Tag Archives: power

Supersized Wind Turbines Head Out to Sea

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The new turbines generate six megawatts of power in good wind. Several companies are designing 10- and even 15-megawatt machines with 100-meter blades. These blades would reach two-thirds of the way to the roof of the Empire State Building. The push to supersize wind turbines is part of an effort to reduce installation and maintenance costs, which can be far higher than the cost of the turbines themselves. The pictures in this slideshow give a sense of just why installation is so costly.

via Supersized Wind Turbines Head Out to Sea | MIT Technology Review.

Halving day is almost upon us!

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Bitcoin is built so that this reward is halved every 210,000 blocks solved.  The idea is as bitcoin grows the transaction fee’s become the main part of the reward and the introduction of new bitcoin’s slows down to a trickle.  This also means that there will only ever be 21,000,000 bitcoins in circulation.

Well, in less than 4 days the block count will reach the first of these 210,000 block milestones and the reward for solving a Bitcoin block will half from 50BTC to 25BTC. (Have a look at bitcoinclock.com)

via Halving day is almost upon us! | Mineforeman.

Samsung laying groundwork for server chips, analysts say

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The faster 64-bit processors will appear in servers, high-end smartphones and tablets, and offer better performance-per-watt than ARM’s current 32-bit processors, which haven’t been able to expand beyond embedded and mobile devices. The first servers with 64-bit ARM processors are expected to become available in 2014.

via Samsung laying groundwork for server chips, analysts say – servers, Samsung Electronics, hardware systems, Components, processors – Computerworld.

“Samsung is a lead partner of ARM’s new Cortex A50 processors. However, we’re not in a position to comment on our plans for how we’ll use the Cortex A50 as part of our Exynos product family,” said Lisa Warren-Plungy, a Samsung Semiconductor spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

Smartphones to Use Half the Power as Researchers Claim to have solved Efficiency Problem

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Almost everyone who owns a smartphone would have noticed that whenever they stream videos or play games their device gets warm and starts to drain battery rapidly. Engineers claim that power amplifiers are to blame for this behavior and that these chips waste as much as 65 per cent of their energy. The professors Joel Dawson and David Perreault, through their startup Eta Devices claim to have solved this problem with a new power amplifier design.

via Smartphones to Use Half the Power as Researchers Claim to have solved Efficiency Problem – ParityNews.com: …Because Technology Matters.

The new technology, dubbed asymmetric multilevel outphasing [PDF], is basically a super fast electronic gearbox that would select the best possible voltage to send across the transistors that would minimize power consumption. This process is done as many as 20 million times per second.

Volcano power plan gets U.S. go-ahead

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The starting point for creating a new geothermal reservoir is a deep well into hot, dry rock. Well NWG 55-29, drilled by Davenport Newberry in 2008, is well suited as the foundation for a geothermal reservoir. It is 10,060 feet (3066 m) deep into hot rock with very low water permeability.

via Volcano power plan gets U.S. go-ahead.

On October 18 the pumping equipment was running and a water pressure of 1600 psi (10.9 MPa) was built up inside NWG 55-29. The diagnostics (pumping rate, microseismic detectors, etc.) indicated that hydroshearing and expansion of a network of cracks in the hot rock had begun. However, an unexpected night of freezing weather on October 20 damaged some of the auxiliary equipment, leading to a temporary shutdown of operations. AltaRock hopes to resume testing the stimulation process later this week. The following video gives a very good (if slightly lengthy) description of the project.

NYC Data Centers Struggle to Recover After Sandy

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The fight now is to keep those generators fueled while pumps clear the basement areas, allowing the standard backup generators to begin operating. It’s also unclear whether the critical elements of infrastructure (power and communications) will both be up and running in time to restore services.

Below is a list of some of the data centers and services in the area, and how they’re faring:

via NYC Data Centers Struggle to Recover After Sandy.

Intel wants to micromanage tablet makers in the name of battery life

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Intel even wants to dictate the components in displays—it wants manufacturers to begin putting small amounts of RAM into their display panels to make them capable of storing static images. That way, if a user is reading a document or webpage but not interacting with anything on the screen, the computer could display a static image of the screen rather than continuously refreshing it for no reason.

via Intel wants to micromanage tablet makers in the name of battery life | Ars Technica.

New Study Reinforces Case for DC Power Savings

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But advocates of DC power continue to make the case for direct current distribution in data centers. The recent Data Center Efficiency Summit featured a case study showing gains over AC systems, and discussion of whether global efforts to establish a standard for 380 volt systems might build momentum for DC power.

via New Study Reinforces Case for DC Power Savings » Data Center Knowledge.