Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Scientists at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, say they have developed a new vehicle biofuel made from Scotch whisky byproducts. The fuel is derived from pot ale liquid from copper stills and spent grains. "While some energy companies are growing crops specifically to generate biofuel, we are investigating excess materials such as whisky byproducts to develop them," Professor Martin Tangey, director of Napier's Biofuel Research Center, told the Financial Times. Tangey says tapping whisky byproducts "is a more environmentally sustainable option and potentially offers new revenue on the back of one of Scotland's biggest industries." Scotch whisky exports were a record $4.85 billion in 2009, or about one quarter of the UK's food and drink exports.

The BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is attracting new remedial clean-up technologies. They include an oil-separating centrifuge system made by Ocean Therapy Solutions, oil-hungry bacteria grown at Tel Aviv University, and an oil-absorbing robot developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The New York Times Green blog reports. The M.I.T. device is a solar-powered nanofiber conveyor belt said to absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. Using "swarm" robotics, thousands of the devices could form "teams" to attack a spill. M.I.T. plans to enter the invention in an oil clean-up competition from the X-Prize Foundation with a $1 million prize for collecting and recovering spilled oil. 

The San Francisco Bay Area is gearing up to install 5,000 car chargers over five years for an expected surge of electric and plug-in hybrid cars like the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and models from Mitsubishi, Toyota, Tesla and other automakers. The nine-county Bay Area currently has about 120 chargers. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has approved a program for organizations to install chargers in the next five years at homes, apartments, office buildings, parking garages, BART stations and shopping malls. "We're trying to address range anxiety," says Damian Breen, director of grant programs for the air  quality district. "We want people not to be worried their electric vehicle is going to run out of juice."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Four teams from Switzerland, Germany, Australia and South Korea this week launched a solar-powered, emissions-free 80-day around-the-world race from Geneva to draw attention to electric vehicles. The 18,000-mile Zero Race will run through Moscow, Shanghai, Vancouver and San Francisco before stopping in Cancun, Mexico, for a United Nations Climate Conference, and then the vehicles will be shipped to Portugal and end the race in Geneva next January. Two vehicles are battery-powered scooters and the other two are custom sedans. The Zero Race is organized by Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer, the first person to go around the world in a solar-powered vehicle.

Iceland to become world leader in electric cars? A Forbes article suggests Iceland could be the first to make electric vehicles the default national transportation. Three quarters of the island nation's 317,000-plus population lives within 37 miles of the capital Reykjavik. Forbes says rural areas could probably be wired with just 15 fast-charging stations. "That, coupled with with the fact that 80 percent of  Iceland's energy is cheaply produced renewable (from geothermal and hydro) should give you a good idea why this is the ideal test bed for electric vehicles," the article says. Iceland has an agreement with Mitsubishi to deliver i-MiEV all-electric cars to the island with a claimed range of 80 to 100 miles.

The greenest college in the land is small Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., according to a survey by the Sierra Club's Sierra magazine. The college, with 820 undergrads, offers an extensive environmental studies program, burns wood chips and methane from cow manure for heat and electricity, and aims to become carbon neutral. The magazine sent an 11-page questionnaire to 900 colleges and universities to find the greenest institutions and received 162 responses. After Green Mountain, the top 10 colleges based on criteria from energy sources to financial investments included Dickinson College (Pennsylvania), Evergreen State College (Washington), University of Washington, Stanford University (California), University of California-Irvine, Northland College (Wisconsin), Harvard University (Massachusetts), College of the Atlantic (Maine), and Hampshire College (Massachusetts). 
 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

California raceways are attracting electric cars and motorcycles, and now the venerable Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania has launched a 25-acre solar energy farm to power the track and 1,000 nearby homes. Track CEO John "Doc" Mattioli claims 40-year-old Pocono Raceway is the world's largest solar-powered sports facility. The $16 million system was developed by enXco, a SanDiego-based renewable energy developer and a subsidiary of France's EDF Energies Nouvelles. 

