21st Century Regenerative Technology

1. The Daily Sprout
2. Plug-n-Play Cleantech
3. GE and Big Oil Ally to Sequester CO2
4. ZAP Gets New Chairman from Dubai
5. links for 2008-05-28

The Daily Sprout

2008-05-29 01:16

Craig Rubens - Misc

Q-Cells Going South of the Border: The German thin film solar company is expanding into the 10,000 acre Silicon Border Science Park, in Mexicali, Baja California; it’s a two-hour drive from San Diego, and a three-hour to both Los Angeles and Phoenix — release.

GE Dives Deeper Into Water Tech: GE is using some of its Ecomagination funds to focus on water technology and plans to reduce its own water consumption by 20 percent by 2012 - Cleantech.

U.S. DOE to Put $130M into Fuel Cell R&D: The US Department of Energy issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement for $130 in grants for research in automotive, stationary and mobile fuel cells with a focus on how to integrate fuel cells in a distributed generation grid - Green Car Congress.

Sanyo to Make Better Batteries for VW: Sanyo and Volkswagen are working together to make lithium-ion batteries for hybrid electric vehicles. All of this is more build up to the 2010 release of nearly every next-gen car we know - CNET News.

“A Few Dumb Reasons Hybrids Are Bad For Us”: Those stealthy, silent hybrids could easily prey upon unsuspecting pedestrians, but what about sleepy drivers lulled to sleep by the hybrid’s soothing ride? Yeah, not a very compelling case, eh? - Autoblog Green.

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Plug-n-Play Cleantech

2008-05-28 21:10

Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy

“Plug and play” is a term often used in the infotech world to describe a technology that a consumer can purchase and easily use out of the box — like that new mouse you bought at Best Buy, the one with little setup and software installation. When it applies to cleantech, entrepreneurs are starting to use the phrase to describe technology that can work easily to help cleanup the existing infrastructure, often in the energy and transportation worlds.

A good example of this is biodiesel. Biodiesel can be pumped into a standard diesel engine; the owner doesn’t even have to invest in upgrades to the vehicle, much less buy a new car. While diesel engines are a small market in the U.S., domestic car makers are starting to offer new models, and in many parts of the world diesel makes up a large part of the car market.

The benefit of plug-in-play cleantech is that the technology can be plugged into an existing system, so it can be adopted now, and is often low in cost. It’s basically baby-steps or interim technology that can be put in place to make a dirty system cleaner. Plug-in-play technology can be adopted for a variety of industries from power generators, to utilities to auto makers, to consumers themselves.

Investor Vinod Khosla often describes corn-based ethanol as the first step to a biofuel revolution. Corn-based ethanol can be used in internal combustion engines with an upgrade that costs just a few hundred dollars and creates a “flex-fuel vehicle.” Next-generation cellulosic biofuels that have properties closer to gasoline and can be shipped in the existing petroleum infrastructure will be even closer to a biofuel that is truly plug-n-play.

Interim plug-n-play technology can work for industries other than just vehicle engines. Former Imperium Renewables CEO Martin Tobias recently told us that he’s been looking at a biomass replacement for coal, which can be used in existing retired coal plants. Because coal plants already have transmission lines in place, and are undergoing increasing pressure from environmentalists to start burning cleaner, the idea would be to just replace the coal feedstock with something greener.

Startups in the solar industry are also starting to use the term plug-in-play to emphasize the ease of installation of their solar panels, which can be simply plugged into the power grid. Melink Corp. makes a ground-mounted solar PV system that has an embedded inverter, which just plugs into an outside socket. Akeena Solar also makes a "LEGO-like” integrated racking and mounting solar system, which it claims cuts down on installation steps and costs.

For energy monitoring companies, plug-in-play means being able to sell a software and hardware package at a big-box retailer that a consumer can simply take home and install. The package would include wireless sensors, software and other technology that can plug into a broadband connection to monitor and manage home energy use. While many startups are working on making this technology simple and easy to use, most systems still require an electrician to install them — and are prohibitively expensive for the average consumer.

