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1. You Think Wildfire Season Is Bad Now? Just Wait
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2. HP Launches Efficient Mobile Data Centers
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3. Intersolar: News From 5 Solar Startups
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4. Big Carbon Storage Under the Deep Blue Sea
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5. Intersolar: SunPower to Cut Solar Power Costs In Half by 2012
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6. The Daily Sprout
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7. Electronics Cooling Startup Nuventix Raises $14M
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8. Intersolar: Chip Industry Will Drive Down Solar Costs
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9. Intersolar: Big Solar Conference Kicks Off in San Francisco
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10. Fisker's Karma to Be Made By Finland's Valmet
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11. Tesla's Former PR Director Files Lawsuit
You Think Wildfire Season Is Bad Now? Just Wait
Study: We've Underestimated the Fire Risk from Global Warming
HP Launches Efficient Mobile Data Centers
Stacey Higginbotham - Science/Technology
Or at it will least next year, says Steve Cummings, director with Hewlett-Packard, which today launches its data center in a container called HP’s Performance Optimized Data Center or, POD. From a power efficiency standpoint, these PODs are 38 percent more efficient than the average data center, partially because these containers can run hotter. Some customers will use these PODs as a stopgap for gaining compute power while the company builds out new data centers, while others will likely buy these on an as-needed basis.
HP’s POD or Sun’s Blackbox data centers literally come in self-contained shipping containers (HP’s are of the 20-foot or 40-foot variety). HP’s largest version can carry as much as 12 terabytes of storage and contains 3,500 compute nodes. That’s using HP’s gear, which you don’t have to do if you don’t want to. HP says it is using a standard chassis and layout to make deploying this thing as customer-friendly as possible.
The PODs also not to be confused with some of many data-center-in-a-box products, which are essentially pre-loaded and configured racks of servers that are shipped out ready to install in a data center.
Intersolar: News From 5 Solar Startups
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
The first annual North American solar conference kicked off on Tuesday with a lot of insight and discussion from some of the solar industry’s bigger and more well-established players (Applied Materials. SunPower). But leave it to the wily fast-moving startups to upstage the big guys when it comes to news. Here’s five startups — Wakonda, Fat Spaniel, Recurrent Energy, Sopogy, and Ausra — that announced some interesting news for the show.
Wakonda Raises $9.5M Series A: A Boston-based maker of solar photovoltaic technology, Wakonda Technologies, says it has raised $9.5 million in a Series A round from Advanced Technology Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Applied Ventures (Applied Materials VC arm) and the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund. Wakonda explains its technology as a wafer surface treatment that enables low cost metal materials to mimic the high efficiency of more expensive semiconductor material. Wakonda says this tech is “a revolutionary method” that will reduce material costs for the solar industry.
Fat Spaniel Taps Open Platform: Solar monitoring startup Fat Spaniel is taking a cue from all those Internet and mobile startups that have learned to open their platforms to invite savvy developers to make interesting applications. Wednesday morning Fat Spaniel is launching its “Insight Platform,” or what it calls “the world's first open intelligence platform for building, sharing and running energy data applications.” If this is indeed the first open platform of its kind for energy, it’s taken a seriously long time to get here. The energy industry needs to start incorporating the lessons of infotech a lot faster.
Recurrent Energy Raises Biggie Funds: Solar financing startup Recurrent Energy said Wednesday morning that it has raised a whopping $75 million from Hudson Clean Energy Partners. And the startup says that’s just the initial commitment from Hudson. Several solar execs have noted to me recently that if the investment tax credit, which supplies 30 percent of the cost of a solar system, is not renewed soon it could be particularly detrimental to the new startups that have built a business around solar financing. Did Recurrent need a deep-pocketed investor to reassure its customers in the face of a delayed ITC?
Hawaii’s Sopogy’s Got New Gear: Hawaiian solar thermal startup Sopogy has a new product to talk about — SopoNova 4 — which the company says is its most efficient and lowest cost micro solar thermal product available. Earlier this month Sopogy said it had started construction of one of its solar power farms on Hawaii's Big Island at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii.
Ausra Going (Back) Down Under: Solar thermal company Ausra officially announced the opening of Ausra Australia, which will sell the company’s solar thermal technology to the Australian market. Ausra founder David Mills first developed and deployed the company’s technology in Australia.
Big Carbon Storage Under the Deep Blue Sea
Craig Rubens - Science/Technology
The answer to our carbon emissions woes lies far below the sea, at least according to a new paper from researchers at Columbia University (hat tip Wired.com). The paper, entitled “Carbon dioxide sequestration in deep-sea basalt,” which was published in the latest issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that there is “a dream reservoir” of porous, carbon-thirsty rock just off the coast of the Oregon at the bottom of the Pacific.