San Francisco may expand its plastic bag ban to all retail establishments. Under current city law, large supermarkets and chain drugstores can't provide plastic bags and paper bags must meet recyclable standards. Merchant groups seem resigned to a wider bag ban proposed by a city supervisor and  backed by Mayor Gavin Newsom. "It's not going to be the end of the world. But I do think City Hall can get a little self-righteous and not always for the right reasons," said a merchant association president and cafe owner. A bill in the California Legislature that has the governor's support would ban plastic bags at food and convenience stores and set a minimum 5-cent charge for paper bags. 

Geothermal projects underway in Nevada could add 3,000 megawatts to the state grid, according to the Geothermal Energy Association. Nevada doubled installed geothermal capacity to more than 400 MW from 2005 to 2010, and companies large and small are seeking more exploration wells. Companies include NV Energy, Calpine, CalEnergy Generation, a unit of Warren Buffet's MidAmerican Energy, Nevada Geothermal Power, and startups U.S. Geothermal and Ram Power. The industry has got a boost from Nevada's 25 percent renewable energy standard, tax incentives from the federal stimulus package, and federal government support of scientific and technical research at the University of  Nevada-Reno.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

A catamaran made of 12,500 used plastic bottles completed a four-month, 8,000 nautical mile San Francisco-to-Sydney voyage across the Pacific Ocean to draw attention to plastic waste in the world's oceans and landfills. The six-man crew of the 60-foot "Plastiki" was led by David De Rothschild, a descendant of the Rothschild banking family and an adventurer and ecologist. He named the craft in honor of the original Kon-Tiki, a raft made from balsa wood, that launched a 4,300-mile Pacific voyage in 1947 by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, from South America to French Polynesia.

The long-awaited plug-in hybrid Chevrolet Volt will carry a sticker price of $41,000 before a federal tax credit pushes the cost down to $33,500. The Volt goes into production in September and will initially be sold in California, New York, Michigan, Connecticut, Texas, New Jersey and Washington, D.C. The rival all-electric Nissan Leaf, which will also go on sale this year, starts at $33,000 before a $7,500 tax  credit. General Motors says the Volt has an all-electric range of 40 miles before a small gasoline engine starts up to run a generator to power the electric motor for a total range of 340 miles. Nissan says the Leaf will run 100 miles on a battery charge. Both GM and Nissan will also offer leasing the cars.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), headquartered in oil-rich Abu Dhabi, has signed up 148 countries and the European Union to develop new energy supplies around the globe. Thirty-one nations -- Albania, Samoa and Mexico are the latest signatories -- have ratified the treaty that formed IRENA in 2009 to work for more bioenergy, geothermal, hydropower, and wave, solar and wind power  resources. Most of the Middle East oil producers and U.S. have signed but not ratified the IRENA treaty, while Saudi Arabia, Canada, China, Russia and Venezuela have yet to join the group.  

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Google Energy will buy 114 megawatts of wind energy from a wind farm in Iowa for 20 years at an undisclosed fixed rate beginning on July 30. The deal is the first for the Google subsidiary after it received federal approval earlier this year to trade clean power on wholesale power markets. The company says it will sell the electricity on the regional spot market for renewable energy certificates to offset Google's carbon emissions. The Iowa wind farm is owned by NextEra Energy Resources LLC.

London is launching a $177 million program to develop bicycle "superhighways" to connect central London with towns outside the city. Fully developed, it would be the world's second-largest urban cycle hire system after Paris. London Mayor Boris Johnson, Barclays bank and Transport for London have opened the first two pilot routes now drawing 5,000 cycle journeys daily and aiming for 27,000 trips a day by 2013. Highly visible blue cycle lanes will have safety mirrors at junctions, stop lines at traffic lights, segregated lanes, and realignment of traffic and bus lanes to create more space for cyclists. "You have got to have a powerful and visible statement on the roads that asserts to every Londoner,  whether on two wheels or four, that the capital is a cycling city," says Johnson.

