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1. The UniCube Sustainable Dorm Design
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2. Tendril Launches Energy Management Ecosystem
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3. The Daily Sprout
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4. Riverwired.com: NextCruise to Showcase Green-Car Tech
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5. The End of Cheap and Easy Carbon Credits
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6. BEIJING OLYMPIC GREENS: China's Green Facade of Shrubbery
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7. LA Times Knocks Off T. Boone's Green Halo
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8. Lighting Science Group to Buy LED Maker Lamina
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9. GET READY for Park(ing) Day 2008!
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10. COLA LIFE CAMPAIGN: Coke's distribution chain to save lives
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11. Intel Double Dips in Solar & Chips with $12.5M in Voltaix
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12. Ethanol Powered Mazda Furai Racecar
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13. Why Cleantech Investors Love & Back Obama
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14. The Daily Sprout
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15. Riverwired.com: Green Building Resources & Green Living Tips
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16. Gadget Buyback Site Second Rotation Relaunches as Gazelle
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17. Austin Energy to Seek OK for $2.3B Biomass Plant
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18. Riverwired.com: What Can & Can't be Recycled
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19. Riverwired.com: Green Audit Your Yard and Garden
The UniCube Sustainable Dorm Design
Mike Chino - Architecture
Sheathed in walls of living green and resembling a pagoda emblazoned with a curving copper rooftop, this UniCube dormitory utilizes an impressive set of sustainable features to regulate its temperature, harvest rainwater, and produce its own energy. Conceived by Andrew Southwood-Jones, the design recently took top honors for Architecture in Autodesk’s 2008 Student Design Challenge.
Tendril Launches Energy Management Ecosystem
Craig Rubens - Startups
The system includes an energy display, wall-plugs to manage individual appliances, a smart thermostat and a web site where users can track their use. The entire system is pulled together wirelessly, operating over a ZigBee network.
There are a number of energy startups working on similar services and devices. Tendril’s TREE represents one of the more sophisticated consumer-facing energy dashboards we’ve seen. The communication between the consumer and energy provider can help deliver a lot of transparency for the consumer’s energy bill.
The startup is located in Boulder, Colo. and raised $12 million in series B funding earlier this year from RRE Ventures, Vista Ventures, Access Venture Partners and Appian Ventures.
The Daily Sprout
Craig Rubens - 1
PG&E Taps Silver Spring Networks for Smart Grid: PG&E, one of the country’s largest utilities, has picked Silver Spring Networks to provide smart grid services for some 5 million customers through the utility’s SmartMeter program upgrade - Press release.
EEStor Gets Third Party Verification on Energy Storage TechUltracapacitors: EEStor says they have had their ultracapacitor-based architecture technology verified by a third party, lending some insight and credibility to the otherwise secretive startup - Clean Tech Group.
Tesla Fender Bender in San Francisco: Hours after being delivered to it’s new owner, Tesla production car #6 unceremoniously found itself wedged between a Camry and a Mercedes in a car accident not serious enough to deploy any airbags. Check the link to see pictures of of the partially-crushed Roadster - Wired.
Electric Car Roundup from 2008 British International Motor Show: CNet does a quick rundown of some fo the electric vehicles being showcased at this year’s motor show - CNet.
Riverwired.com: NextCruise to Showcase Green-Car Tech
khallgeisler - Bikes & Cars
Automakers have dreamed up a new all-green event to coincide with the wildly popular Woodward Dream Cruise. They call it NextCruise, and it will debut in Pleasant Ridge, Michigan, with a public preview Friday, August 15 and activities Saturday, August 16.
Hybrids and clean diesels will make up the bulk of the event, in contrast to the cars rolling along Woodward Avenue at the14th annual Woodward Dream Cruise. Classic and muscle cars both pristine and hot-rodded will cruise from Ferndale, Michigan, to Pontiac in one of the largest vintage car cruises in the country. If anybody needs to be convinced of the fun to be had in low-emissions vehicles, it’s these guys.
