The lovable 13-inch MacBook Pro measures only an inch thick, despite a built-in optical drive, and uses the same Unibody enclosure carved out from a thick slab of aluminum. These are the fundamentals--a metallic chassis and a thin design--that have contributed to Apple's success. Beyond that, the MacBook Pro 13-inch (now with the "Pro" moniker for $1,199) brings back the FireWire port, lowers its price, and for the first time in the company's history, adds the elusive SD slot.
Apple goes out of its way to emphasize the MacBook Pro 13-inch's green credentials, and we acknowledge them as well. As with its predecessor, the laptop is certified for Energy Star 5.0, EPEAT Gold, and RoHS. The use of an LED display eliminates the use of hazardous materials (mercury and arsenic) and promotes energy efficiency. Furthermore, it has an excellent recycling program in place, and the use of a non-removable battery across the board curbs the amount of waste heading into a landfill. Our energy consumption tests further cements the MacBook Pro 13-inch's GreenTech Approved nod, as our P3 International Kill-A-Watt meter measured a 13-Watt reading in idle state--one Watt below Energy Star's maximum.
Cell phones, generally, use little power (unless you're on 3G) especially during idle mode. So much so that Nokia believes the possibility of developing a cell phone that does not require any charging is high. The Nokia Research Centre in Cambridge, UK is currently working on a phone prototype that can harness ambient radio waves otherwise known as electromagnetic radiation from antennas, TV masts, WiFi transmitters among others as a source of power. Like a typical RFID tag, the technology can convert electromagnetic waves into electric signals which it harnesses for power. Current prototype of the device can harness 3 to 5 milliwatts of electricity; far from the target 50 milliwatts needed to power a cell phone.
A Nokia Research rep believes it could take as soon as three to four years for the technology to be completely developed and released commercially. To be able to reach the 50 milliwatt goal, Nokia is working on a receiver that can tap into a wider variety of frequencies, since it could take as much as 1,000 different signals to get to that number. The moment it happens could be a breakthrough when it comes to energy sources for portable devices, as gadgets like media players require only 100 milliwatts to work. However, I'd have to agree with Technology Review when they say that Nokia could ultimately combine this technology with other sources of renewable energy such as solar panels attached on cell phone casings.
Bad news for green tech in the Bay Area: According to the Berkeley Voice, Berkeley has ended its six-year biodiesel effort for its trucks and other machines, amid concerns that biodiesel actually increases greenhouse gases and worsens world hunger.
"Four years ago we looked at this and thought it was a really good idea to do biofuels when there were no crop-based biofuels, but the situation has changed beneath us," said Robert Clear a member of the city's Community Environmental Advisory Commission, which had initially recommended the city change its fueling policies.
The backstory: in 2003, the city began to use 100 percent biodiesel in over 100 cars and trucks that normally run on regular diesel. Originally, the biodiesel came from recycled waste frying grease, but the city changed over the years to crop-basedbiofuels once recycled waste supplies ran short. The problem is that while biodiesel pollutes less out of a car's tailpipe, the farming involved to produce crop-based biofuel often increases greenhouse gas pollution. (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Last week General Motors reaffirmed its commitment to the Chevy Volt despite the company's chapter 11 filing. This week it doubled down by unveiling the largest automotive battery lab in the United States on its Technical Center campus--expanding its already significant battery research and development capabilities.
GM said in a statement that the new Global Battery Systems Lab will lead the company's global advanced battery engineering resources and help expedite electric vehicle launches--including the Chevrolet Volt, as well as future "plug-in hybrid and hybrid-electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles."
Here's hoping that GM engineers continue to nod politely at product exec Bob Lutz's ridiculous, moronic pronouncements about building green vehicles solely for their "halo effect" in dealerships, while working on the Volt at the same time regardless of what Lutz says.
(Pictured: cutaway image of the Chevy Volt. Image credit: GM)
What can be recycled: CRT monitors, LCD monitors, keyboards, mice, projectors, and TVs.
Recycling program(s) offered: BenQ claims to have partnered with ARC International Corporation to offer a recycling program. However, ARC's website is down, and the only information BenQ offers customers is remarkably thin: "For information on how to properly recycle of your BenQ computer equipment, please call BenQ Customer Service at 866-600-2367." Give that number a call and a rep will take your information, give you an RMA number, and directions on how to ship your product to the company's Irvine, CA, facility.
There's more information online regarding the company's trade-in program, BenQ Trade In Program. Powered by Market Velocity's TradeUps program, it's the same service offered by NEC Display and CollectiveGood. To participate you must purchase a new BenQ projector or LCD monitor. Enter information about your product and its condition on the site and get an instant quote. Confirm the deal and BenQ will email you a pre-paid shipping label and instructions. Ship your product and expect a check via the USPS approximately 45 days later.
Fee(s):None.
Cash back/rewards: Receive cash back for your product from the TradeUps program, which you can use to offset the purchase of a new BenQ monitor or projector.
Participating region(s): U.S.
For information on the recycling programs of most major computer and electronics manufacturers, see our complete Electronics Recycling Superguide. Have you used any of the services or programs listed above? Or has the company added a new program, expanded its services, or changed its policies? Post your thoughts and comments below!
