but now slimmer, sleeker, and compatible with 95 percent of low-voltage household heating and cooling systems. Current […]

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Data Centers Could Work at Higher Temps to Save Energy

Benji Jerew — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 06:21:01 +0000

The internet is a huge network of interconnected computers. Hundreds of thousands of servers quickly store, locate, and retrieve data, sometimes from halfway around the world, and usually thousands of times per second. This requires massive amounts of power, greater than 1% of the energy output of the entire world. For example, Google has about […]

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Simple Drain Heat Recovery System Can Save Up to 50% Heating Energy

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 07:44:11 +0000

This morning I found an ingenious idea by RenewABILITY Energy, called Power-Pipe Drain Water Heat Recovery (DWHR). The name should say it all – it’s a system designed to recover the heat of the water going down the drain and to reduce heating costs by as much as 40 percent. The idea is brilliant yet simple […]

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2 Reasons Why White Cars Are Environmentally-Friendlier Than Black Cars

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 10:53:02 +0000

Today I realized something I already knew, but didn’t pay importance to: black cars drink more fuel than lighter-colored ones, and this is something the car dealer fails to tell you when you’re about to get the cash out and enjoy your first ride home. Why do you think this happens? Reason #1: It happens […]

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New Wastewater Treatment Plant From Siemens Saves Energy by Using Bacterial Heat

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:09:41 +0000

Siemens has recently invented a new biodrying process that can convert sewage sludge into usable elements – all of this while saving a great deal of energy. Thus, their “mechanically enhanced biodrying” doesn’t require any external heat source, but produces its own with the help of the microbes in the sludge, which costs about 30 […]

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Study: Yahoo Mail Users Consume 11% More Electricity Than Gmail Users

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 15:18:27 +0000

An interesting piece of news shared by Zach from Cleantechnica struck my attention and I instantly knew I had to blog about it. It looks like Yahoo Mail users are inclined to use more electricity than Gmail users, according to Opower, “a new customer engagement platform for the utility industry.” “Based on the company’s cutting-edge […]

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New PCM Memory Encoding Technique Saves 30% Energy

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:51:35 +0000

A new memory technology coming from Rice University and UCLA could slash 30 percent or even more of the energy needed today by flash memory. Not only that, but the new “phase-change memory” (PCM) is much faster than flash (the type used in USB drives). PCM is not new to scientists – it shares the […]

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Credit Suisse Zurich Datacenter Saves Up to 50% Electricity Thanks to Innovative Management System

Ovidiu Sandru — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:08:24 +0000

An innovative method of saving the energy consume by data centers has been invented by EPFL scientists and applied for Credit Suisse in Switzerland. The solution, developed at the Embedded Systems Laboratory at EPFL, will save up to 50% of the energy currently used. The Power Monitor System and Management uses a set of (probably […]

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Mr. Beam – Amazingly Green Virtual Light-Powered Redecorations

Ovidiu Sandru — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:10:25 +0000

Now, everyone who's ever done a redecoration of their home knows how time and energy wasting is to buy the bed, then realize that the color won't fit the color of the wall, or that you wanted another model for the table, wall clock etc.

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Japanese Researchers Find Ways To Produce Biobutanol More Efficiently

Ovidiu Sandru — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:04:07 +0000

Butanol can be made greener by the research of a Japanese institute, who developed an energy-saving biobutanol with a density of at least 80 percent. They derived their biobutanol from a 1 percent concentrated butanol and used a zeolitic separation membrane.

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Home Energy Monitors Do Not Necessarily Save Energy In The Long Run, Study Says

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:11:39 +0000

A study conducted by University of Delft students showed that energy management systems used at home (HEMS) are not as efficient as they were presumed to be. Human nature seems to be the fault, and the effect manifests itself in the long run.

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Philadelphia To Recover Subway Trains' Brake Forces In Huge Battery For Reuse/Resale

Ovidiu Sandru — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:39:53 +0000

Having a battery could someday be compared to having gold mine. Take Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, for example. They' going to use a huge battery and charge it from the subway's braking trains. The energy recovered thus will either be sold back to the grid or reused for acceleration.

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Hydra Energy Saving Device Uses Your Phone to Tell Your Energy Vampires

Ovidiu Sandru — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:20:46 +0000

For every device there is plogg, a measuring apparatus mounted between the wall socket and the consumer that measures its power consumption and wirelessly sends that consumption to a central server around your house.

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