A ‘Smart Grid’ Will Save Energy, But It May Make US Vulnerable to Cyber Attacks

What’s a “smart grid”?

It’s the electrical power grid we already have, but transformed through technology to behave like a telephone network.

The advantage of making an electrical power grid “smart” like a phone network is that America or any other country should be able to save a lot of electricity, as utilities are better able to match up supply and demand, eliminating unneeded electricity and the fuel it takes to produce.

Another big advantage of a smart grid: far fewer blackouts, as power gets routed around trouble spots.

As much as a smart grid sounds like what America and the world needs, however, a new report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology warns that the smarter the power grid, the more vulnerable it is to cyber attacks according to this Christian Science Monitor report.

Such attacks conceivably could leave an entire nation in the dark.

To be sure, experts are working to eliminate this problem, but as of now it’s still a big potential problem.

Comprehensive New Mathematical Model for Predicting Climate Change Effect on Species

At the heart of every technological breakthrough is groundbreaking mathematics.

The latest example of this is a new mathematical model developed by scientists at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) designed to predict the effects of climate change on the population size of species.

This new mathematical model has a lot more variables than other models, which should allow it to do a better job at predicting how, as the earth’s climate heats up, species will gain or lose in population.

Scientists have already used the new model to discover that a gradual increase in temperature over time has a greater impact on species in an ecosystem than if the temperature fluctuated.

You can read more about it in this UCLA Newsroom article.

New ‘Transparent’ Solar Cell Could Enable Every Window to Produce Solar Power

Just imagine if every window in every building could be used to generate electricity from the sun.

Imagine how much less electricity we would need from coal and other fossil fuels.

Imagine how much less pollution we then would produce.

All this looks more possible than it did before thanks to a technological breakthrough by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Scientists at MIT have invented a transparent solar cell that they say could be applied to windows without anyone noticing much of a difference.

It wouldn’t cost much to do so, the scientists add, and it would turn every window into a solar collector that could be used to generate pollution-free electricity.

You can read more about it here.

And in this article from RenewableEnergyWorld.com

How to Find Out if You are Using the Most Energy-Efficient Efficient Devices

With all the energy-saving technological advances in electronic devices like computers and mobile phones, how are you supposed to know whether you are using the most energy-efficient ones around?

Well, there’s a website for that.

So if it matters to you how “green” your laptop, notebook, cell phone, etc. are, you should go to EPEAT which is short for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool.

As this USA Today article explains EPEAT can be a great resource for determining whether any computer, cell phone etc. is green enough to have earned the US Environmental Protection Agency’s “Energy Star” designation.

Question: what is the most energy-efficient TV model on the market today?

Answer, according to EPEAT: the 15-inch Insignia (model NS-15E720A12).

Company’s Technology Could Cut Oil Use and the Pollution Oil Creates

We don’t often write about specific companies, but in the case of Siluria Technologies Inc., we’re willing to make an exception.

That’s because Siluria’s business shines a light on how the world can use new technology to help solve its energy and environmental problems.

San Francisco-based Siluria is developing technology that will enable products that have always been made with oil to be made instead from natural gas.

You have heard about all the natural gas that’s recently been found in the US. While that’s great, today natural gas can pretty much by used only to generate electricity and heat and cool buildings.

What’s needed are new markets for natural gas, especially markets where natural gas can be used instead of oil, taking advantage of the fact that using natural gas emits less carbon dioxide gas than oil.

Siluria envisons substituting natural gas for oil in the making of a wide variety of chemicals and fuels – the building blocks of everyday life.