“This is the first good example of a site that is of the scale that can potentially make a dent on the problem of carbon dioxide storage,” Dave Goldberg, the paper’s lead author, told Wired.com. Goldberg estimates the reservoir could hold about 150 years worth of U.S. annual emissions.
Located 100 miles off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, the basalt formation sits below deep water, and then under another couple hundred feet of impermeable sediment. That makes researchers think it’ll be very good at locking the carbon up tight. But that will also likely make it difficult to inject the carbon into the seabed in the first place.
The fact remains that many scientists think viable carbon capture and sequestration technology is over a decade away. So we’ll probably have to wait a good decade to see if the Pacific basalt is as good as the report claims.
This seabed does avoid one major hurdle, and that is liability laws. Much of the proposed basalt reservoir is in international waters, which means that it’s not subject to U.S. liability and mineral laws. Dale Simbeck, VP of technology of SFA Pacific, told us at the Berkeley Energy Symposium that without significant legal reform in liability and mineral rights laws, carbon storage "is just hopeless."
But the location also opens up a can of potential maritime legal worms. There’s already an arms race surrounding who owns the seabed at the North Pole and the international community might not look kindly on the U.S. sweeping its carbon under international waters.
Intersolar: SunPower to Cut Solar Power Costs In Half by 2012
Craig Rubens - Energy
Solar cell and panel maker SunPower says that in just 4 years its technology, which is some of the most efficient on the market, will be able to produce solar electricity for half of the current price. SunPower’s VP of Technology & Development William Mulligan gave a talk Tuesday afternoon on reducing the costs while at the same time boosting the efficiency of solar power at the Intersolar conference. SunPower says its goal is to produce solar energy for 12 to 18 cents per kilowatt hour, a price point Mulligan says is attainable now, but only with the right subsidies and tax incentives.
SunPower creates high efficiency solar cells, which can mean lower costs because fewer panels, materials, and space are needed. Mulligan stressed that the cost of the energy coming off of the panel is very important, not just the equipment cost itself. On a module level, SunPower has done a number of simple things to cheaply increase efficiency, including backside mirrors, lightly doped top layers and backside gridlines (often seen on the front of panels). These features increase the amount of light that can enter the cell, which delivers more energy output.
Cost-cutting also includes trimming the cost of installations, which for residential solar systems Mulligan says is nearly 50 percent of the cost of the system. And Mulligan says research into cutting installations costs has been under addressed. “I think there’s a huge opportunity in mounting structures, trackers, and inverters. Some of that is starting to happen, no doubt, but it’s a little late,” says Mulligan.
The Daily Sprout
Craig Rubens - Misc
Evergreen Solar Signs $1.2B Sales Contract: Solar manufacturer Evergreen Solar has entered into sales contract valued at approximately $1.2 billion with German-based IBC SOLAR AG and extends to 2013 - Press Release.
Arisdyne Systems Raises $5.3M for Biofuel Production: With this financing Arisdyne has officially spun out of parent company Five Star Technologies and will pursue research in boosting ethanol yields and work on non-food feedstocks - Press Release.
Bush Lifts Executive Ban on Offshore Drilling: President Bush lifted the executive order his father signed as president banning offshore drilling. Bush will still need Congress to lift the federal moratorium which has resisted thus far - Autoblog Green.
“Climate Change No Gangsta’s Paradise”: Grammy-winning rapper Coolio is teaming up with Al Gore’s “we” campaign to spread the word about climate change to to historically black colleges and universities. Word to your iceberg - Grist.
Electronics Cooling Startup Nuventix Raises $14M
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
Nuventix, a startup that sells a cooling technology for consumer electronics and LED lighting systems, says it has raised $14 million led by Advanced Technology Ventures and including Braemar Energy Ventures. The Austin-based company says its technology, which uses quick pulses of air, is more efficient and requires less power than competing options like a conventional fan.
Nuventix says it will use the funding to add products for outdoor markets like telecom equipment and outdoor lighting. The company raised its first round of funding back in 2005 from Centerpoint Ventures, InterWest Partners, and Rho Ventures. The company was founded out of the Georgia Institute of Technology by Ari Glezer, Sam Heffington and Raghav Mahalingam with the goal of “removing more heat with less air.”
The company’s pulsating air flow system uses less air movement than traditional cooling systems, resulting in a tech that is not only more efficient and lower power, but quieter, too. It could also give a boost to the LED lighting market, which has been held back by heat issues.
