[LINK] power and saving devices -- are you sure?

[Jan Whitaker]

[looks like there are few more undiscovered costs out there]

dacut writes "We've seen compact fluorescent 
lamps start to take over shelf space at the local 
hardware store. Replacing a 60 watt incandescent 
with a 13 watt CFL seems like a great savings, 
though many consumers are disappointed with the 
slow warm-up times, lower-than-advertised 
lifetimes, and hassles of disposing the 
mercury-containing bulbs. Now EDN reports they 
may use more energy than claimed due to their 
poor power factor. Mike Grather, of Lumenaire 
Testing Laboratory, 'checked the power factor for 
the CFLs and found they ranged from .45 to .50. 
Their "real" load was about twice that implied by 
their wattage.' The good news: you're only billed 
for the 13 watts of real power used. The bad 
news: the utilities have to generate the 
equivalent of 28 watts (that is, 28 VA of 
apparent power for you EEs out there) to light 
that bulb. Until they fix these issues, I'll hold 
on to my incandescents and carbon arc lamps, thanks."
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/08/2125250&from=rss

[and what about the water, Minister?]
miller60 writes "As data centers get larger, they 
are getting thirstier as well. A large server 
farm can use up to 360,000 gallons of water a day 
in its cooling systems, a trend that has data 
center operators looking at ways to reduce their 
water use and impact on local water utilities. 
Google says two of its data centers now are 
"water self-sufficient." The company has built a 
water treatment plant at its new facility in 
Belgium, allowing the data center to rely on 
water from a nearby industrial canal. Microsoft 
chose San Antonio for a huge data center so it 
could use the local utility's recycled water 
('gray water') service for the 8 million gallons it will use each month."
http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/09/2217242&from=rss

e-cars, sort of:
N!NJA writes with the mention of a recent 
alternative energies rally where the Tesla 
Roadster managed to cover 241 miles on a single 
charge, with another 38 miles of juice still left 
in the battery. "That would give the Roadster a 
theoretical maximum touring range of nearly 280 
miles ­ 36 miles more than Tesla itself reckons 
the car will cover on a charge. If the numbers 
stand up to official scrutiny, Tesla will hold 
the world record for the longest distance 
traveled by a production electric car on a single 
charge. Of course, it should be pointed out that 
the Tesla was driven by a company staffer 
doubtless practiced in eking out every last mile 
from a charge, and that the speeds averaged on 
the run were hardly blistering ­ 90kph (56mph) on 
the motorways, 60kph (37mph) on trunk roads and 
30kph (19) in the mountain roads. Tesla reckon 
the average speed for the entire journey was 45kph (28mph)."
http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/10/2028258&from=rss



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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