Enter Ice Bear

The Ice Bear distributed energy storage system enables a powerful change in how — and, more importantly, when — energy is consumed for air conditioning. The system is designed to absorb off-peak load and dispatch it on-peak, while consuming an equal or lesser amount of energy on each building.

The Ice Bear unit is incorporated into a building’s standard AC system and is designed to absorb off-peak load and dispatch it on-peak, while consuming an equal or lesser amount of energy on each building, creating the industry’s first effectively lossless storage solution.

Using thermally efficient, off-peak power to produce and store energy for use during peak hours the following day, the Ice Bear system reduces peak energy required by conventional AC systems. AC energy demand – typically 40-50% of a building’s electricity use during peak hours – can be reduced by as much as 95%.

Decoupling daytime air conditioning use from peak energy demand, each Ice Bear distributed energy storage unit reduces an average of 7.2 kW of source equivalent peak demand for a minimum of 6 hours daily, shifting 32 kW-hours of on-peak energy to off-peak hours.

The breakthrough technology features of the Ice Bear unit includes the industry’s first effectively lossless storage with unlimited deep discharging, unlimited storage cycles, very low maintenance, no chemicals or heavy metals, and a 25-year asset life.

How It Works

Iced Coils

The Ice Bear energy storage system works with a standard commercial air conditioning system. Requiring no modification to existing ductwork, each Ice Bear unit can be applied to 85% of air conditioners ranging from a 3-5 ton system to a 20-ton system, providing 30 ton hours of cooling.

The Ice Bear energy storage unit operates in two basic modes, Ice Cooling and Ice Charging, to store cooling energy at night, and to deliver that energy the following day.

During Ice Charge mode, a self-contained charging system freezes 450 gallons of water in the Ice Bear’s insulated tank by pumping refrigerant through a configuration of copper coils within it. The water that surrounds these coils freezes and turns to ice. The condensing unit then turns off, and the ice is stored until its cooling energy is needed.

As daytime temperatures rise, the power consumption of air conditioning rises along with it, pushing the grid to peak demand levels. During this peak window, typically from noon to 6 pm, the Ice Bear unit replaces the energy intensive compressor of the air conditioner.

The Ice Bear unit, fully charged from the night before, switches to Ice Cooling mode. The Ice Bear uses the ice, rather than the AC unit’s compressor, to cool the hot refrigerant, slowing melting the ice as it travels through a series of copper coils. A small, highly efficient pump pushes ice-cold refrigerant through a modified Ice Energy LiquidDX® evaporator coil installed in the conventional air conditioning unit.

The Ice Cooling cycle lasts for at least 6 hours. Once the ice has fully melted, the Ice Bear transfers the job of cooling back to the building’s AC unit, to provide cooling, as needed, until the next day. During the cool of the night, the Ice Charge mode is activated and the entire cycle begins again.

The company is headquartered in Windsor, Colorado, with offices in Lake Forest and Sacramento, California. For more information, visit www.ice-energy.com. See their Product Video for a demonstration of it.

Only a Very Small Percentage of Retired Phones are Recycled

While the huge number of retired phones continues to grow and the demand for refurbished phones is accelerating, only a very small percentage of displaced phones are actually making it into the recycling channels.

Nokia estimates that 74 percent of people are not even aware that their old phones can be recycled and most others don’t know how or where to recycle them. From the results of a worldwide survey done in 2008 by Nokia, only three percent of displaced phones are being returned for recycling – even less than the four percent that are being thrown in landfills. The rest remain in our respective drawers at home.

So Where Can They be Recycled?

The first thing you should attempt to do is to clear your mobile phone of all data and get it back to its original state. If you still have the manual you can easily find how to do it. If you do not , you will have to scroll through the set-up and or mechanical menus to find the option to do this. Another method that I recently did to clear my Blackberry of data before selling it on eBay, was to search the internet via your favorite browser search engine with “erase data on XXXX” where XXXX is the manufacturer and model on your phone. This popped up a number of  sites to assist me through the process. While also doing a search, key in “cell phone recycling” to get a list of places to either resell, donate or eco dispose of it.

Some sites we like are:

• Charity Guide
• GRC Recycling
• Gazelle
• EcoCell

This a small listing of many you will find if you search the Internet as mentioned above. Many of the large office supply chain stores also offer drop boxes as well as many of the cellular phone providers either at their retail locations or via programs on their websites. The bottom line is to get rid of the old ones cluttering your draw to save some space, make a few bucks or to donate to the less fortunate. Don’t delay do it today!

Wind to Power Cell Towers in Southern California

A global renewable energy company, Helix Wind, announced this week it will begin a technology demonstration and test of two small wind turbines to power cell phone towers in Southern California.

The  turbines will be installed by early 2010 and the test will run for one to three  months.addition to powering the towers, the test will explore the feasibility of selling power back to the  electrical grid under a Power Purchase Agreement.  The test will represent one of the first grid- connected  cell sites powered by renewable energy in Southern California.

This market segment is of great interest to California. There are approximately 3,500 cell phone  towers in  Southern California, and due to the continued expansion of broadband wireless, the  data volume of which  has doubled in the past three years, an additional 1,000 to 1,200 towers  should be brought on line over the next five years.

Grid connected cell phone towers can benefit from renewable energy, and wind power can dramatically reduce the emissions and carbon footprint associated with them. Under the right conditions, the towers may even be able to produce surplus energy, providing an additional revenue stream to tower owners.

About Helix

Helix Wind Corp., a global renewable energy company, is engaged in the design, manufacturing and sale of small wind vertical axis turbine designed to generate 300W, 1kW, 2.0kW, 4.0kW, and 50kW of clean, renewable electricity.

Additional information can be found at http://www.helixwind.com. See a video of it at HELIX.