Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
 
Transmission companies are eying high-voltage underwater cables to carry more renewable power over long distances without having to erect unsightly towers and carve out wide corridors. Toronto-based Transmission Developers proposes to run a 370-mile cable from north of the Canadian border along the bottom of Lake Champlain and down the Hudson River to supply hydroelectricity to New York City. A 53-mile power cable has been placed under San Francisco Bay and an underwater line linking New Jersey to Long Island now carries 22 percent of Long Island's electricity. There are other plans to deliver wind energy from the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Lanai to Oahu and from Maine along the Atlantic coast to Boston.

The global renewable energy industry gained ground in 2009 despite the recession and a revenue drop in the solar business, according to an annual report from research firm Clean Edge Inc. The overall industry spent $63.5 billion on wind farms and turbines, a 23.5 percent gain from 2008 helped by government stimulus money. The global biofuel business rose 29 percent to $44.9 billion. Solar power manufacturers fell by 20.3 percent to $30.7 billion due to a drop in the price of solar panels.

Solazyme Inc., a South San Francisco-based renewable oil and bioproducts company and a   leader in algal biotechnology, was selected No. 1 in sustainable biofuels technology at the 2nd Annual Sustainable Biofuels Market conference in Amsterdam. Solazyme is working on improving the efficiency and sustainability of biofuels production. Since the company's start in 2003, Solazyme says it has produced the world's first algae-based renewable diesel, the first 100 percent algae-based jet fuel and road-tested the first algae-derived biodiesel.  
 
Snack food giant Frito-Lay is going green with what it's calling the first compostable chips bag for its SunChips brand. The bags are made from corn and will break down within 14 weeks, the company says. "In a hot, active compost bin it will definitely compost within that time period," said Brad Rogers, Frito-Lay's North American manager of sustainable packaging. However, there's some doubt that many bags will reach a compost bin. "Few Americans compost in their backyards, and curbside pickup is typically limited to Western metropolises like the Bay Area and Seattle," says Green Inc.
 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week: 

A program to reduce lighting costs in Silicon Valley and nearby areas is paying off for small and medium-size businesses, the San Jose Business Journal reports. PG&E and nonprofit environmental  consultant Ecology Action of Santa Cruz cooperate on the RightLights program, offering free audits of  lighting consumption, plus rebates to reduce up-front costs for new lighting and installation. Fox Head Inc., a motor sports apparel designer and manufacturer, switched out high-energy metal halide lights  to  fluorescent induction lighting, slashing lighting costs by 60 percent, or $32,000 a year. Since the PG&E-Ecology Action program began in 2001, more than 5,000 PG&E commercial customers have  joined the program, with total rebates of $17 million and a $25 million savings on utility bills. Total carbon impact was the equivalent of 15,000 cars taken off the road and saving 150 million kilowatt hours.  

Internet giant Google this week added biking directions in beta to Google Maps for the U.S. and plugged in information about bicycle trails, lanes and recommended roads. Through Google's  partnership with Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, more than 12,000 miles of trails are included in directions and will add new trail information and encourage riders to provide feedback. Google says when  Maker is available in the U.S., all riders will be able to directly contribute information about  trails, bike lanes and routes. 

Aurica Motors, a Silicon Valley electric car startup, says it's trying to keep the NUMMI car plant in Fremont in business when Toyota departs at the end of March. Aurica's plan calls for converting the plant to manufacture an all-electric car and a battery swap system. The company is seeking federal  economic stimulus money and private financing to convert the plant.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

SolarCity, a solar power system design, financing and installation company, has secured an additional $90 million fund from a unit of U.S. Bancorp to finance expansion of its solar projects in the western states. In January, Pacific Venture Capital, a subsidiary of PG&E Corp., announced $60 million in financing for SolarCity installations mainly in California with some in Arizona and Colorado. SolarCity also serves Oregon and Texas.

Former Edison International CEO John Bryson plugged some green startup companies at the U.C. Berkeley Energy Symposium on Thursday: Santa Monica-based Coda Automotive, maker of electric vehicles in China; smart-grid wireless company On-Ramp Wireless, of San Diego; and Ostendo, maker of solid state lighting displays based in Carlsbad, California. Bryson, a member of Coda's board of directors, was a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council and president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

Greenest city in the world? Reykjavik, Iceland, tops a list for sustainability, according to Global Green Blog at GlobalPost. Reykjavik runs entirely on green power, including geothermal and hydroelectricity, and the city's transit system moves people around on hydrogen buses. Light-rail and bicycle leader Portland, Oregon, comes second, followed by Curitiba, Brazil, where sheep trim the parks; Malmo, Sweden, developing sustainable neighborhoods; and Vancouver, British Columbia, where 90 percent of its electricity comes from hydropower.

Posted by: Katie Romans

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Calling all U.S. grad and undergrad entrepreneurs! The MIT Clean Energy Prize is accepting entries for its fourth annual competition, and the prizes are nothing to sneeze at. Semifinalists get coaching from business and technology leaders. Finalists present detailed business plans to venture capitalists, policy experts, academics and corporate executives. The grand prize is $200,000 awarded by NStar and the federal Department of Energy. The deadline is February 25, so no procrastinating.

