Happy 2012 everyone.  Hope you had a fantastic holiday.  I've spent the past two weeks trotting all over France (Paris, Brittany, Auvergne, La Rochelle, Bordeaux) eating way too much melted cheese (raclette, fondue), reading the Steve Jobs biography (getting way too caught up in his reality distortion field), and shaking booty to Just Dance II on the WII ("Viva Las Vegas!").

But we're back.  And more energized than ever.  Before we highlight our first company of 2012, I just want to point out a couple of changes on Watt Now.

First, we look different!  The webpage changed and will continue to evolve, both visually and content-wise, in order to provide the most comfortable and relevant user experience.  While always remaining simple.  Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.  - Leonardo Da Vinci (via Steve Jobs.  Yup, I'm brainwashed)

Also, content-wise, check out our new wattnow map which geolocates the Watt Now's documented projects and companies (for the moment, there's a large concentration in the Boston-area and California).  Also, explore the companies page which lists Watt Now companies, organized by field.  And then click on field-specific pages like the solar page for a nice visualization of the various projects in that particularly category.

Finally, for 2012, we have decided to add new content 3 times per week instead of every day.  This will give us time to:

  1. Write better articles
  2. Provide interesting analysis of the list of Watt Now companies
  3. Write "progress reports" of companies we started writing about almost a year ago!
  4. Publish other ideas we've been playing around with, such as
    • Watt's Better?  A comparison of the environmental impact of different options to doing something.  For example, is it better to heat water a) in a pot, or b) in a microwave?  Or, should drinks be packaged in a) plastic, or b) glass?
    • Watt the f?  Provide extremely simple, high-level explanations of current complex energy concepts - how does an electric vehicle work (as compared to a combustion-engine vehicle)?  What is shale gas?  What is DC versus AC?

So, like the webcomic XKCD, Watt Now will write about a new company every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.