By definition, a palmtop or pico projector is both light enough and small enough to rest on your palm. To achieve its tiny size (my postage scale put the weight just under 1.3 pounds), the BenQ Joybee GP1 ($500 street) is built around a DLP chip along with an LED light source meant to last for the life of the projector. The LEDs, rated at 20,000 hours, help keep the total cost of ownership down. And they boost the green appeal, in our eyes: Standard projector lamps typically cost $200 or more to replace, and unlike LEDs, they often contain environmentally unfriendly mercury.
In addition to the mercury-free light source, a key requirement for GreenTech Approval, it uses lead-free glass for its lens system, includes an automatic power-off feature, and is RoHS compliant. BenQ also has a recycling program in place, as well as a trade-in program. The recycling program includes free shipping in some states, although in most states you have to pay for shipping. For more on this pocket-size marvel, read the full review on PCMag.com.
Separate from the company's efforts to develop and release energy-efficient computers, HP has launched a new campaign recently, called "Power to Change." In a nutshell, the campaign is pushing for computer user behavior changes, encouraging people to switch off computers when not in use. A lot of people leave their computers on at home even when they're away; for businesses, that's usually a given since updates and maintenance are done during evenings. The latter scenario provided impetus for a quite a number of energy-saving software to emerge. For this campaign though, HP is calling for total computer shutdown during idle hours.
HP took into consideration the fact that it's common for heavy computer users to leave their machines running 24/7 though, so the company released a widget (compatible with all operating systems) for the campaign that tells users how much energy they could save with the amount of idle time they left the computer running. Hopefully, the widget could convince users to shut down their machines during off hours. If 100,000 users shut down their computers at the end of each day, according to HP, 2,680 kilowatt-hours of energy would be saved. The Power to Change campaign is part of HP's efforts to save one billion kilowatt-hours of electricity by 2011.
Xunlight, a startup in Toledo, Ohio, has developed a way to make large, flexible solar panels, according to MIT's Technology Review. Here's how it works: the company has created a roll-to-roll manufacturing technique which presses thin-film, amorphous silicon solar cells onto thin sheets of stainless steel.
Each solar module is about three feet wide and 18 feet long. (Xunming Deng, a co-founder of Xunlight, is holding one of them in the picture). The report said that these lightweight, flexible sheets could easily be integrated into building roofs or on vehicles--unlike the bulky, rigid solar panels that are available today. They could even "be rolled up and carried in a backpack," Deng said. "You could take it with you and charge your laptop battery."
Deng even thinks his silicon thin-film solar cells could be cheaper than conventional crystalline cells because of how little material they use--just one micrometer thick, compared with 150 to 200 micrometer-thick silicon layers inside crystalline solar cells.
The downside? The flexible modules are just eight percent efficient, even with some ingenious enhancements, compared with 20 percent for regular cells. That means the large modules are only good for 330 watts, or less than one half the 740 watts a comparably sized rigid cell would produce. To date, Xunlight has raised $40 million in VC, and received a $7 million loan from the state of Ohio, ahead of its planned commercial product launch next year.
In terms of alternative fuels, Audi (like its VW stablemate) is pushing clean diesel, having always been committed to diesel engines at least in Europe if not so much here yet. But Autocar reports that according to Michael Dick, the car maker's director of technical development, Audi will completely rethink the way it engineers its cars over the next few years--and will prioritize "hybrid and electric powertrains and lightweight construction."
Dick said that significant weight reduction is very important for the future, because it will be the "basis for the electrification of the car," as well as benefit regular gasoline-powered vehicles. And the traditional plusses of less weight--improved handling and faster performance with less horsepower--are always nice as well.
To this end, the company's first prototype is a special version of the S5 coupe--one that is an astounding 880 pounds lighter than the current production version. It employs a hybrid steel-aluminum body; engineers can mix varying amounts of aluminum into the structure, according to the report. Cars have gained lots of weight over the years, mostly due to safety and interior tech improvements, so this could be huge if Audi figures out how to bring the costs down fo mass production.
If all goes according to plan, drilling for the very first geothermal plant in the UK will begin within a year and will be operational come 2012. UK's first geothermal power station is an initiative by UK-based Eden Project and EGS Energy which is expected to complement the wind farms to be built in the country, especially during times when winds are scarce. Projected to cost roughly $23 million, the plant will be built neat St. Austell in Cornwall and is slated to produce 3 megawatts of energy.
Engineers will first drill two boreholes around 2.5 miles into the granite that lies underneath much of Cornwall. Each hole will taper - and will be 24 inches wide at the top, and around nine inches wide at its bottom.
Water will be pumped down one well and forced through the hot, porous granite to the bottom of the second well where it will return to the surface under pressure and at temperatures of around 150C.
Energy will be produced by positioning a heat exchanger near the surface that will harness the heat in order to drive a turbine. Any excess or waste heat will be pumped into the offices of Eden Project (located near the plant) and greenhouses for heating purposes. Part of the electricity produced from the process will be used to power the plant itself, particularly for the pumping of water from the bottom to the surface. Around 60 to 70 percent of the energy produced will be sent to the grid though, and is expected to power around 5,000 homes. This geothermal power plant is proposed as part of the UK's plan to power a third of the country with renewable energy by 2020.