Intersolar: Chip Industry Will Drive Down Solar Costs
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
The solar guru at semiconductor equipment company Applied Materials, Charlie Gay, says the chip companies that drove the electronics revolution will be important in bringing down the production costs of the solar industry. Gay gave a speech to launch Intersolar, the first U.S. version of a massive European solar conference, in San Francisco on Tuesday.
Applied Materials (AMAT), which makes semiconductor equipment and only moved into the solar equipment business two-and-a-half years ago, sells both crystalline and thin-film solar production equipment. While Applied employs roughly 14,000 people worldwide, only about 1,000 of its employees work in the solar division. But that division is already delivering significant sales for the chip gear maker; Gay said that the solar division has booked $3 billion worth of solar orders over its short lifespan.
“Applied Materials is an example of how semiconductor companies are moving into solar in a very large way,” said Gay. The go-go attitude in the Valley area that delivered the electronics revolution, he said, “are directly relevant here to what we’re doing here.”
The solar industry expects that the cost of electricity from solar power will come down dramatically over the next 3-5 years, and will soon be directly competitive with grid power. Gay predicts that the cost in price will benefit dramatically by the decades of work done by the chip industry.
Intersolar: Big Solar Conference Kicks Off in San Francisco
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
Intersolar, the first U.S. version of a grandaddy European solar convention, officially kicked off this week in downtown San Francisco. We’ll be covering the event closely, including the bit of news that came out of yesterday from the conference pre-events (GreenVolts raising sizable funding).
In a press conference Tuesday afternoon Intersolar’s organizers said that the European conference landed stateside, particularly in San Francisco, because of the city’s progressive environmental history and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s work on renewable energy. The Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy, Eicke Weber said the convention will help bring the solar revolution that has happened in Germany in the last 3 to 5 years to the U.S.
The Mayor of German city Freiburg, Dieter Salomon explained that the first European Intersolar convention was launched 8 years ago in Freiburg, and subsequently moved to Munich, as over the years, the convention grew 30 to 50 percent per year. Markus Elsasser, the CEO of events company Solar Promotion International said the San Francisco conference has 12,000 registered attendees. The solar event is being held in conjunction with the semiconductor conference SemiCon West 2008. Keep coming back for our news on the solar show this week!
Fisker's Karma to Be Made By Finland's Valmet
Craig Rubens - Startups
Electric car maker Fisker Automotive says Finnish auto manufacturer Valmet Automotive will build the startup’s plug-in hybrid luxury sedan, the Karma. Fisker said this morning that it has issued a letter of intent saying Valmet, which is part of the Metso engineering group and assembles Porsche Caymans and Boxsters currently, will begin production by the end of year. Sales will start in the United States by the fourth quarter of 2009 and in Europe in 2010, Fisker says.
Fisker isn’t the only alternative vehicle maker to release production details recently. The news comes the same week that competitor Tesla Motors issued a production update saying it has “broken the logjam” and will be ramping up production to 100 cars a month by December. Meanwhile, Haaretz reports Shai Agassi is in Israel to meet with the director general of the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry to discuss bringing Project Better Place’s auto manufacturing to the country.
Irvine, Calif.-based Fisker says the company expects annual production of the Karma to reach 15,000 cars, half of which are slated for European sale. However, the startup’s founder, Henrik Fisker, said in a statement “We do have a strategic plan to utilize an American manufacturing site for future models of the Fisker Karma.”
Fisker wouldn’t divulge any details about the company’s other models. Earlier this year, Fisker’s drivetrain maker and partner Quantum told us Fisker was planning on rolling out a two-door, as well as convertible and SUV-crossover models after 2009. Quantum president and CEO Alan Niedzwiecki said Fisker could roll out its much more modest plug-in hybrid model, costing around $40,000, as early as 2011 with production rates up at 100,000 cars per year. But Fisker this morning told us it doesn’t currently have any production plans beyond the initial four-door Karma.
Tesla's Former PR Director Files Lawsuit
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
Vespremi, who joined Tesla in February 2007 and was laid off at the end of last year, alleges that Tesla violated terms of his employment, did not act in good faith and fair dealing, violated California labor codes, failed to pay wages owed, and practiced fraudulent business practices. In addition Vespremi is suing for libel and slander because of remarks that Tesla execs said to the press.
The suit doesn’t name other members of the class, but says it includes Tesla current and former employees that had the same terms of employment as Vespermi. The suit was filed July 11 and the claims will not exceed $75,000.
Image courtesy of Tesla’s corporate blog.
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