Steve Lewis wants to use data for good. His company, Living PlanIT, works with hundreds of partners to create sustainable cities and improve business and construction efficiency.
Living PlanIT aims to bring high tech tools to the construction industry to help create sustainable, data-driven cities. We wrote about one such city in Portugal, where each building within the city will be able to plug… → Read More
In his weekly address on Saturday, President Obama announced the Department of Energy will loan almost $2 billion to two solar energy companies: Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing. The loans will go towards developing solar energy plants.
With the funding, Abengoa will build a solar plant in Arizona that can power 70,000 homes. When completed in 2013, the plant will be one of the… → Read More
Today, IBM delivered its first Aquasar supercomputer, which is cooled by water, to a Swiss technology institute. The system needs 40% less energy to run than air-cooled machines, and the waste heat it produces can be used to warm buildings.
The system works thanks to micro-channel liquid coolers that are attached directly to processors, one of the biggest culprits of computer heat generation. → Read More
Tesla unveiled its newest electric sports car today, the Roadster 2.5, just two days after its IPO. The Roadster 2.0 was released only a year ago, and existing customers will be able to buy upgrades to 2.5 features where feasible.
Pricing starts at $101,500 after a federal tax credit of $7,500.
The company says most of the updates are based on customer feedback. → Read More
Clean technology remains one of the hottest areas of venture funding. In the second quarter, cleantech venture investments worldwide totaled $2.02 billion across 140 companies, according to market research firm Cleantech Group and Deloitte. The numbers are in line with last quarter’s $2.04 billion, but 43% higher than one year ago.
Exits for the quarter totaled more than $8 billion globally… → Read More
Networking equipment maker Cisco intends to build a sustainable city in Portugal. The company will work with Living PlanIT, a startup focused on developing large-scale sustainable technologies.
What will this city look like? For one thing, it’ll be wired with tens of millions of sensors providing real-time data to help manage common urban issues like traffic and crime. The 11-square-mile city… → Read More
Electric car manufacturer Tesla is pricing its IPO at $17 per share, according to a release issued this evening. We just wrote today that one day before its scheduled IPO, Tesla Motors increased the allotment of shares that will be sold to the public from 11.1 million to 13.3 million, according to an amendment to its S1 filing. → Read More
Toyota and Tesla announced a new partnership at Tesla’s headquarters in Palo Alto today, the auto makers will collaborate on technology, the development of new electric vehicles and Toyota will purchase $50 million of Tesla’s common stock. The press conference featured the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk and TMC President, Akio Toyoda.
Calling it an “explosion”… → Read More
After eight years of operating in quasi-stealth, Bloom Energy came out with a bang today at an event in Silicon Valley attended by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Colin Powell, Larry Page, John Doerr, and executives from eBay, Walmart, Coca-Cola, and FedEx. All of the big-name companies, including Google, are beta customers of Bloom’s distributed energy fuel cell technology (which was the subject of a 60… → Read More
Over the past several years, there’s been no shortage of talk about alternative energy, and its potential to change the world. The problem is that most of it is just that — talk. But tonight, a report that aired on 60 Minutes showed one alternative that is not only real, it’s already being tested by companies such as Google and eBay. You simply have to watch this.
Bloom Energy are producing… → Read More
Right off the heels of filing for a $100 million IPO, electric car company Tesla Motors this morning announced that it has hired former Toyota production engineering GM Gilbert Passin to lead the company’s vehicle manufacturing operations as Vice President of Manufacturing.
Passin has 23 years of international automotive experience under his belt, most recently serving as general manager of… → Read More
Electric car company Tesla Motors has filed for a $100 million IPO. There were rumors recently floating around that the company, which is led by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, would go public “soon.” One interesting tidbit from the filing: Musk only takes $1 in yearly salary.
Another interesting factoid: In the filing, Tesla states that it has seen net losses in each quarter since inception. The… → Read More
I’ve been quite fascinated by electric car firm Better Place since I read up on how the company was founded by former SAP executive Shai Agassi in the excellent book ‘Start-up Nation’, which tells of Israel’s historical entrepreneurial DNA and tech success stories.
Basically, Better Place aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation… → Read More
Sounds like technology is making a difference in the lives of the victims of the Haitian earthquakes. Several different companies that produce products that use solar power have been sending equipment as part of the aid mission. Among the equipment are lights for hospitals and solar panels to help with water purification. → Read More
Earth Day is in full swing. Have you offset your carbon emissions yet? Well, there are plenty of apps and Websites out there ready to help you do just that and more. Green is the new black. Speaking of which, if you want to be green, you’d better avoid black cars and Websites with all-black backgrounds (like goth sites and sometimes even Google).
But don’t avoid us. We just decided to turn… → Read More
Japan is turning greener and greener by the week, it seems. This weekend, during the Eco Products 2008 exhibition in Tokyo, a total of 750 companies showcased a few hundred new environmentally friendly products and services. Four noteworthy examples are shown in the video above [JP]. The first segment is about a water heating boiler that is powered by bricks made of dried newspapers, with the main… → Read More
We’ve seen a few sites attempt to help turn the web green, but most of them have been little more than gimmicks. Blackle purports to conserve energy by offering a “black” version of Google, which it says uses less energy than the engine’s standard white. But Google has gone on to say that black may actually increase the amount of energy consumed by visitors (of course, this didn’t stop Google… → Read More
Yesterday Y Combinator backed CO2Stats announced the launch of a fully functional version of their emissions measuring service for websites. The launch comes nearly a year after the release of a prototype widget that was designed to test the market and gauge user response. The idea eventually attracted enough press and positive feedback for the founders to take their service and calculations to… → Read More
Frankly this should just be an application on Facebook and MySpace, it would get better traction. But that’s not what the consultants told Waste Management (a $20 billion company that, well, manages waste), I’m guessing, since today they’ve launched Greenopolis, a social network for greenies.
They’re committed, they say, to connecting people and businesses on green issues, and teach people about… → Read More
I met with Canadian startup Zerofootprint during my trip to Toronto last week for the Mesh Conference. The company, which is a non-profit, was started and funded by Ron Dembo, formerly the founder of Algorithmics Incorporated.
Their chief goal, says the company, is to raise awareness among individuals and groups that everything we consume has some impact on the environment. The company is… → Read More
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