The End of Cheap and Easy Carbon Credits
Craig Rubens - Policy
The days of cheap and easy carbon credit projects are over, according to a new report from energy research firm New Carbon Finance. Specifically, abatement projects for two very potent greenhouse gases — HFC-23 and N2O — have been almost entirely tapped out because offsetting these gases yields large returns on the credits generated. Because of this New Carbon Finance expects to see more money go into renewable energy and energy efficiency, to the tune of €9 billion ($14 billion) by 2012, if the Kyoto Protocol targets are to be met.
HFC-23 and N2O are found in industrial flue gas and are thousands of times more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. Fortunately, cleaning them up isn’t hard and investment in reducing those emissions costs about €1 per ton of CO2 equivalent, which yields a tidy profit as the going rate for carbon credits is about €20 per ton. In China, where the bulk of the world’s HFC-23 and N2O are emitted, all of the major sources of HFC-23 and 80 percent of N2O reducible through carbon offsets are already either receiving credits or are under development, according to New Carbon Finance. While this is ultimately good for the environment, it does mean that going forward, abatement of greenhouse gases will cost more.
HFC-23 and N2O offset projects comprise 72 percent of all credits issued by the UN under the Kyoto Protocol, down only slightly from 75 percent in January 2007. Because few new projects can be developed, New Carbon Finance expects that number to drop to 30 percent by 2010 and to 24 percent by 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
This will hopefully encourage more investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects. They’re just not aren’t nearly as lucrative. The report says credits generated from these sorts of projects cost about €5 and €15 per ton of CO2, severely cutting into the return on investment. But even so, New Carbon Finance director Guy Turner said in a statement: “The price of credits we are seeing today of around €20/ton should be sufficient to stimulate the necessary capital flows to these high-quality projects.” However, it will likely take a big increase in the value of carbon credits to encourage offsetters to go after CO2 and other greenhouse gases like they went after HFC-23 and N2O.
BEIJING OLYMPIC GREENS: China's Green Facade of Shrubbery
Alexandra Kain - Botanical
In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics Beijing has festooned the Olympic grounds with lush sculptures portraying a greener version of China than we’re used to seeing. Over the last few decades China has become a country of rampant unbridled consumption (not unlike the U.S.), leading to devastating environmental consequences with little to no government regulations. Pollution is at its acme in Beijing and the wider world is pretty well aware of this problem. So what is China doing about these serious environment issues? From these eyecatching photos it appears Beijing is trying to attack (or obfuscate?) the problem with a little bit of shrubbery!
LA Times Knocks Off T. Boone's Green Halo
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
The Los Angeles Times does an eloquent body slam on the green halo floating over T. Boone Pickens’ head today. Pickens’ plan to use natural gas-powered vehicles for a third of U.S. transportation turns out to have a very self-serving interest, which could also be funded by billions from California taxpayers. OK, so we knew Pickens is a savvy businessman, but we can’t help but feel a little let down — please, a moment of silence for our crushed idealism.
Alright; all done. So here’s why you should be concerned. Reporter Anthony Rubenstein writes in the LA Times that Pickens owns natural gas fueling station company Clean Energy Fuels, which of course would benefit tremendously from the Pickens Plan’ call to boost natural gas vehicles. But more interestingly, Rubenstein says Clean Energy Fuels is the only backer of a proposition on California’s November ballot that calls for the sale of $5 billion in general fund bonds for clean energy incentives. “[B]y the time the principal and the interest is paid off,” he writes, “it would squander at least $9.8 billion in taxpayer money on Pickens’ self-serving natural gas agenda.”
Ah, so that’s who’s supposed to fund T. Boone’s plan. We were wondering about that. The is proposition is also supposedly filled with a “laundry list of cash grabs” for natural gas vehicles, many of which could go straight to Clean Energy Fuels. Hey Californians, watch out for Prop 10. Like us, Rubenstein sheds a tear for the newly minted green leader, and says he almost prefers to think that Pickens is being misled by his lawyers and consultants.
