Green ICT is serious business, but that does not mean it has to be solemn. Here is what we have found entertaining over the years.

In what must be the industry's most energy and carbon intensive display, a 1961 computer animation program used a section of football fans:

The Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers (SCTE) announced that "it has assembled a record number of exhibitors who will showcase solutions for alternative energy and service assurance in the “Green Pavilion” at SCTE Cable-Tec Expo® in November in Atlanta, GA

Fuel cells, including those powered by biogas, are a growing part of sustainable ICT infrastructures.

We have been tracking the adoption of the Bloom Energy Server for ICT over the past two years. We've noted Bharti Infratel's use of fuel cells to replace diesel generators at off-grid telecom sites India.

IdaTech is a company whose fuel cells can consume a mix of bio-methanol and de-ionized water. T-Moblie is using the IdaTech fuel cells in California, which has significant incentives for bio-fuel use.

ICT businesses continue to dominate Newsweek's 2011 Green Rankings of the top 500 US public companies, as they did in 2010* and 2009**. Four of the five top 5 companies are in the ICT sectors: IBM (#1), Hewlett-Packard (#2), Sprint (#3), and Dell (#5). All told, ICT sectors dominated the top 20 with 11 positions.

The Green Grid released a survey of data centers' use of economizers, cooling technologies that take advantage of favorable outdoor conditions (air and/or water) to provide partial or full cooling without using a refrigeration cycle. Fifty percent reported that they were already using economizers, but it is not clear that economizer use translates into overall data center energy efficiency.

Sep 2011: Marlow Industries has announced, "a complete range of thermoelectric-based energy harvesting devices, offering customers a low-cost, zero-maintenance power solution for wireless sensor applications…By converting small degrees of temperature difference into milliwatts of electrical power [they] can perpetually power wireless sensors for the lifetime of the application. This green innovation offers a solid-state, reliable energy source for sensors, actuators, valve solenoids and other small devices by recycling wasted heat…With new building codes requiring sophisticated lighting, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems (HVAC), 'smart' designs are key to moderating usage…builders will have a cost-effective and green alternative that will relieve resources spent powering these devices."

CME Group Index Services publishes the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. Which ICT companies perform best on the 2011 Indexes?

Dell initiated a live Q&A session on Twitter today for ~50 minutes. Its hash tag is #DellCRchat. What issues is this innovative approach raise and how did it work out overall?

Innovative field trials in Afghanistan's war zones could be yielding technologies to provide more reliable and greener power for ICT infrastructures in remote areas and in emergency response situations.

Photo courtesy U.S. Marine Corps

Here is a summary of studies on the e-delivery of software, movies, music, and books, compared with physical delivery, based on three studies from 2009.