An artistâs rendering of the Advanced Technologies Campus to be built southeast of Colorado Springs Airport Courtesy Colorado Springs Utilities
Ready for a paradigm shift? Not since the invention of the horseless carriage and the electric light bulb have Americans faced such radical changes in how they travel or power their homes. In years to come, skyrocketing gasoline prices could pressure citizens to either buy electric cars or use public transportation.
The migration away from fossil fuels to renewables also will mandate new ways to deliver power to customers, including setting up âmicrogridsâ of neighborhoods â areas of the city that would be largely isolated from the chief network and protected against outages caused by a major storm or some other event.
Ready for a paradigm shift? Not since the invention of the horseless carriage and the electric light bulb have Americans faced such radical changes in how they travel or power their homes.
In years to come, skyrocketing gasoline prices could pressure citizens to either buy electric cars or use public transportation.
The migration away from fossil fuels to renewables also will mandate new ways to deliver power to customers, including setting up âmicrogridsâ of neighborhoods â areas of the city that would be largely isolated from the chief network and protected against outages caused by a major storm or some other event.
Hart Van Denburg/CPR News
The National Western Center plans to use excess energy from Denver s existing wastewater system to heat and cool buildings, now under construction at the 250-acre site, including Colorado State University s new Spur campus.
A secret cache of renewable energy is lurking in the sewers. The key question is how to coax it to the surface and put it to work in the battle against climate change.
There’s no mystery over how excess energy ends up below cities. Showers, hot waters and sinks all add hot water to sewers. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates American’s wash 350 billion kilowatt-hours of energy down the drain every year. For some perspective, that’s enough power for about 30 million U.S. homes.
Scientific American
Results of a novel study would also save drivers time and fuel
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The Department of Energy is preparing to use the massive computing power of its national laboratories to tackle a daily scourge of American life: traffic jams.
The effort is aimed at more than just improving motorists’ moods. If it works, it could cut U.S. transportation fuel consumption up to 20% and reduce auto emissions.
A second goal is to recover as much as $100 billion in lost worker productivity by unsnarling rush hour traffic jams in U.S. cities over the next 10 years.
Two years ago, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., selected Chattanooga, Tenn. (population 182,799), as the guinea pig for its first traffic-cutting experiment.