Lighting Science Group to Buy LED Maker Lamina
Craig Rubens - Startups
Lamina previously raised at least $16 million from investors Morgenthaler Partners, Easton Capital, Redshift Ventures, Granite Global Ventures, CID Equity Partners and Mellon Family Investments. So given the assets of the company were sold for an initial $4.5 million in cash, doesn’t look to be such a great deal for the startup. LSG isn’t exactly in the catbird seat either — along with the Lamina acquisition, the company announced that it has entered into an agreement with Bank of Montreal for a $20 million line of credit, which will help finance the Lamina purchase.
We’ve seen consolidation like this before, and this deal is a small drop in a very big bucket. LED poster child Cree purchased LED Lighting Fixtures for nearly $100 million earlier this year. Philips, one of the largest lighting companies in the world, has been on an acquisition tear, too. The company acquired LED maker Lumileds for around $950 million, paid $72.8 million for solid-state lighting module manufacturer TIR Systems, spent $794 million on LED maker Color Kinetics, and finally bought Genlyte for $2.7 billion at the end of year.
Perhaps the New York Times was right when it wrote yesterday that “this bulb’s time has come.”
GET READY for Park(ing) Day 2008!
Evelyn Lee - Events
Transportation Tuesday is usually focused on getting from one place to another, but sometimes you’ve got to slow down and take a break from transit. It's time to mark your calendars, plan your park, and get ready to claim a space (or two or three) for Park(ing) Day coming up on September 19, 2008. This annual event is a guerrilla gardening take-over of public spaces otherwise designated for cars and turning them into “park(ing)” spaces, or public parks. Growing year to year, Park(ing) Day 2008 is going to be a global experience that shows how green our cities could be if designed for people instead of cars.
COLA LIFE CAMPAIGN: Coke's distribution chain to save lives
Kate Andrews - Design for Health
In 1988, Simon Berry, Chief Executive of ruralnet|uk was working as a development worker in remote north east of Zambia, conscious that while he could buy a bottle of Coke anywhere, 1 in every 5 children under the age of five die in these areas through simple causes such as dehydration through diarrhea. Twenty years later, through the power of social media technology, Berry has launched a simple campaign asking Coca Cola to use a small part of its incredible distribution capacity to get medicines, such as rehydration salts, to dying children.
Intel Double Dips in Solar & Chips with $12.5M in Voltaix
Craig Rubens - Big Green
Voltaix, headquartered in Branchburg, N.J., was the former ChemOvonic division of Energy Conversion Devices, from which it was spun off in 1986. The company plans to use this funding to build out its business to sell into the growing thin-film solar industry and sees particular potential in the realm of building integrated photovoltaics. However, not all thin-film manufacturing require Voltaix’s chemical products, and startups are working on printing systems that don’t require vacuum chambers or dangerous gases to achieve even and cheap deposition.
Intel Capital has been increasingly investing in both cleantech and solar. The firm spun out SpectraWatt and led a $50 million round for the solar startup. Then earlier this month, Intel put some $37.5 million into German thin-film solar module maker Sulfurcell. Outside of solar, Intel invested an undisclosed sum into Grid Net, a smart-grid software developer.
Ethanol Powered Mazda Furai Racecar
Jorge Chapa - TransportationTuesday
This is a concept vehicle which few of us will ever drive. The Furai is Mazda’s next hope in the future of car racing. While going green on the race track is not exactly an eco-minded endeavor, we’re still intrigued that this vehicle can be fully powered by ethanol. The very cool looking performance sports car shows that if ethanol has a place in the auto industry, that place is in the car racing arena.
Why Cleantech Investors Love & Back Obama
Katie Fehrenbacher - Big Green
We ran through the donation database the names of over a hundred investors that have led the funding of at least one cleantech company and came up with 25 names that have also contributed money to either the Obama or McCain campaigns. The individual contributions themselves were small (the max is $2,300 for the primary and general election), but the discrepancy was huge — $55,500 to Obama and $8,900 to McCain. (See our chart below the jump). That’s more than 6 to 1 for Obama, and a lot higher than the national split; as of June 30 of this year, Obama had raised $339.22 million and McCain had raised just $145.47 million.
