ATLANTA – Ensuring that a common language of “energy efficiency” is spoken by both building information modeling software used by architects and energy analysis and simulation software used by engineers is the goal of new research funded by ASHRAE.
The project will develop open-source reference models by which developers may test their solutions to interoperability between BIM and energy simulation software. The project will focus on the most common thermal features in buildings assumed to have the greatest impact on energy use, and provide guidelines for describing thermal models extracted from BIM and the rules for extracting those models used in whole building energy analysis applications.
The rest of this article can be read here http://www.ashrae.org/pressroom/detail/17243
WASHINGTON — Seeking to put the nation back in the lead on an important technology, the Obama administration awarded more than $2 billion in grants on Wednesday for manufacturing advanced batteries and other components for electric cars.
The president and four members of his cabinet fanned out across the nation’s industrial heartland, hit hard by the recession, to announce the grants, meant to help companies bolster large-scale manufacturing lines for modern batteries of the sort now mostly made in Asia.
The rest of this article can be read here http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/business/06battery.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
August 3, 2009
Huge parabolic mirrors catching the sun’s rays could crisscross America’s deserts soon, thanks to a breakthrough that may greatly lower the cost of solar power.
A small solar company has teamed with scientists at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to develop massive curved sheets of metal that have the potential to be 30 percent less expensive than today’s best collectors of concentrated solar power.
The SkyTrough Parabolic Trough Solar Concentrating Collectors will be longer than football fields and look like fun-house mirrors, but could be the game-changers in solar energy’s bid to out-muscle gas and coal in providing electricity for America’s homes.
The rest of the article can be read here http://www.nrel.gov/features/20090803_skytrough.html
ELECTRIC trucks created in Washington, by Tyne & Wear are today on the roads of Washington DC.
Four major US corporations and two utility companies took delivery of the Smith Newton, the largest road-going electric truck in North America. Coca-Cola, Staples, Frito-Lay, AT&T, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) are the first Newton customers in the USA.
The rest of the article can be read here http://www.globe-net.com/other_news/listing.cfm?type=2&newsID=4491
