Intel Sees Future in Wind Power, Electric Cars

Intel's known for providing some of the chipset and CPU technology in our computing rigs and notebooks, but the company also applies its technology to green efforts such as wind power and electric cars.

John Skinner, Intel's director of marketing for its Eco-Technology division said earlier this week that the chip company sees wind forecasting as one of the next big things – specifically in figuring out when the wind will blow and how fast.

"There's a lot of opportunities for sensor technology and high performance computing," he said in an interview on the sidelines of an industry conference, as reported by Reuters. "We are starting to explore it."

"We see numerical forecasting (in wind) as very interesting opportunity," he said, adding that "every extra bit of granularity and predictability" on wind power is very valuable.

Current wind turbines use 7-watt ultra low voltage Intel Celeron processors or the 10-watt Pentium M processor LV 738. Each turbine-mounted controller supports four 10/100Base-T Fast Ethernet ports, in addition to a wide range of DC power sources.

Electronic vehicles, by nature, require more silicon involvement than traditional cars. For that reason, Intel sees a chance to jump into the electric car market as well.

"Electric vehicles are going to contain a lot of electronics," he said. Intel believes it could play a role in energy management and range prediction. "It would be an extension of our business in telematics."

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Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • pug_s
    What? No 2 watt atom processors?
    Reply
  • ssalim
    What? No flying cars?
    Reply
  • acecombat
    IntelElectric vehicles are going to contain a lot of electronicsWell thanks for stating the obvious, now get back to work on cutting costs!
    Reply
  • 08nwsula
    intel is just now figuring this stuff out?
    Reply
  • mayne92
    Now I'm starting to see how extended Intel's "rebates" were...
    Reply
  • serkol
    Now all we need are wind-powered cars - just tie a sail to it!
    Reply
  • Shadow703793
    When can I get my nanosuit, nuclear (or hydrogen) powered car, and an army of drones? :lol: :P
    Reply
  • ubergeek
    But what about my HoloDeck?
    Reply
  • wintermint
    Pretty soon we'll be able to hacked into cars from our garage :)
    Reply
  • Soon you will have to signup to a site, login with your ID and password... just to start your car... now try to run away from that killer or zombie in such a car.
    Reply