September 30th, 2009

The Senate Dems' energy and climate bill debuts

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 9:55 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, cars & traffic, conservation, energy, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, green tech, law & politics, petroleum, renewable energy

Tags: Bill, U.S. Senate, Energy, Harry Fuller

The official name is “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.” I though the American power act had to do with invading weak countries like Grenada, Panama, Iraq and Afghainistan. This must be some other kind of power? This has to do with fossil fuel, electricity and energy, not political power per se.

This new bill, propelled by fears among pols that the EPA will take a move before them, would establish mandatory nationwide limits on greenhouse gases. It calls for a 20% cut in greenhouse gas emissions in the US by 2020.

<a href=” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/taking-control-of-our-ene_b_304882.htmlHere’s Senator Kerry’s (D-Mass) defense of the bill he is co-sponsoring. If you want to read the bill itself or a summary, here is link to leading sponsor, Sen. Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) website.

Here are excerpts from her press statement on the bill: ” This bill addresses major challenges of our generation: protecting our children and the earth from dangerous pollution; putting America back in control of our energy future; creating the policies that will lead to millions of new jobs; and through our example, inspiring similar actions around the world to avoid an unstable and dangerous future.
“As Chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, I want to thank so many of my colleagues and their staffs, on and off the committee….We built on the successful House effort. Our bill has stronger targets in the short term and we have expanded our coalition in the business community. In our bill, the basic promise to consumers has been kept. The promise to regions that rely heavily on fossil fuels has been kept as well.
“The first major part of the bill includes authorizations, all of which would be eligible for appropriations and some which are eligible for both appropriations and allowances. Some of these are enhanced from the Waxman bill; some are new. Here are some examples of these authorizations: Investments in clean natural gas, new transmission infrastructure, nuclear R&D and worker training, and green economic development; agricultural and forestry offset opportunities…Provisions to speed the transition to cleaner transportation, including investments in our transit systems, and incentives for efficient hybrid and electric cars….”

September 30th, 2009

Cleantech draws more investments in Q3

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 5:39 pm

Categories: Blogroll, China, Europe, India, biofuel, cars & traffic, energy, engineering, federal government, green tech, law & politics, mass transit, renewable energy, solar, venture capital

Tags: Clean Technology, Cleantech Group, Investment, Finance, Harry Fuller

Investment globally were again for the cleantech sector, markking further rebound from the beginning of this year which began glumly. Cleantech Group says total Q3 investments were nearly $1.6 billion. Overall investments in cleantech were up 10% from Q2 but still lagging compared to Q3 in 2008, just before the big drop-off in Q4, 2008.
The leading sector: solar with a total prize of $451 million. That sector was led by money pouring into California-based thin film company Solyndra. It raised $198 million.
Ranking second in Q3 capital capture: Transportation (including Vehicles, Advanced Batteries, Biofuels) with $383 million. Electric carmaker Tesla, based also in California, was the sector leader with over $80 million raised. That does not include any of the money it got from government programs.
Cleantech focuses solely on private financing and investment, not government funding.
CLEANTECH GEOGRAPHY
The U.S. continues to dominate private investment in cleantech. Of course that mlo ey can quickly be dwarfed when a government like China or the U.S. starts throwing money arround. North America had two-thirds of the global cleantech investments, whle California had 60% of the U.S. total or 30% of ALL investments globally. Could it be that California’s greentech sector is on a role?
Europe and Israel got 29% of the total capital and China only 3%. Again, this does NOT count any of the money put into firms by the Chinese government which Has the most capital rich “fund” on earth right now. And they don’t have to support a military fighting two wars and manning bases in dozens of countries.

CLEANTECH IPOs
In the leading cleantech IPO of the quarter, and one of the most significant cleantech exits to date, A123Systems made its long awaited debut on the NASDAQ Global Market, in which the company raised $380 million at a company valuation of $1.3 billion (which rose to $1.9 billion by the close of day one trading). Other clean technology IPOs recorded in 3Q09 were wind farm developer Indian Energy, which began trading on London’s AIM, raising $16.2 million, and India-based Euro Multivision, which raised $13.5 million on the Bombay Stock Exchange for the company’s photovoltaic solar cell manufacturing unit.
At the end of trading in September, A123 (aone) was trading over $21 per shrae, having launched its IPO at $13.50. Clearly there is appetitie in the public market for greentech firms.