The new Silicon Valley? Livermore was recently designated one of six future Innovation Hubs for Technology Development (iHubs) by California's Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. The city is hopeful the designation will bring with it the potential for additional funding for green energy technology. Livermore was chosen to be an inaugural iHub member for its development of the Innovation for Green Advanced Transportation Excellence (i-GATE) plan, which seeks to develop futuristic energy technologies and create an "open campus" area near the high-security federal labs where private, hi-tech business and/or academic development could occur.

Worldwide clean energy investment was down in 2009, according to EnergyBoom.com's analysis of several studies. But the future looks bright as the brand new DB NASDAQ OMX Clean Tech Index was recently launched. The new index is made up of 119 companies that each derive at least a third of their revenues from clean technology.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Major league baseball spring training begins next week and the greening of the sport continues to show no letup. The Minnesota Twins are installing a giant underground storage tank the size of a freight car to harvest and recycle rainwater at their new ball park, Target Field. The Twins may save more than two million gallons of water a year. The Rain Water Recycle System will purify rainwater for human consumption as well as maintenance and irrigating the field. It was designed by Pentair, a company specializing in water systems and storage. The Twins also are seeking a LEED (Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design) certification for the new park.

Eco-minded residents of Berkeley are recycling and composting so much that the city's refuse revenues are down by $4 million, the biggest factor in a $10 million city budget deficit. Residents are switching to smaller trash bins which carry a lower collection rate. People are buying less stuff so there's less packaging and cardboard waste, and a failed business means there's no trash to collect. "Not only does the amount of garbage change with the economy, but the very nature of garbage changes," says Robert Reed, spokesman for Recology Sunset Scavenger, San Francisco's garbage company.

Car sharing memberships in North America soared by 117 percent between 2007 and 2009, according to the Frost & Sullivan research firm, and total membership is projected at 4.4 million in North America and 5.5 million in Europe by 2016. The firm estimates that each vehicle in a car sharing fleet replaced 15 personally owned vehicles in 2009 and car sharing members drove 31 percent less than when they owned a personal vehicle. This means fewer cars on the road and a reduction of more than 482,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, car sharing firm Zipcar Inc. has pulled the 2010 Toyota Prius hybrids from its fleet (less than 1 percent) due to the recall for a potential brake problem. Zipcar also has removed 2009 and 2010 Toyota Matrix models in a previous safety recall.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

 Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attentionthis week:

San Francisco startup and solar brokering firm One Block Off the Grid, or 1BOG, is applying a business model emphasizing social media such as Twitter and door-to-door pitches to match groups of homeowners seeking solar systems with local solar installers. 1BOG put in 550 solar systems in 2009, its first year, and is expanding into new markets in 2010. The solar customers get volume discounts and 1BOG gets referral fees from the installers. The company is introducing a program in New Jersey and planning moves into San Antonio and Honolulu. "We want 2010 to be the year where we bring solar to the masses," says Dave Llorens, co-founder and general manager.

Oil-dependent Hawaii aims to get 70 percent of its total energy needs from clean resources by 2030 -- 40 percent from renewable power generation and 30 percent  from energy efficiency. The islands have abundant solar, wind, geothermal and wave resources. The state is considering projects such as a 30-mile undersea cable to link proposed wind farms on Lanai and Molokai to electric grids on Oahu and Maui. Hawaii's Gas Co. is using municipal solid waste and animal fat to make synthetic gas for its customers. "We're adopting policies and technologies here that can serve as a model for the rest of the globe," Jeff Mikulina, executive director of the Blue Planet Foundation, a Hawaii clean energy advocacy group, told the Los Angeles Times.

Last March, NEXT100 reported on a novel 60-foot catamaran made of used plastic bottles under construction in a shed on the San Francisco waterfront. The boat, named Plastiki, now is going through trials on San Francisco Bay before it hoists sails early in March to cross the Pacific to Australia. Plastiki's twin hulls are made of 12,500 plastic bottles filled with dry ice. David de Rothschild, project leader and scion of the Rothschild banking family, aims to draw attention to plastic waste winding up in landfills and in the oceans. He told the San Francisco Chronicle the way to get the recycling message across is a plastic sailing adventure -- a message in a bottle.Bon Voyage!

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

 Maybe it's just his optimistic personality, but Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com, made a strong case today that the glass is at least half full for the green economy going into 2010, even in the face of one of the deepest recessions in memory. 

Makower presented the highlights of his organization's third annual State of Green Business Report today at PG&E's Gold LEED-certified auditorium before an audience of about 400 people. The report identifies 10 major trends in green business and 20 key indicators of its health, such as green power use, toxic emissions and energy efficiency.

"Something remarkable happened in 2009," Makower told the audience of business executives and green activists. "Green business didn't go away--it even thrived. You not only kept your jobs but in many cases became more critical to your companies' mission."

Last year saw significant progress on six indicators tracked by the report, including the number of clean-energy patents (an all-time high), energy efficiency, the number of green IT products, the development of green office space, and declining use of paper and water. 