It’s hardly surprising that those pushing next-generation alternative energy projects are placing their bets on Obama. The Illinois senator has proposed doling out $150 billion over 10 years to fund projects in a broad swath of cleantech sectors, including biofuels, plug-in hybrids, clean coal, smart grid and renewable energy. He’s also calling for a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 and plans to introduce a cap-and-trade system to manage carbon emissions. McCain has a less aggressive emissions reduction plan, and has been a big advocate of building out nuclear to provide clean power.
The cleantech investors that donated to Obama said they did so because Obama’s clean energy plans are just that much more aggressive and forward-thinking than those of McCain. Jon Staenberg, a partner with Rustic Canyon Partners who donated $2,300, told us that Obama’s stance on cleantech was “at the center” of his belief in him:
“I believe leadership in cleantech is the tidal wave (bigger than IT was/is) that can propel this country back to a position of world leadership and enable a more peaceful planet. With Gore advising him and his personal commitment to this area, he continues to get my support.”
And Mohr Davidow partner Josh Green, who donated $2,300, said one of his motivations for backing Obama was the candidate’s aggressive energy plan:
It is a plan which transitions us away from fossil fuels far more aggressively than Senator McCain's plan in terms of time and dollars. It also focuses as much on the long term as the short term. This is critical to give investors assurances that his programs will remain stable over an extended period, and allow large investments to be made in reliance upon such programs.
Paul Holland, a partner with Foundation Capital, attributed his $2,300 donation to dissatisfaction with the policies of the current administration:
Generally speaking, cleantech investors are by definition very interested in the environment, carbon management and energy policy. Many of us are dissatisfied with the current administration’s positions on these topics and for better or worse, Senator McCain is closely identified as being generally supportive of those policies. Senator Obama offers a clean break from the current administration and so I believe that many of us are giving him the benefit of doubt for that reason among many others.
But for some cleantech investors, the progressive energy plan is just a small part of Obama’s overall appeal. Steve Jurvetson, a partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, who donated $4,600 said he is simply supportive of what Obama represents. “He ignites the imagination,” Jurvetson told us. “I think I am mainly drawn to him because of his skill at symbolic leadership – to rebuild brand America and the American Dream, and to garner respect on the world stage. And I respect his process of thinking and synthesis of divergent views.”
Image courtesy of Steve Jurvetson’s Flickr feed.
| First | Last | Investment Firm | Obama | McCain |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jeff | Barnes | Clean Pacific Ventures | $500 | |
| Forest | Baskett | New Enterprise Associates | $2,300 | |
| David | Blood | Generation Investment | $2,300 | |
| Jack | Crawford | Velocity Venture Partners | $1,300 | |
| Fahri | Diner | Sigma Partners | $2,300 | |
| John | Fisher | DFJ | $2,300 | |
| Nancy | Floyd | Nth Power | $2,300 | |
| Josh | Green | Mohr Davidow | $2,300 | |
| Paul | Holland | Foundation Capital | $2,300 | |
| Steve | Jurvetson | DFJ | $4,600 | |
| Oleg | Kaganovich | DFJ Frontier | $500 | |
| Vinod | Khosla | Khosla Ventures | $2,300 | $4,600 |
| Justin | Label | Bessemer Venture Partners | $2,300 | |
| Jim | Matheson | Flagship Ventures | $2,000 | |
| Chuck | McDermott | Rockport Capital Partners | $2,300 | |
| Michael | Moritz | Sequoia Capital | $2,300 | |
| Elon | Musk | Private Investor | $2,300 | |
| Sunil | Paul | Spring Ventures | $4,600 | |
| Nate | Redmond | Rustic Canyon Partners | $1,800 | |
| Zeb | Rice | Angeleno Group | $2,100 | |
| Scott | Sandell | New Enterprise Associates | $2,300 | $1,000 |
| Ted | Schlein | Kleiner Perkins | $4,600 | |
| Jon | Staenberg | Rustic Canyon Partners | $2,300 | |
| Daniel | Weiss | Angeleno Group | $2,300 | |
| Tom | Unterman | Rustic Canyon Partners | $2,300 | |
| Total | $55,500 | $8,900 | ||
| The max donation for the primary and general election is $2,300 each — so $4,600 for both. | ||||
The Daily Sprout
Craig Rubens - Misc
L.E.D.’s Time Has Come: The switch to super efficient, long-lasting L.E.D. lights is already happening and the big three light makers - GE, Philips and Sylvania - are racing to get a lead - NYTimes.
