wattwatt

Measuring energy consumption

Jerry Rodgers on January 29, 2010

The first step in reducing energy consumption is measuring how much you are using. Energy consumption consists of two primary components, power and demand. Power, measured in watts, indicates the rate at which energy is expended. Demand, measured in volt-amperes (VA), indicates the requirement that a customer places on the utility to deliver voltage and current without regard to the efficiency of that delivery of whether or not it does actual work. Power is usually less than demand and the ratio between the two, kW/kVA is called the power ...

Popularity46%
Views 236
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Keywords energy

Solar Power in Public Transportation

Dean Dowd on January 26, 2010

Solar-powered mass transit is key to U.S. energy sustainability. Did you know that one full city bus can keep 50 or more cars off ...

Popularity83%

Views 595
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Keywords transport | solar energy | solar panels | solar power | transportation

New MicroPhotoVoltaic Cells for Solar Concentrators

Jose Vaz Pinto on January 13, 2010

"Sandia National Laboratories scientists have developed tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells that are expected to be less expensive and have greater efficiencies than current photovoltaic collectors ...

Popularity11%

Views 292
Comments 0

Keywords energy | mems | energy efficiency | renewable energy | solar power

Why Cliamte Change is Divisive and Why It Should Not Be

Elizabeth Crenshaw on February 8, 2010

Climate change is frequently referred to as a hot-button issue. It’s a “platform” issue, with political parties taking definite stands on either side. Both ...

Popularity23%

Views 47
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In a lighter vein

Shrikant Dhekne on February 1, 2010

The name wattwatt strikes a ring of familiarity and is seen extremely apt. In Marathi language of western India, a phonetically similar word वटवट (pronounced ...

Popularity100%

Views 142
Comments 1

Keywords misc | wattwatt

Solar scooters in Rio de Janeiro

Yvonne Flavin on January 22, 2010

We're hearing a lot of talk about electric cars but not so much about two-wheeled vehicles. Those of us who live and work in ...

Popularity24%

Views 315
Comments 0

Keywords transport | scooter | green electricity | brazil | solar power

Smart meter plans threatened?

Philippa Martin-King on January 14, 2010

It seems that the British plans to install smart meters is threatened by consumer fears. Householders are worried that employees of utility companies could use ...

Popularity11%

Views 259
Comments 1

Keywords at home | smart meter | utility companies

Harvesting energy from other devices to power up

Philippa Martin-King on January 13, 2010

At CES 2010, RCA was showing a prototype of a handheld energy-harvesting battery designed to convert energy transmitted in a Wi-Fi signal into DC power ...

Popularity10%

Views 269
Comments 0

Keywords appliances | wifi | battery | charger

2010 - year of the electric car and a little food for thought

Philippa Martin-King on January 12, 2010

The 2010 Detroit and LA motor shows have a concentration of electric cars. These are either hybrid, where they are differentiated into two categories of ...

Popularity11%

Views 310
Comments 1

High Amp service versus low

Aple Newtons on January 9, 2010

So you only pay for the electricity you use, we all 'know' that. However, the question is, is there a small amount - due to increased ...

Popularity8%

Views 369
Comments 0

Keywords at home | service | Amp | cost | efficiency

Cleantech - Top ten green universities in US and top 10 countries

Philippa Martin-King on January 6, 2010

A long while back, I mentioned the LED lighting in the city of Ann Arbour in one of my pulses. It's no surprise then ...

Popularity7%

Views 376
Comments 0

Times Square New Year's Eve Ball goes green

Yvonne Flavin on January 1, 2010

And to continue our "pedal power" series, here's another one that caught my eye on the Engadget website the other day. I'm afraid ...

Popularity5%

Views 393
Comments 0

Keywords energy | bicycle | new york | leds lighting

Fixing a vibrating transformer

Jerry Rodgers on January 1, 2010

I ran into an interesting problem a few weeks ago so I am sharing in case it helps anyone else. A client in a large ...

Popularity5%

Views 337
Comments 0

Keywords energy

Stores photovoltaïques et éoliennes productrices d'eau

M. Denis Bloud on December 21, 2009

Nouvelle page sur les stores photovoltaïques et sur les éoliennes productrices d'eau de condensation: http://dbloud.free.fr/eauli... (brevet industriel à saisir ...