Makower said he's heartened by the "race to the top" in several industries such as computing, where Energy Star and EPEAT-rated equipment is rapidly gaining ground, and package delivery, where the US Postal Service, UPS and Fed Ex are all making great strides in acquiring cleaner fleets.

On the other hand, setbacks last year included the slow rate of improvement in greenhouse emissions per unit of GDP, shrinkage of telecommuting and inadequate recycling of electronic equipment.

Of the major business trends discussed in the report, one of the most interesting is the concept of "radical transparency," which refers to the "virtuous circle that develops when detailed information about companies, products and ingredients is instantly available, enabling consumers to make smarter choices, thereby moving markets toward less-harmful products."

This transparency starts at the grass roots, where the "tweet and text generation," as the report calls them, exploit social media to spread word instantly about good and bad business practices. It is also driven by the many web sites, like HealthyStuff.org, that provide sustainability information on a host of consumer products.

And, at the corporate level, it is being driven by ratings from groups like the Carbon Disclosure Project, Climate Counts and Dow Jones, with its Sustainability World Index. More and more corporations, including PG&E, are working with investor outfits like Ceres to produce annual corporate responsibility reports that detail impacts of their businesses on the environment, communities and employees.

Once transparency and disclosure start taking hold, they spread powerfully by example, and may eventually become required. A striking example was the ruling last month by the Securities and Exchange Commission that public companies must warn investors of significant risks that global warming might pose to their businesses.

Someday soon we'll all wonder why that decision was ever controversial. In the meantime, companies will either have to clean up their act, or informed investors will jump ship. That's the power of transparency.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Solar energy companies and relief organizations are helping Haiti to recover from the devastating earthquake, supplying solar panels to power lighting, water purification systems, ovens, mobile phones, laptop computers and other devices. Sun Ovens International is sending stand-alone and commercial solar ovens to Port-au-Prince. Solar panel maker Sol Inc. is providing solar lighting at an orphanage, relief camps and hospitals, while SolarWorld is powering 10 water purification systems. Faith Comes by Hearing, a provider of audio Bibles, is partnering with a relief organization to distribute 600 sun-powered Bibles.

Iceland is the world leader in pollution control and natural resource management, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) developed by environmental experts at Columbia and Yale. The EPI, presented at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, ranks 163 countries on performance across 25 metrics. Iceland registered high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions and reforestation. Other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden and Norway. The U.S. was ranked 61 "with strong results on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, and weak performance on other issues including greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of  local air pollution."

The Olympics are embracing recycled materials for the eco-friendly 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and London's Summer Games in 2012. Medalists at the Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics Winter Games will receive gold, silver and bronze medals containing metal from recycled TVs, computers and keyboards. London's Metropolitan Police Department is melting down confiscated guns and knives with some of the metal going to help construct the Olympic Stadium in East London. 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Software giant Oracle is eying smart water meters to help consumers save water and prevent projected shortages. Much like gas and electric smart meters, a water meter could deliver real-time information on consumption through a video display, and water districts could get information on leaks. The company now sells software and services to water districts as well as gas and electric utilities and sees a potential market in water meters. IBM also is looking at the water market. 

More smart news: Apple has applied for two patents that could lead to a smart home energy system to connect and manage power consumption in devices such as computers, printers, iPods and iPhones, using a home's existing wiring. If it goes ahead, Apple would join companies such as Google, Microsoft, GE and Whirlpool developing tools to control electricity use.

Smart news for public transit riders: A study by the American Public Transportation Association finds that the average citizen who commutes to work via public transit saves $9,240 a year compared to commuting by car. The study compiled the average cost of taking public transit compared to costs of gas, tolls, parking, insurance and maintenance. Of the top 20 transit cities, New York was the No. 1 saver at $13,765, Boston second at $12,362 and San Francisco in third place at $12,156.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Internet giant Google is looking at high-altitude wind power and other renewable energy sources to beat the price of coal. In a lengthy interview with Green Inc., Google green energy czar Bill Weihl says it's exploring ways to capture stronger and steadier winds at 500 to 2,000 meters or potentially up in the jet stream. Google has invested in Makani Power, a company exploring high-altitude wind using an airborne platform. Weihl says Google also is looking at concentrated solar thermal and enhanced geothermal power.

Update from our item last Friday on the controversial wind farm project proposed for offshore Cape Cod: Federal Interior Secretary Ken Salazar met with virtually all the parties to the lengthy dispute and said he plans to decide whether to approve the Cape Wind project no later than April. The project is a test of the Obama administration's commitment to renewable energy projects on public lands and off the nation's shorelines, the New York Times says. It would be the country's first major offshore wind farm.

The symbolic Doomsday Clock showing how close we are to annihilation and the end of time was set back by one minute to six minutes before midnight from five. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which maintains the clock, attributed the change to efforts by world leaders to reduce nuclear arsenals and work together on climate change. The group said a "new era of cooperation" has been helped by the election of President Obama and increased U.S. participation in international affairs.