While few are arguing against implementing plug-n-play technology to fight global warming, innovators are also calling for the need to work on disruptive technology that will remake the fundamentals of many of the offending industries, like power generation and transportation. That’s the thesis of “hydrogen highway” advocates, that fuel cell cars and technology are simply the best way to cut down on carbon emissions.

The problem with concepts like the hydrogen highway is that much more is investment needed to build them as they would require new cars, new fueling stations and new distribution systems. And the investment has to be made early to get the technology ready, when it could end up that the technology isn’t the one that consumers favor or is just not technically feasible for a low enough cost. In other words, an early, massive investment could be a wasted one.

At the end of the day, to fight global warming we need both the interim changes and the big picture disruptions. Yeah, you knew we were gonna say that. But like in other tech industries, personal computing, the Internet and mobile phones, both evolution and revolution progress the technology. Which one do you think will be a bigger factor for cleantech?

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GE and Big Oil Ally to Sequester CO2

2008-05-28 19:09

Craig Rubens - Big Green

Ever since the Department of Energy cut its support of the FutureGen project, the fossil fuel-based energy industry, so dependent on effective carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology for the future of their business, has been rather directionless in its approach to CCS. The latest attempt to grasp this holy grail comes in the form of a newly announced partnership between General Electric and Schlumberger Ltd., one of the world’s largest oil field operators. The agreement is intended to connect GE’s integrated gasification combined-cycle (IGCC) power generation and carbon capture systems with Schlumberger’s geologic storage experience.

But don’t get too excited yet. Like we’ve said before, carbon capture and sequestration technology is still a ways off. “It’s more of a long-term alliance,” Diarmaid Mulholland, regional general manager for GE’s energy services in Europe, told Reuters. “It’s going to take a number of years for this really to get up and going.”

So far, the most promising advances in carbon storage have been inextricably linked to enhanced oil recovery methods, largely because it yields more salable oil. As the world’s leading oil field operator, Schlumberger has quite a bit of experience in this technology.

This agreement represents one of the largest efforts to tackle carbon capture and sequestration and make “clean coal” more than an oxymoron since FutureGen. Notably, it does not include any representatives from the coal industry.

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ZAP Gets New Chairman from Dubai

2008-05-28 17:00

Craig Rubens - Startups

The ever-evolving saga of the electric car company ZAP Motors has added a new chapter today. The maker of the three-wheeled, all-electric Xebra, has appointed Eqbal Al Yousuf as Chairman of the Board. Al Yousuf is President of Dubai’s Al Yousuf Group, a business conglomerate based in the United Arab Emirates.

Al Yousuf has been helping bankroll the 13-year old electric car maker since his company bought $5 million worth of ZAP stock in November, and more recently, it purchased nearly half a million dollars in convertible debt from the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based company. ZAP’s Co-founder and current Chairman Gary Starr will remain on the board of directors and continue his role in the company, ZAP says.

Perhaps this could be the leadership change that ZAP has so desperately needed for the last decade. Gary Starr, who wrested the company from his co-founder in 1999, has had SEC complaints filed against him. A recent issue of WIRED featured a lengthy expose about ZAP Motors’ allegedly shady dealings. Over the years, Starr’s ZAP has promised many great offers to its customers and dealers but has delivered very few actual cars.

Al Yousuf’s first test will come with the delivery of the Alias, ZAP’s new three-wheeled electric vehicle, originally scheduled for January 2008 and now slated for 2009. Meanwhile, the four-wheeled ZAP-X, ZAP’s first full-on car, scheduled for release in 2010 with an estimated $60,000 price tag, has us really wondering if ZAP can become a real car company. ZAP brought in Lotus engineer Albert Lam to help with the design. With a team of serious car makers and serious businessmen, perhaps ZAP can boost itself out of its 13-year rut.

Image courtesy of ZAP Motors.