Popularity3%

Views 380
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Keywords at home | bioélectronique | condensation d'eau atmosphérique | éolienne | stores photovoltaïques

SmartGrid - Compteurs intelligents

M. Denis Bloud on December 21, 2009

La France va enfin installer, comme d'autres pays, des compteurs intelligents permettant une autorégulation du réseau par CPL. Ils s'agit des ...

Popularity3%

Views 366
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Keywords energy | autorégulation du réseau | compteurs intelligents | smart grid | smart meters

looking for softcopy of P-IEC 60687 ed2.0 standard for 0.2S/0.5S Class electronic taroff meters

Gurmeet Anand on December 17, 2009

IEC 687 standard has been replaced with a updated standard. Can somebdy give me a softcopy of this older standard? P-IEC 60687 ed2.0 regards

Popularity2%

Views 435
Comments 1

Keywords energy | iec 687 standard | sofctopy

Copenhagen's Christmas tree is lit by pedal-power

Yvonne Flavin on December 14, 2009

Copenhagen has always been particularly bike-friendly - they were proposing free bikes to get around way before other cities - but this is taking things one step ...

Popularity3%

Views 715
Comments 0

Keywords energy | bicycle | copenhagen | leds lighting

When plugs start to talk... and help save energy

Yvonne Flavin on December 14, 2009

The stuff of science fiction movies has become reality! Imagine if all electrical outlets had the ability to monitor and capture your home or office ...

Popularity3%

Views 925
Comments 0

Keywords energy | energy savings | plugged in

Ringing bells - a state of urgency

Philippa Martin-King on December 11, 2009

Bells are going to be rung throughout the world on Sunday, 13 December. In middle ages, the church bell was rung to warn villagers of ...

Popularity2%

Views 406
Comments 0

Keywords responsibility | bell | climate change

Mandatory energy efficient HDTV screens for California

Philippa Martin-King on December 7, 2009

There's a new move towards energy efficiency in California. This time, the State's energy commissioners have voted beyond the federal government’s voluntary ...

Popularity2%

Views 503
Comments 0

Keywords appliances | lcd | california | consumption | TV

Robot electric taxis

Philippa Martin-King on December 7, 2009

According to Der Spiegel a new European Union-funded project will see the introduction of driverless Taxis at Heathrow, "cyber cars" in Rome and an automatic ...

Popularity2%

Views 458
Comments 0

How green are Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs)?

Francois Becheret on December 7, 2009

Some countries and states like Australia, California, and the European Union plan in the near future to ban incandescent light bulbs, to the benefit of ...

Popularity2%

Views 502
Comments 0

World heritage city installs new street lighting

Philippa Martin-King on December 2, 2009

When visiting Chilean world heritage city, Valparaíso, last month I was interested to see that they had not only installed new street lighting but ...

Popularity3%

Views 430
Comments 0

Keywords lighting | chile | development | security

the community for individuals interested in electrical energy efficiency

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Kamali Prakash

Team Leader - Design, 30 years old

India, DGL

Shrikant Dhekne

India, Pune

February 5, 2010

Do you know what’s going on?

Apparently, social media sites Twitter and Facebook are perfectly sufficient to keep you up to date with what’s going on in the world. Sometimes people even learn about things ahead of the main press.

That’s the conclusion of the week of huis clos (which literally means “behind closed doors”) spent by five French speaking journalists. They were shut away and asked to comment on world news using, as sole sources of information, what they could gather from Twitter and Facebook.

There are drawbacks however to using social media. One of the comments is that it’s very difficult to analyse the information you come across. It’s endless. How do you decode what you find? You have to rely considerably on your contacts. How can you decypher the notes from the noise? What happens if you don’t speak English? Or French? The #huisclosnet was classed in the top five Twitter themes in French this week yet hardly mentioned in English. How do you verify your information? Or classify it? The web uses horizontal hierarchy where traditional media structures information vertically.

140 characters is hardly sufficient to more than map out a story. Or is it? Can we content ourselves with the bare outline we receive through a Tweet? Can we really find out what’s going on in the world?

Carel Pedre is the journalist in Haiti who informed the world about the earth quake on 12 January. All the phone lines were down and his only means of communication was with Twitter via the Internet. Nicolas Willems, one of the participants in the Huis Clos was able to track him down through his Twitter contacts and finally get hold of his telephone number to talk to him in person.

There are advantages too for networking through the web.

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