Geothermal might meet Canada’s power needs, Ontario’s Gerretsen says e-waste program works, for Panasonic green tech is a survival tactic, Accent launches a smart meter platform, and Google shares some green energy secrets.

Could geothermal meet Canada’s power needs?

Canada could technically meet all its electricity needs and dramatically lower greenhouse-gas emissions if it moved aggressively to develop enhanced geothermal power projects, according to the first comprehensive assessment of the country’s deep geothermal resources. The study, published online in the Journal of Geophysics and Geoengineering, reports on the potential of using enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) to tap hot temperatures kilometres below the earth’s surface as a way of generating clean electricity. It found that the most promising Canadian sites are located in parts of British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan at depths ranging from 3.5 to 6.5 kilometres. Drill deeper, however, and the potential extends right across the country.

Ontario’s Gerretsen says e-waste program works

Ontario’s Environment Minister John Gerretsen insisted that Ontario's electronic recycling program isn't a failure even though it hasn't met its target to divert tons of computers and TVs from landfills. Gerretsen says the private agency that's supposed to collect the waste – Ontario Electronic Stewardship – isn't living up to its commitments to the province. Gerretsen said the agency promised to recycle about 33,000 tonnes of electronic waste in the first year of the program, but received only 17,000 tons from its waste collectors. Consumers currently pay an extra $2 to $26 when they buy a new electronic gadget to help fund the program.

Panasonic: green tech is a survival tactic

The president of Panasonic unveiled a new three-year plan, called the "Green Transformation 2012" (GT12) plan, intended to lay the groundwork for the company to become the world's leading "Green Innovation Company" by 2018, the 100th anniversary of the company's founding. In filing the GT12 plan, Panasonic president Fumio Ohtsubo acknowledged that the company's previous three-year plan, GP3, had achieved just one of three of its targets: By 2010, Panasonic had cut its CO2 emissions by more than 300,000 tons compared to a 2007 baseline.However, global sales and its return on equity fell far short of goals, leading the company to re-evaluate its strategy. Panasonic's new focus will be on becoming a globally focused company working on energy systems rather than a Japan-focused company in the consumer electronics market.

Accent launches a smart meter platform

Italian semiconductor integrator Accent has launched what it says is the first Clean Tech System-on-Chip (SoC) platform, called ASMgrid.  The chip is aimed at improving the performance of smart meter and Home Area Network (HAN) end-products. According to Pike Research’s managing director Clint Wheelock, "Smart meters are the vanguard of smart grid deployments and will represent a $3.9bn global market by 2015, with penetration in that year still only reaching 18% of total installed electric meters”.

Google's green energy secrets

Google’s Green Energy Czar, Bill Weihl, recently offered up advice on how to “green” a data centre. Weihl advised enterprises to know their PUE, or power usage effectiveness, a metric used to determine the energy efficiency of a data centre. (PUE is determined by dividing the amount of power entering a data center by the power used to run the computer infrastructure within it.) While typical data centre PUEs range from 2.0 to 3.0, Google’s run around 1.2. said Weihl, adding that “a PUE of 1.5 or less should be achievable in most facilities."

Weihl also offered the following three keys to the success of a green data centre:

Keep hot and cold separate. A typical data centre has rows and rows of servers, Weihl explained, each taking in chilled air from the front and blowing hot air out the back. Simply aligning the servers so that fronts and backs face each other results in having rows of hot air alternating with rows of cold air. This is often done with a plastic roof covering the server aisles and heavy plastic curtains, like those used in meat lockers, at each end to allow for access. This keeps the cold air from being heated by the hot air, lowering cooling costs.

Turn up the thermostat. Because typical data centers don’t have good control over airflow, they need to keep thermostat settings at 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 Celsius) or lower, said Weihl. Google runs its centres at 80 degrees (27 Celsius), and suggests they can go higher. "Look at the rated inlet temperature for your hardware. If the server can handle 90 degrees then turn the heat up to 85, even 88 degrees," he counseled.

Give your chillers a rest. This involves using fresh air to cool servers as much as possible, and to use evaporative cooling towers, which lower temperatures by using water evaporation to remove heat, much the way perspiration removes heat from human bodies.