Greenestplanet's Blog

Eat without going broke

greenestplanet — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 21:29:50 +0000

If you’re going to Iceland to see some beautiful scenery and get away from the mainstream destinations – take tips from those who know and learn how to vacation for less. Save your food money and use it for some fun waterfall tour or nightlife instead!

clipped from icelandreview.com

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A Guide to Low-Cost Eating in Iceland

If you are a planning a trip to Iceland, one of the things you will be confronted with is the high cost of food. This article will provide some tips on how to save money.

Forget dining out for every meal. This is especially true when you leave Reykjavík. There are numerous small towns outside of the capital city and while many of them have restaurants, they are usually more like truck stop cafes with very simple menus. My suggestion is to stock up on supplies at the various grocery stores. The cheapest of which are Bónus and a store called Krónan. Stock up on the basics: bread, cheese, skyr (an Icelandic dairy product similar to yogurt), deli meats, etc.

Iceland – Closer than you think, Greener than you are, and wired for data

greenestplanet — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:31:34 +0000

Iceland seems to be adding another undersea data line every time I read about their data center plans. Put a data center on bedrock, power it with geothermal energy (never stops, and super clean), and put it where cooling isn’t exactly a problem. Hook it to the mainland and voila – superdatacenter is born.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Iceland’s Quest To Become The Green Data Center Destination

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Is gmail better (for the planet) than Yahoo! mail?

greenestplanet — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:20:49 +0000

If by better, you mean lower power consumption, then yes. This ignores traffic factors and all the other elements of energy involved in email, but on balance it’s true. More efficient data centers mean more (energy) efficient email, and for many, green is the trump card for goodness.

But this is really about efficiency. For it to be about green, it must include where the power comes from. A coal-powered data center with superior PUE is not good for anybody. A clean-powered data center with a decent PUE is better. Hmmm…

clipped from www.greenm3.com

Ask your ISP for their PUE

Google’s Data Center Efficiency Implies Greener Email

Green energy not a priority for UK’s parliament

greenestplanet — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:57:30 +0000

UK’s targets for green energy have ratcheted downward – where is the pressure from the citizenry?

clipped from greenenergywar.com

Green Energy War

A former California Energy Commissioner digests global climate and energy politics.

clipped from greenenergywar.com

Stage Set for New Renewables Strategy in UK

clipped from greenenergywar.com

The UK government proudly claims credit on one of its web sites for playing “a key role” in securing agreement among European heads of state to “a binding target of 20%” of the EU’s electricity, heat and transport energy supply to come from renewable sources by 2020. That was in the spring of 2007, Tony Blair’s last official summit. Since then, the government has negotiated a lower target of 15% for the UK, ranked third worst in the EU total energy standings with 2% renewables (ahead of only Malta and Luxembourg), and faced growing criticism for dithering.

“We find it highly unlikely that, given current progress, the UK will meet the Government’s ambition for 10 per cent of electricity to be generated from renewables by 2010, let alone the EC Mandated Target for … 2020.”

Smart Routing of Internet traffic saves energy costs

greenestplanet — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:52:39 +0000

Based on an idea presented by Phd student Asfandyar Qureshi at MIT, routing Internet traffic according to real-time energy costs could save lots of money for companies with distributed data centers. It seems that the same could be done for greener energy. For that matter, why not let the user decide on their routing.. Hmmmm

clipped from www.greenm3.com

Maggs cautions that the idea is not guaranteed to reduce energy usage or pollution, only energy costs. “The paper is not about saving energy but about saving cost, although there are some ways to do both,” he says. “You have to hope that those are aligned.”

Energy-Aware Internet Routing

Software that tracks electricity prices could slash energy costs for big online businesses.

Brits say no wind power for us, but they may end up with wind power anyway.

greenestplanet — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 04:42:30 +0000

Somehow it remains a mystery so some whether wind power is a good investment. Got wind? Just compare the ROI. It’s working for Ireland. So well, in fact that the UK might end up with some of its excess power.

clipped from nohotair.typepad.co.uk

Some in the UK dismiss wind as being intermittent, expensive and generally not as workable as spending £4 billion (each!)on a nuke plant.

It just won’t work in Britain nay sayers say. But how about next door, where Ireland set a record of 999 megawatts recently.

Interesting here is that Ireland may potentially have too much power and will have to limit production unless an inter-connector is built to supply the UK with all the excess.