South Korea To Invest $193M in Renewable Energy: South Korea plans to invest 60 percent more in alternative energy this year than last, spending $193 million on solar, wind and biofuel projects - Reuters.
ITC and PTC Renewal Return to Senate Floor: Another bill has been proposed to renew the alternative energy tax credits. This bill would extend the PTC for wind by one year (a pittance) and extend the ITC for solar for eight years. The bill is estimated to cost $10.3 billion over ten years but could fail if Senators can’t agree where that money should come from - Clean Edge.
Beijing Introducing New Anti-Smog Tactics: The Chinese government took one million cars off the road last week but air quality has still been below standards and the government is now looking to shut down all construction and factories around the city in preparation for the Olympic games - Guardian.
Army Working to Cut Carbon “Bootprint”: The Army has set a goal of reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent by 2015. Get ready for a leaner, green machine - WSJ’s Environmental Capital.
Riverwired.com: Green Building Resources & Green Living Tips
jchait - Home & Garden
I don't know if you're aware of this, but Best Green Home Tips used to be located in a different spot, at the RiverWired network. Over there, we looked at many a green building and remodeling tip. I thought that if you missed these posts, it would be cool to catch you up to speed.
Following are some of the best posts that you may have missed the first time around…
Green building:
- The New LEED for Homes - LEED Benefits
- Locating Green Goods & Services
- What Is Sustainable Building?
- Basics of Green Roofs for Residential
- 22 Earth-Friendly Homes
- Beware of Greenwashing While Building Your Eco-Friendly House
- Build A Green Home for Less Money
- 50 Sustainable Home Design Features & Resources
- 10 Reasons To Consider Building a Straw Bale Home
- Proper Disposal of Paints & Other Home Finishes
- Environmentally Friendly Paints for Your Home
- Super Slick Solar Home Lighting Design
- Can You Use LED Lights In Your Home?
Alternative energy & energy saving:
- Inexpensive Residential Wind Turbine — Wind Power
- Four Easy Tactics You Can Use In A House To Conserve Water
- One Easy Home Cooling Option - Roof Whitening for Energy Saving
- Build Your Home for Energy Efficiency
- The Top 4 Ways to Save Energy in Your Home
- The Zero Energy Home
- Passive Solar Home Building
- 25 Tools, Ideas, & Activities for Off-Grid-Living
This catches you up on about half of the green building blog. Later this week, I'll post a second batch of great links that can help you to build and live green.
Gadget Buyback Site Second Rotation Relaunches as Gazelle
Craig Rubens - Startups
Second Rotation, the startup that will give you cash for your outdated gizmos, has rebranded and relaunched its buyback site under the new name “Gazelle.” This change doesn’t mean a lot when it comes to the service, as Gazelle will still pay you cash for your janky gadgets and sell them on eBay or recycle them for you. But the change probably means the ‘Second Rotation’ brand wasn’t bringing in the amount of visitors the company wanted.
Gazelle does has a few new features including expanded offerings and now accepts laptops, satellite radios and portable hard drives. The service operates in the same fashion, but a redesigned website speeds you through the process of identifying, rating and selling your old tech toys with fewer kinks. Once you agree to sell, Gazelle will send you a Netflix-style prepaid envelope with which you can send in your gadgets. And as soon as it clears their verification system, you get paid and the item goes up for sale on eBay.