Metro de Bilbao, the company that oversees the subway system for the city of Bilbao, Spain, has announced that all of the energy the system used last year was obtained from renewable sources, according to AutoblogGreen, adding that it's a first for a citywide subway anywhere in the world.
The company said in a statement that Naturgas, a local utility, supplied the renewable energy--and helped the system save 46,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere in 2008. That's equivalent to taking 8,000 cars off the road, assuming each one was driven for 20,000 miles per year.
In addition, the company announced that all cars now have a new brake energy recovery system that provides better braking performance and helps reduce energy consumption by up to 33 percent, according to the report.
At the 2009 Worldwide Developer Conference, the company announced that new 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro sport an improved version of the lithium-polymer "adaptive charging" battery the company debuted in January. These new batteries have over 1,000 recharge cycles, up from the 300 cycles in the originals. The batteries should last five years, noted Apple's Phil Schiller, "longer than the average life of the notebook." The batteries should provide 7 hours of life, the company claims--though they're still not user-removable.
Curious about these new and improved batteries? A video on Apple's Website has a fair bit of information on how the first generation was manufactured, and why Apple thinks it's so gosh darn unique. No news on how the company has changed it yet, however. Take a look at the video...and let us know what you think.
Computex is the second largest computer expo in the world, behind only the tremendously huge German show CeBIT. This year's event reached a record high, with more than 4,498 booths at three convention centers in Taiwan. Of particular note at this year's show was the strong emphasis IT companies placed upon low-power, environmentally friendly technology. Here's a few of the important announcements and areas of innovation, culled from various websites and an official Computex press release.
Netbooks: With key announcements from Intel, nVidia, Via, ARM, and others, netbooks were clearly the talk of the show. Beyond their obvious low power consumption (many use CULV processors from Intel, for Consumer Ultra Low Voltage), many emphasize green design and green marketing. Leading brands such as Acer, Asus, BenQ, MSI, and Gigabyte all introduced ULV netbooks.
Michael Miller notes that AMD has big plans in this space as well. He points out that: "the company has high hopes for its dual-core "Congo" platform, slated for this fall. AMD feels its original Neo chip (used in the HP DV2) pioneered the ultrathin category of machines that are more powerful than an Atom-based netbook but lighter than a traditional notebook."
If you want external storage that's both environmentally responsible and truly distinctive-looking, get it with the SimpleTech [re]drive. It's available in capacities of 500GB ($80 street) and 1TB ($95 street), so it's easy to have a lot of eco-friendly hard-drive space at your fingertips (and at your PC's USB port).
The [re]drive's appearance and its greenness are tightly intertwined. The 1.5-by-4.8-by-7.4-inch drive is constructed of aluminum and bamboo, which gives it a unique two-toned design. SimpleTech points out that the drive's symmetrical frame facilitates interchangeability, reduces waste and production costs, and--because the aluminum acts as a heat sink--obviates power-sucking, noisy fans. Although not fully silent, the [re]drive is quiet, and it conveniently shuts off its own power when the computer is off or in sleep mode.
The drive doesn't use much more power when it's on and running: It averaged 6W while idling and never went above 8W while processing. These are all pluses, and so is the packaging, which is minimal, includes no plastic, is largely made from recycled materials, and is fully recyclable. Not many hard drives earn our GreenTech Approved seal--the last was the WD My Book Studio Edition II, which used under 20W of power--but the [re]drive definitely qualifies.
The popularity of plasma HDTVs continues to wane, but Panasonic's new display technology may give shoppers reason to reconsider. The company claims the updated panel on the 42-inch Panasonic Viera TC-P42S1 ($1,099.95 list) maintains perfect picture detail no matter how complex the on-screen action, and my testing on the set backs up that claim. Furthermore, this set and others in the S1 line are competitively priced when compared with same-size LCD models. And for a plasma, it's very energy efficient out of the box.
The TC-P42S1's default picture setting reduces its picture brightness in order to earn the set an Energy Star rating. With this configuration, the set's average power consumption is 149W, with an estimated operating cost of $2.59 per month based on 5 hours of daily use at $0.1135 per kWh (the 2008 national average). LCDs generate more light output with the same amount of energy, but the TC-P42S1's power consumption is the least we've seen from a plasma set--and lower than with many LCDs of similar size. Ironically, configuring the TC-P42S1 to use its Cinema preset, which on most HDTVs reduces overall brightness and energy consumption, actually drew more power--an additional 41W--and produced a correspondingly brighter picture compared with the default setup.
For more information, read our full review of the Panasonic TC-P42S1 on PCMag.com.
The lovable 13-inch MacBook Pro measures only an inch thick, despite a built-in optical drive, and uses the same Unibody enclosure carved out from a thick slab of aluminum. These are the fundamentals--a metallic chassis and a thin design--that have contributed to Apple's success. Beyond that, 
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