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Yesterday, Colorado’s state legislature finalized a bill to increase the state’s renewable energy standard to 30 percent by 2020.

Colorado was one of the first states to adopt a renewable energy standard at all, committing in 2004 to get 10 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2015 and increasing that to 20 percent by 2020 in 2006.  This latest measure puts the state right behind California, who has the highest standard at 33 percent by 2020.

The bill also requires utilities to get 3 percent of their electricity from distributed sources like rooftop solar and other smaller wind and solar installations in order to give a boost to local renewable energy and construction companies.  That requirement alone will be responsible for 1 GW of clean energy, save 6.8 billion gallons of water and reduce emissions by 30 million tons of CO2 a year.

via Climate Progress

No app’s banning from the App Store has caused more gnashing of teeth and anger than the loss of Google Voice (no, not even the removal of the weak girly picture apps). While it’s understandable why AT&T would want to keep free phone calling and SMS off of their network, it’s still infuriating. As a [...]

An entry at Ideation Award 2010 in conjunction with Malaysian International Fair, the “Go” by Indonesian designer Rizki Tarisa is a piece of multifunctional furniture that makes use of advanced technology, so you could lead a sustainable lifestyle while accomplishing your daily tasks in style. Combining the function of a lounge chair, exercise bike and desktop into a single unit, the multi-tasking furniture also harnesses human power to generate green energy, when you pedal the bike to burn the extra lair of fat from your body, to juice up your gadgets. Users can browse internet, listen to the music while lounging in utmost comfort. Furniture can never be as functional and sustainable as the Go.

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A new study from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies has identified on-road transportation as the most significant overall source contributing to global warming. Power generation, while having the greatest total impact, also includes a large number of compounds that increase cloud reflectivity and provide other effects to offset some of the warming they are responsible for.

In the study, rather than looking at specific chemicals and compounds, the range of airborne pollutants is broken down by economic sector. The study looks at the range of gases and aerosols that are released by each of 13 sectors of the economy, and finds that on-road transportation has the greatest overall effect on global warming.

“Cars, buses, and trucks release pollutants and greenhouse gases that promote warming, while emitting few aerosols that counteract it. The researchers found that the burning of household biofuels — primarily wood and animal dung for home heating and cooking — contribute the second most warming. And raising livestock, particularly methane-producing cattle, contribute the third most. On the other end of the spectrum, the industrial sector releases such a high proportion of sulfates and other cooling aerosols that it actually contributes a significant amount of cooling to the system. And biomass burning — which occurs mainly as a result of tropical forest fires, deforestation, savannah and shrub fires — emits large amounts of organic carbon particles that block solar radiation.”

The intent of this study is to make the information about climate change more accessible and understandable. “We wanted to provide the information in a way that would be more helpful for policy makers,” according to Nadine Unger, leader of the research team. “This approach will make it easier to identify sectors for which emission reductions will be most beneficial for climate and those which may produce unintended consequences.”

No one should mistake the point of this study to indicate that coal burning and other power-generation and industrial processes are benign and therefore do not need to be scaled back. Although industrial processes mitigate their adverse effects with regard to global warming, the sulfates and aerosols that are beneficial in this one manner are responsible for a range of other, negative environmental impacts.

The paper was published online on Feb. 3 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

via: Worldchanging

Apple just premiered the very first iPad commercial during the first ad break of tonight’s Academy Awards. It was very good, just a rock song and demoing every imaginable feature while continually rotating from portrait to landscape. We’ll post as soon as Apple or Youtube does. Embed from Engadget now in post. Real Apple version [...]

Powered by hybrid capacitors, capable of severe temperature with no maintenance over 10 years, the “Nissyoku” is an elegant lamp that draws inspiration from a solar eclipse to illuminate your place. Presenting a metal ring in the middle to switch it on or off, the lamp also integrates two panels, fixed with magnets, which “move on the concave surface made out of the intersection of the two globes.” Produced through vacuum forming, the lamp makes use of a 5W high-powered LED in each panel. Featuring a body finished in reusable or decomposing polymer, the lamp meeting the needs of different users can be used as hanging chandelier, table or wall lamp.

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Surfing’s Steve Sherman takes you inside the scene at the final day of the 2010 Quiksilver Pro Gold Coast

A recent article from Lawrence Berkely Laboratory suggests that readers should ‘Pull the plug. Your battery will thank you.‘ Researcher Venkat Srinivasan writes about batteries and battery chemistry rather specifically, but without becoming overwhelmingly technical. He explains how batteries begin to fail, and suggests keeping your computer unplugged as a way of extending the life of your battery. I pulled the plug on mine as soon as I read the article, and I’m now writing this on battery power.

On the other hand, if you charge the battery and then pull the plug (so to speak), the battery discharges some, the voltage drops, and these reactions become less of a problem and your battery life goes up. So the best things you can do is to charge the laptop (or cell phone, camera etc.) and once its charged, pull the plug. Your battery will thank you for it.

This also has relevance for plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle owners, whose batteries have the same characteristics. A car sitting in a garage for hours, full charged, is going to be slowly deteriorating the battery. Manufacturers may already be incorporating measures into battery packs to address this problem, but this highlights just one of the many potential issues battery makers need to address in order to keep portable electrical devices functioning.

This week in batteries may not be on everyone’s RSS feed right away. But engineers for computer companies, electric vehicle manufacturers, cell phone and other portable device makers should be following him. While the articles run to the technical, the information is accessible for all kinds of battery geeks.

Happy Friday! I hope you like this week’s selection by Mac Games and More of fun casual games you can play into the weekend. The games include a “crime of fashion” murder mystery game, a mystical adventure using your own magical powers, a tour of the president’s house and more.

Virtual Villagers 4 The Tree of [...]

Taking a big stride to expand its product range in automotive design, German furniture brand Thonet has produced a gearshift lever for the new Volvo C70 that intros traditional bending steamed wood manufacturing to the autos. Slated to be displayed at ongoing Geneva International Motor Show, the stylish lever is not only elegant to look at but also features a curvy design to ensure more precision and ease of use. Developed in collaboration with Volvo, the limited edition gear is finished in finest oak, beech or walnut wood to match the trendy interior of the vehicle. The handmade lever will be available in “an elaborate multi-stage process.”

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