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1. The Daily Sprout
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2. Gadget Buyback Site Second Rotation Relaunches as Gazelle
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3. Austin Energy to Seek OK for $2.3B Biomass Plant
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4. Xantrex Bought for $500M
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5. Vulcan Power Heats Up With $145M from Denham
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.
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Second Rotation, the startup that will give you cash for your outdated gizmos, has rebranded and relaunched its buyback site under the new name “Gazelle.”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.
Xantrex Bought for $500M
Craig Rubens - Big Green
The deal, which is expected to close in October, remains subject to shareholder approval. At last check, shares of Xantrex were trading up C$1.19, or just shy of 9 percent, at C$14.65. The deal will give Xantrex access to the global market to sell its power electronics, which include inverters for solar power and wind energy systems.
Xantrex has recently inked $7.3 million worth of supply agreements. This month, it signed a deal to provide its inverters to solar energy provider Sun Edison over the next year that it says is worth some $5 million. Xantrex will also be supplying the mysterious and cash-laden OptiSolar with $1.9 million of inverters for that solar company's planned 50-megawatt solar farm in Sarnia, Ontario, by the end of year.
Vulcan Power Heats Up With $145M from Denham
Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy
Vulcan Power, a company with one of the larger geothermal project portfolios, says it has received an investment of $145 million from Boston-based private equity firm Denham Capital. The sizable funding has been planned for awhile, as last year Vulcan raised $45 million from Merrill Lynch Commodity Partners (a subsidiary of Merrill Lynch) in what the company said was part of a larger planned $150 million in financing.
Vulcan says in the release it will use the funds to build out geothermal sites it says could generate a whopping 900 MW to 2 GW of steam power. That could provide clean power for as much as 2 million people. Based in Bend, Ore., the 17-year-old company has geothermal projects on more than 160,000 acres of private and federal lands.
Compared to solar and wind, geothermal is a renewable energy source that gets a lot less attention and investment dollars. The process involves drilling down and tapping into heated water reserves and converting the steam into power. The drawback is that the technology can only be used on select geothermal sites, which are limited. But geothermal sites can provide a sizable amount of power, and Vulcan’s power plants can generate in the hundreds of megawatts.
Vulcan has already done several power purchase agreement with utilities in Western United States, including Southern California Edison for 120 MW and PG&E and Nevada Power Company for a total of 300 MW. Vulcan says it is also working on another 300 MW of geothermal power supply contracts with utilities.
Vulcan may be one of the bigger companies but there are several other geothermal site holders out there that have sizable plots. Calpine Corp. owns and operates 19 power plants in The Geysers site in Northern California that combined can generate 725 MW of clean power. Western GeoPower also owns considerable assets at The Geysers. AltaRock Energy is a Seattle-based startup that is building geothermal technology.
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