September 30th, 2009

CA snags huge grocery concern as customer for sustainability management software

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 4:39 pm

Categories: conservation, energy, green tech

Tags: Software, Sustainability, Tesco, Computer Associates International Inc., Heather Clancy

CA has just received a pretty big endorsement for its sustainability data and strategy management software, ecoSoftware — a deal with the world’s third largest grocery retailer, U.K.-based Tesco.

Tesco, which employs 468,000 people in roughly 4,000 locations, will use CA ecoSoftware to manage the task of accounting for its carbon emissions across all of these operations. Tesco has pledged to cut its carbon emissions in half from existing buildings by 2020, using 2006 as the baseline measure. It also plans to cut its emissions from each “case of goods” delivered by 50 percent before 2012. The company has already addressed its energy usage, cutting consumption in the United Kingdom in half.

CA ecoSoftware can handle a variety of sustainability initiatives, including everything from energy management to supply chain optimization projects. Here are more details of the Tesco deal in the form of a press releast.

September 30th, 2009

Lawsuit alert: carbon wars are set to begin

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 4:24 pm

Categories: Blogroll, air pollution, cars & traffic, climate change, conservation, energy, engineering, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, green tech, law & politics, petroleum, renewable energy

Tags: Lawsuit, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Harry Fuller

I actually heard one political analyst today say that “nobody” wants the EPA to single-handedly deal with greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. By that I presume this MSM reporter means nobody with lots of power or money in Washington. All sides want to see Congress weigh-in. I might add that’s because lobbyists and big donors have more sway with Congress than the current EPA regime. Senators are clear that the threat of an EPA action is making them feel like they might have to do something.
Well, all sides in the carbon wars will soon get a wake-up call. This current EPA is not determined to take eight years to take no action as the previous version of the EPA did. It now seems that the EPA may issue its new version of rules for carbon dioxide limits in the next few days. Directly affected will be U.S. power plants, oil refineries and factories. Indirectly but quickly affected will be a majority of U.S. electric customers, anybody who uses cement or buys a steel product, the plastics industry, coal companies, their loybbists and champions in Congress. And where there’s smoke there’ll be some critical political fire. Expect some of the biggest ticket lawsuits since the battles over cigraette smoke, or asbestos before that. Expect critics of any EPA action to predict the end of life, the doom of civilization and the passing of every American job outside the Pentagon.
The EPA is acting under the powers of Clean Air Act. This move is to regulate emissions from smokestakes. This is the prelude to the big bucks lawsuits.
Limited information about the Senate version of the energy/climate change bil indicates it will have nice giveaways for agriculture (all those farm state Senators, you know) and also some nice gifties for the nuclear industry which has been defunct in this land for decades. You may recall that back in early summer the U.S. House of Reps passed the Waxman-Markey bill on energy and climate change. The Senate insists it will write a better bill. Once the EPA moves, the Senate’s move may not be far behind.
Here’s the explanation from the EPA head: “By using the power and authority of the Clean Air Act, we can begin reducing emissions from the nation’s largest greenhouse gas emitting facilities without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the vast majority of our economy. We know the corner coffee shop is not the meaningful place to look for carbon reductions.”

September 30th, 2009

Apple declares its environmental credentials

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 5:50 am

Categories: conservation, energy, green tech

Tags: Apple Inc., Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Heather Clancy

Much has been cyber-ink has been spilled (spilt?) over the past several days about Apple’s new Environmental disclosure site called, aptly enough, Apple and the Environment.

For all its vaunted and legendary hipness, Apple hasn’t been as vocal as its high-tech rivals in the green IT department, probably because it hasn’t had such spectacular things to say until just recently. Remember the public spat between Dell and Apple over green technology claims earlier this year? Apple hasn’t exactly scored very well on certain rankings, either, compared with its biggest rivals.