Shopping for a college with a sound environmental studies program? The 2011 Fiske Guide to Colleges reports its top 10 list for undergraduate environmental degree programs: Colby College (Maine), College of the Atlantic (Maine), UC-Davis, University of Colorado, Dartmouth College (New Hampshire), Eckerd College (Florida), Evergreen State College (Washington), University of North Carolina-Asheville, Tulane University (Louisiana), and University of Washington. Some of these colleges have appeared in other  green college lists, including the Princeton Review, College Sustainability Report Card and Sierra magazine's Cool Schools list.
 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Now that the 2010 FIFA World Cup has departed South Africa, so have those vuvuzelas that trumpeted a steady din at every soccer match. Where did they go? To the recycling world, reports PRW.com, which covers plastics news. The vuvuzelas -- 800,000 were sold in South Africa -- are likely to be recycled into plastic park benches and buckets. Many will be kept as souvenirs, of course, but those discarded will be collected for recycling before they enter landfill sites because the material is too valuable to waste, says a consultant for the Plastic Convertors Association. Cup winner Spain, however, may still be celebrating with its vuvuzelas.  

Raceways are a new testing ground for the latest electric vehicle technology. Last Sunday, racers, designers and innovators put EVs and motorcycles through their paces before engineers and entrepreneurs, reports Earth2Tech on the REFUEL EV race and time trials at the Laguna Seca track near Monterey. Infineon Raceway north of San Francisco also put on the first zero-emissions motorcycle race in the U.S. in May, the Time Trial Xtreme Grand Prix U.S. Championship. With Tesla Motors' new electric roadster stirring a lot of interest among fans of performance cars, perhaps it won't be too long before the Indianapolis 500 launches an all-electric race at the old brickyard.

The big box IKEA chain is the first U.S. retailer to drop incandescent light bulbs from its U.S. stores, beginning August 1, and says it will be incandescent-free by next January 1 and ahead of federal legislation to phase out incandescent bulbs beginning in 2012. The company said compact fluorescent bulbs are the most popular bulb at IKEA and the chain also offers more expensive LED lamps, which are 70 percent more efficient than incandescent bulbs. The company says that beginning this fall it will also carry a halogen bulb to be used in a standard light socket.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Employees planting tomatoes and squash on their break? Companies across the country are creating vegetable gardens, with employees taking home fresh produce, serving vegetables in the cafeteria, helping local food banks, and holding team-building activities in the gardens. Google and Yahoo in Silicon Valley put in gardens some time ago, and more companies are joining in. Kohl's department stores in Milwaukee provide vegetables from organic gardens for a food bank and a child care center. In New York, PepsiCo set up a large plot to grow peppers and tomatoes, while in Minneapolis a PR firm sponsored an employee garden and helped start a movement  called Employee Sponsored gardens which have websites and information on other gardens.

Envision Solar, the leading U.S. developer of 1,000-square-foot solar carports generating energy from photovoltaic panels, aims to install solar canopies with charging stations for plug-in hybrids and electric cars. "Parking lots are this wasteland -- they're the last thing that gets attention," says Robert Noble, an architect specializing in sustainable design and founder of San Diego-based Envision Solar. "Here's a market the size of Alpha Centuri that's never been tapped." The company is working on a pilot project with the Department of  Energy's National Renewable Energy Lab and also working with Coulomb Technologies, developer of charging stations.

More shareholders this year voted for proxy proposals encouraging U.S. companies to  lower  greenhouse gas emissions and improve disclosure of their carbon footprints, according to a survey by Ceres, an activist investor group. Of 42 climate-related resolutions voted on at 2010 shareholder meetings, 16 received 30 percent or more of the vote, compared with 6 of 28 that got that level of support in 2009. On average, the resolutions received 24.6 percent of shareholder votes, up from 21.7 percent in  009. "If our portfolio companies are to provide long-term shareholder value, they need to be proactive, not reactive, in addressing climate change and other ESG (environmental, social and governance) matters," says Jack Ehnes, CEO of No. 2 U.S. pension fund California State Teachers Retirement system.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

San Francisco start-up SunRun Inc., the leading U.S. provider of home solar financing, has raised $55 million from investors led by venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, one of the largest rounds for a solar leasing firm and a sign that solar developers are eyeing expansion beyond California, the New York Times Green blog reports. The investment follows a $100 million tax equity project to fund SunRun's solar installations by Pacific Energy Capital II, LLC, a non-utility subsidiary of PG&E Corporation. "We're seeing early signs of an inflection point in the market where the cost of offering a solar solution is becoming cheaper than utility pricing," said Warren Hogarth, a partner at Sequoia Capital. "We're moving from people buying solar because it's a nice thing to do to buying solar because it makes economic sense." 