Founded in 2006, Gazelle raised $4.4 million earlier this year from Venrock. While Gazelle does have an edge with VC funds, there’s actually a lot of competitors out there like BuyMyTronics.com, FlipSwap and TechForward that all offer similar buyback programs. There’s also FixYa, which is a crowdsourced tech support site focused on repairing broken gizmos, and recently raised $6 million. The potential market is huge and could support multiple players. According to the EPA, in 2005, the US generated a total of 2.63 million tons of electronic waste, only 12.5% of which was "recovered" for recycling.
Austin Energy to Seek OK for $2.3B Biomass Plant
Craig Rubens - Energy
The city of Austin has set a goal of getting 30 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Austin Energy currently only gets about 6 percent of its energy from renewable sources, and John Baker, the company’s chief of strategy, told us earlier this year that wind energy alone wouldn’t get them to 30 percent.
While Austin Energy is adding more wind energy to its portfolio, the utility is also pursuing solar energy. If all the planned wind, solar and biomass come through on schedule, Austin Energy could be getting as much as 18 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2012.
Long-term contracts like this one are what the nascent renewable energy market needs as it develops. As this Forbes article explains, “without a dedicated buyer, banks and investors will not fund the projects.”" Massachusetts recently reformed its energy laws to require utilities to buy renewable energy on 10- or 15-year contracts.
Riverwired.com: What Can & Can't be Recycled
jchait - Home & Garden
Yesterday we looked at Getting back to Basics - Recycling in Your Community - where to learn about recycling in your community and neighborhood.
Today let’s take a look at what can and can’t (in most cases) be recycled…
What you can, in most cases, recycle:
Paper
Glass
Plastic - you’re limited in what plastics you can easily recycle. You honestly should not be buying plastic drink jugs and milk jugs (paper or glass is better). Overall, the best plastic tip is to buy as little as possible.
Misc garbage - clothing, old paint, computers, and batteries are just some of the misc trash you can recycle. It depends on your area, but if you contact Earth 911 you can find a place to recycle these sort of items.
Metal - tin cans, soda cans, and foil items can usually be recycled.
Things that are difficult to recycle: (difficult, as in some areas offer recycling for said items, and some may not. Also people who are creative can recycle many items.)
Aerosol cans made from combined materials.
Some juice boxes.
Squeeze plastic bottles - like ketchup. Glass is a better option.
In some areas light bulbs, broken glass and pottery, foam, plastic silverware, plastic bags, carbon paper, and more can’t be recycled. Try to limit buying what can’t be recycled in your community.
Riverwired.com: Green Audit Your Yard and Garden
jchait - Home & Garden
This week we’ve been going over some easy green audits you can try at home. So far we’ve looked at
- Green Audit Your Home & Yard
- Green Audit Your Pantry
- Green Audit Your Cleaning Supplies
- Green Audit Your Bathroom
- Green Audit Your Closets
Tonight let’s look at our last green audit of the week - your yard. Following are some tips you can use when green auditing your yard and garden.
Do you use a green lawn mower.
Are you using smart water tactics?
- Watering in the early morning or at night.
- Keeping your water where it needs to go, not running off into the street.
- Consider having less grass, and more bark, patio space, or soil.
- Mulch plants and trees to conserve water.
- Plant like with like - you don’t need to plant water loving plants among plants that conserve water. You’ll waste water when watering.
Are objects in your yard and garden recycled and sustainable - think about decorations and planters you may have.
Use recycled bags for clippings.
Toss out any toxic chemicals and pesticides and use natural fertilizer, weed control, and pest control options. To learn more read:
Reduce Your Fertilizer Use with Grasscycling
Natural Ways to Get Rid of Garden Pests
Plant organic seeds and organic plants.
A big part of proper green gardening and yard tactics has to do with where you live. There are general tips you can follow, but water conservation is going to be different in New Mexico vs. Oregon, so it pays to learn regional tactics. Visit the National Gardening Association and check out their regional site which will connect you with a regional newsletter and regional gardening blogs.
Visit Mother Earth's Garden to learn all about green gardening.
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