I first read about the Boom Box on eGadget.

“Two blocks can power the average high-consumption American home — one block can power the average European home. At least that’s the claim being made by K.R. Sridhar, founder of Bloom Energy, on 60 Minutes last night. The original technology comes from an oxygen generator meant for a scrapped NASA Mars program that’s been converted, with the help of an estimated $400 million in private funding, into a fuel cell. Bloom’s design feeds oxygen into one side of a cell while fuel (natural gas, bio gas from landfill waste, solar, etc) is supplied to the other side to provide the chemical reaction required for power. The cells themselves are inexpensive ceramic disks painted with a secret green “ink” on one side and a black “ink” on the other. The disks are separated by a cheap metal alloy, instead of more precious metals like platinum, and stacked into a cube of varying capabilities — a stack of 64 can power a small business like Starbucks.”

This does seem to bonafide… and we will be watching this space.

There are some parallels betten this and Daniel Nocera’s work at MIT, although they are two distint system.

It looks more an more likely each day that we will soon be living a cleaner world. The big questions is, how do the big energy suppliers meter these progressive energy sources???

I Just stumbled across a press release at The Mayor of London’s website about and a climate initiative to make buildings cleaner and greener

The Mayor of London joined with President Clinton and mayors from cities across the world to announced the creation of a global Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Programme – to cut carbon emissions by making existing commercial buildings more energy efficient.

With nearly three quarters of emissions in the capital come from energy use in buildings, it makes very good sense to improve energy efficiency although I suspect that the building and construction sector may not be too compliant.

According to Ken Livingstone, who spoke at the C40 cities climate summit in New York, London could save millions of pounds and five million tonnes of CO2 each year – about ten per cent of London’s total emissions – if every commercial and public sector building takes up the offer to become more energy efficient. The 900 buildings run by the Greater London Authority group alone, could save more than 50,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year, and save at least one million pounds through lower energy bills, providing more money for investment in public services. This is an attractive prospect indeed.

The Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Programme developed by the Clinton Climate Initiative with the C40 cities brings together four of the world’s largest Energy Service Companies (ESCOs), five of the world’s largest banks and fifteen of the world’s largest cities. The programme will offer building owners a package with three elements: (1) an energy audit to quantify current energy use and emissions from a building and recommendations on a full range of measures to reduce them, (2) a comprehensive, discounted offer of goods and services guaranteed to deliver the identified reductions, and (3) finance to pay for the works, paid back through the guaranteed energy savings.

This initiative will deliver a real economic benefit for participating public sector and commercial organisations, typically leading to annual energy savings between 20 and 50 per cent. The initiative also creates opportunities for London’s businesses that provide energy efficiency building services, since it will draw on subcontractors in each of the cities where the partnership operates.

You can read the full story in their press release here, or just join in the fun, buy solar panels and do your bit to save the world.

For those of you who enjoy your shopping trips to New York and using the latest, greatest and most power-hungry PCs on the planet, the UK government has served up a carbon footprint calculator so that you can measure the level of damage that you are doing..

However, this service is getting so many hits that the Directgov servers are struggling to cope. (Typicall really:)

“The Act on CO2 calculator is currently seeing an overwhelming response and we’re working to fix the problems you may be experiencing,” reads a notice on the site.

I can just see all those people at their PCs, supposed to be working but spending the day trying to on, the churn from all the machines heating up offices where the air con is being switched up a notch or two. Employees frustrated at the futility of trying to measure their carbon foot prints are probably nipping out for a fag to calm down.

Call me a cynic but I find myself wondering just how much CO2 this system is contributing to the worked today and whether it’s really a pointless exercise – will it really make more of a difference that just being more sensible?

If you would like to take it for a spin and find out how much damage you are doing, ust go here for the carbon footprint calculator.

* UPDATE
I finally managed to try the site – I recommend that you leave it a week before trying as the site is really slow. I thought that my solar panels’ would be installed before I got through it! The verdict is that I am marginally kinder than most, which has come as a shock as I am careful, am switching to solar energy, will be buying a Smart Car, and have energy efficient bulbs. However, I think that I should recalculate once these have all come into effect. Also my trip to NY last Christmas may have been more irresponsible that initially thought

If you are an avid DIYer, solar power enthusiast, and are keen to do more than the bare minimum to save the world, you may want to take a few weekends out to install solar panels on your home’s roof.

There is and increasing range of solar panels available on the market. The example highlighted here is one of the cheapest on the market, yet may be just what you need to reduce your carbon footprint enough to sleep better at night. Freehold permitting, I intend to schedule my install for late August 2007 and am currently working with architects to ensure that this project is completed as aesthetically as possible.

B&Q sell a variety of solar panel package to choose from. With only a modest home, the pack I have opted for contains 1 solar panel and compatible cylinder for a tiled roof only. The panel and cylinder come with full controls and fixing kits, 35 year life expectancy, Full European certification BS/EN 12975 Parts 1 & 2.

I have enlisted the help of several friend – two of which do not know yet – for the project. Two are engineers and one is a builder. If you chose to undertake such a project and are not particularly skilled at DIY, please do make sure you get some buddies and a qualified professional who are in to help you. On purchase of this product, you will be contacted for the installation service that B&Q recommend.

I hope to begin making large savings on my ever increasing energy bills by early September – but more importantly significantly reduce my family’s carbon footprints. As the boiler cycling is reduced increasing this will also increase the life of your boiler. These solar panels will even work below 0 degrees Celsius so I expect that they will continue to supply significant energy for heating throughout the winter.

My solar panels are suitable for domestic use and my particular type of roof but BYQ do provide quite a range.

I purchased my solar panels from B&Q in the in the UK for around £1800. Admittedly I may never recoup this in energy savings on my bills but that is not the point.

I live in the hope that my actions and others like me may actually make the world a better place for our children to live in and that’s the payoff for me…