The investment drum was also pounding this week with shares of electric car maker Tesla Motors Inc. surging more than 40 percent on its initial public offering of stock on the Nasdaq exchange. Tesla's closing share price of $23.89 pegged its market capitalization at $2.22 billion on its first day of trading. So far, Tesla has sold more than 1,000 of its $109,000 electric Roadster and  plans to introduce a $50,000 four-door electric sedan for sale in 2012. But Tesla may run into stiff competition from Nissan's electric car, the Leaf, priced at $25,000 after tax credits, and the $35,000 Chevy Volt to go on sale by the end of this year. Tesla doesn't expect to see a profit for at least two years.

Electric cars may turn up en masse in Paris next year if Mayor Bertrand Delanoe can launch a car-sharing program available at 1,000 locations in the city and suburbs. The plan,  said to be the largest in the world since Amsterdam scrubbed a car-share project in the 1980s, would offer 3,000 plug-in vehicles. Four companies are bidding to run the program, and the French automaker Renault may offer its first electric cars, the Fluence Z.E. and Kangoo Express Z.E. models expected to go into production next year.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Nuclear energy startup TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates and venture capital firms, raised $35 million in new funding to continue early-stage development of a reactor fueled by nuclear waste, Reuters reports. The company is developing a "traveling wave" reactor that would run for up to 100 years without refueling. TerraPower won't build a reactor but will seek partners for development. Original investors Gates and venture capital firm Charles River Ventures and new investor Khosla Ventures joined in the latest round of financing.

Switzerland's Migros supermarket chain will offer a new product this summer -- the Norwegian-made Think City electric car. The 600-store chain will sell the Think car through a division  that has already sold 60 Think vehicles to a company that will provide them to guests at a resort in the Swiss Alps, the Grist blog reports. The Think company leased a previous version of the car to San Francisco residents in a pilot program in the 1990s, and the city may be the first to begin selling the electric car in the U.S. later this year.

Europe is building new wind farms this year at a pace to nearly match development of new gas-fired power generation, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says. The industry group forecast 10 gigawatts of new wind generating capacity for 2010. "It is clear that wind energy will be competing for the top spot with new power plants," says Christian Kjaer, chief executive of the EWEA. Germany and Britain are forecast to install the most new wind capacity.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

BP has been pulled from the global Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) in the wake of the giant oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Dow Jones and Sustainable Asset Management Group said the spill's effects on the environment, local communities, economic effects and damage to BP's reputation led to its removal. The indexes track the financial performance of companies applying sustainable business policies. Before the gulf well blow-out, fund managers were already worried about BP's troubles with accidents and safety fines dating to 2005, Reuters reports.

Attention cyclists. Navigational systems are showing up on smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and Google Android phones. Smartphone navigation programs OpenMaps and Google Maps are valuable to cyclists, even in their current, imperfect states, reports bicycle commuter Mike Swift at the San Jose Mercury News. The products are certain to get better as they collect feedback from users, he says. Meanwhile, Nokia has introduced a bicycle charger kit and cell phone holder clamped onto the handlebars. The charger plugs into the phone and the charging kicks in when a pedaling cyclist hits about 4 mph.

Father's Day is coming up -- June 20 -- and The Green Seen has come across a one-stop solution for a gift for Dad. Treehugger has put together an online green guide to some novel gift solutions, including: organic cotton and hemp ties; a reclaimed French wine rack, or pupitre; vegetarian grill cookbook with 250 recipes for vegetables, fruit, lentils and other alternatives to beef and chicken; a hammock made from seat belts; and an energy-saving Black and Decker Power Monitor. You can also toast Dad with a glass of beer from local breweries to reduce your shipping footprint. Happy Father's Day!