Now it has some good-ish news to report, like the fact that it takes 40 percent less packaging to ship 32,000 MacBook notebook computers in 2009 compared with what it took in 2006. Or that the 2008 model of the 15-inch MacBook Pro emits less carbon dioxide per hour of use than does a 60-watt lightbulb. OR, that in 2008, the company recycled 33 million pounds of electronic waste, or roughly 41.9 percent of the total weight of all the products it sold 7 years earlier. Although the actual amount recycled may seem really teeny compared with other technology companies, what percentage of the products that those companies ship out into the world actually are recycled?

Even Apple high priest Steve Jobs, who has been obviously been laying low for months for health reasons, is speaking out about the company’s green profile. When Steve talks about something, you KNOW its a pretty big deal for the entire company.

As you might expect, Apple’s new environmental reporting site is highly graphical, which gives you a pretty quick at a glance idea of how much damage you’re doing to the planet when you buy an Apple product.

What I’m REALLY longing for, though, is a better comparative site, where I could analyze an Apple model against, say, a Dell model in a more straightforward manner. There are so many variables that go into some of the green IT certifications (ala EPEAT), that you’re never really sure if you’re comparing apples to apples.

Now, I know many of you corporate IT types are thinking at this point: “Who cares about Apple?” You probably don’t, although plenty of small-business owners who make technology buying decisions DO care, especially as the Macintosh OS gains more business-friendly features that make them easier to manage than the alternatives. This is important information for them.

That is because while many high-tech vendors have been falling over themselves for months to preach the green IT gospel to the largest companies AND to consumers, the concerns of smaller businesses have been largely left out of the conversation.

Apple has now made it awfully easy to analyze the impact of its technology and of the process by which its products are made and get into your hands. Not to take away from the great work that Dell and Hewlett-Packard have done in that regard, but the simplicity of Apple’s disclosures is definitely worth emulating.

September 29th, 2009

What value research? In this case a cool billion dollars.

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 5:23 pm

Categories: Blogroll, cars & traffic, energy, engineering, federal government, green tech, law & politics, renewable energy, research

Tags: Rechargeable Battery, A123 Systems, Harry Fuller

Research at MIT led to the founding of A123 Systems. That company just went public to the tune of a billion bills. A123 Systems is in the rechargeable battery biz, a sweet spot these days. It was founded eight years ago with a $100,000 federal grant. My, how they’ve grown. Last month A123 got a quarter-billion dollar grant from the federal government to help them build lithium-ion battery production plants in the U.S. The first plant will go up in Livonia, Michigan.

A123 Systems IPO’ed last week at $13.50 per share. Today they closed at $19.80 and they’ve traded as high as $21.20.

A123 makes batteries for vehicles, other portable needs and electric grid systems. Among their investors is GE. A123 is working on batteries for General Motors’ plug-in Volt, due to launch next year.

THE NAME?
A123Systems owes its name to the Hamaker force constant which is used to calculate the attractive and repulsive forces between particles at nano dimensions, and which begins “A123…”

September 29th, 2009

What do Bill Gates and other billionaires see as the world's #1 problem?

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 1:42 pm

Categories: Africa, Blogroll, China, Russia, conservation, environmental health, green tech, law & politics

Tags: Bill Gates, Gender And Diversity, Human Resources, Harry Fuller

It’s not peak oil and it’s not war. But it is a greentech issue. It’s population growth. But without unbridled population growth it’s very hard to maintain economic growth. This issue strikes at the very heart of 21st Century business and politics. That’s why we will ignore it. Talk about “inconvenient.” And that’s even before you face the Pope and Muslim clerics and Mormons and all the other believers who deplore birth control and women’s rights. Even China’s authoritarian government has dealt with this - by suppressing religion and enforcing a one child per family law which has curbed population growth.

Even the poorer nations such as Bangladesh are aware that their population growth is a problem. Here’s a snarky approach that may be close to the truth: Population growth as a ponzi scheme. Can we really expect technology to bail us out forever?

Yet population growth is seen as a necessary sign of economic health. Russia hates being called out for its shrinking population. Ditto Italy. Meanwhile the poorer nations seem to be growing the fastest. One study claims population growth is not affecting greenhouse gas emission. But that study does go the next step and calculate the greater amount of food needed and the carbon footprint of that food production. In most parts of the earth agriculture is the #1 source of greenhouse gas emissions, not transport or industry.

September 29th, 2009

Now there's a switch: New Belkin surge protector timed to power down certain outlets

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 10:15 am

Categories: conservation, energy, green tech

Tags: Belkin Corp., Outlet, Scanners, Productivity, Engineering, Printers, Hardware, Peripherals, Heather Clancy

This post is about one of those small gadgets that could make a lot of difference when it comes to your Green IT profile: a surge protector with a timer.

Belkin’s new Conserve Surge with Timer, which carries a retail price of $34.99 (about $7 more than a typical surge protector) is pretty much what you would expect: an eight-outlet strip; two of the outlets are always on, the other six can be controlled and switched off with a button. Whenever the strip is turned on, it will automatically turn off the power to those controllable outlets after an 11-hour cycle (or about the time someone might be hunkered down at their desk). An LED will blink if you’re approaching shutdown.

Cliff Unger, senior product manager for Belkin, says the motivation for the product was pretty simple. Make it easier for businesses to ensure that as much computer equipment (speakers, monitors, printers, scanners) as possible is turned off at night. Typically, you would plug the CPU into one of the always-on outlets, so that piece of equipment will still be sipping away at the electricity overnight and on the weekends when you’re hopefully not there. But heck, it’s a start. And since most people buy power strips anyway, it’s a green selling point for Belkin.

September 28th, 2009

Dataram storage appliance squeezes more out of storage infrastructure

Posted by Heather Clancy @ 5:15 pm

Categories: conservation, energy, green tech

Tags: XcelaSAN, Storage, Hardware, Heather Clancy

At more than 40 years old, Dataram certainly isn’t a technology start-up, but the memory company has come up with a new approach to storage optimization that could help midsize companies squeeze out more performance from their existing devices.

The technology, called XcelaSAN, is an appliance that works within Fibre Channel SANs to better allocate the most active data to high-performance solid state storage.

Why do I consider this to be green? Consider that Dataram says that using its appliance, a company can run a typical database application with one storage array and 25 SAS disks at the same performance levels as an installation requiring 8 storage arrays and 200 SAS disks. What’s more, Dataram claims a management advantage. As in, it’s easier to manage a SAN using its appliance rather than a hodge-podge of other systems.

Pricing for the appliance starts at $65,000. XcelaSAN is supposed to ship in the United States during the fourth calendar quarter, with availability in Europe and Asia scheduled for the first half of 2010. The company is building a VAR channel that can represent its products in the financial services and life sciences industries, as well as the public sector.

September 28th, 2009

Let's blame addictive oil

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 12:20 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Russia, cars & traffic, energy, environmental health, fossil fuel, law & politics, petroleum

Tags: Oil, Global Warming, Harry Fuller

The blame game is getting grimmer as the global warming warnings get more strident. Now comes a book pointing to petroleum as “the devil’s excrement.” Damn, wish I thought of that epithet.
This book is Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil. Says Knopf’s marketing text, “Every unhappy oil-producing nation is unhappy in its own way, but all are touched by the ‘resource curse’—the power of oil to exacerbate existing problems and create new ones.”
Venezuela? Nigeria? Iraq? Saudi? Kuwait? Iran? Kazahkstan? Russia? Mexico? What’s not to like. One reviewer sums it up thusly, “Seventy years after the discovery of its first great [oil] reservoir, Saudi Arabia remains a medieval principality with a bare patina of modernity.”
This “crude” book says Norway and some of the small oil emirates may be the only nations on earth to make oil resources into a positive thing. But aren’t those Norwegians just Euro-socialists? Eek!

PEAK OIL?
In writing CRUDE WORLD the author was assured there’s plenty of oil still in the ground. That estimate is based on science…and faith. The Saudis tell us to believe. If the oil industry’s estimates are correct we have enough crude oil left for 300 years at the current rate of consumption. Of course, consumption has been increasing for decades when the world’s major economies are booming. Recessions lead to reduced oil consumption.
Here’s an interesting look at the range of fossil fuel reserves and the political hokus-pocus that surrounds them. This author even falls back on Rev. Malthus and fears about population growth, a concern not popular among proponents of endless economic growth and resource consumption.
Those Left Coasters are fretting over Peak Oil already. One theory on Iran going nuclear? Why, they know they’ve already passed peak oil in their country.