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1. Recycle Your Cell Phone
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2. Battery Startup Lion Cells Starts Talking, Becomes "Imara"
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3. Three Quick Green Holiday Packing and Wrapping Tips
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4. Signet Solar Chooses New Mexico for Plant
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5. Kone to Launch More Energy-efficient Elevators
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6. Daily Sprout
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7. Calling for Submissions for Green:Net Startups!
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8. Green IT to See Slow, Steady Growth Despite Recession
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9. Norway's Electric Car Maker Think in Jeopardy
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10. 7 Eco Lighting Startups to Watch
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11. Can Semiconductors Save the World?
Recycle Your Cell Phone
jchait - Home & Garden
Most people I know don’t even have a home phone anymore. Many folks have cells only nowadays. While cell phones are smaller, thus create less waste than a big standard phone, they still do create a lot of waste. Especially when you consider their short life span. While you may have had a big cordless home phone for years and years, typically folks go through a new cell every one to two years.
Some studies note that about 65,000 tons of landfill waste is created by cells alone - each year. Some of this waste is toxic too - from mercury and lead that cells can have.
You can cut down on this large number by using your cell until it’s lifespan is over and or recycling it.
Where to recycle your cell phone:
Check with Earth 911
Don’t forget that the places above may be able to help you recycle all kinds of cells - from pda phones, to Blackberry, to camera phones, to Trio to your basic cell.
Battery Startup Lion Cells Starts Talking, Becomes "Imara"
Josie Garthwaite - Startups
While other lithium-ion startups, such as A123Systems, ActaCell, and Boston Power, have focused on storing energy for vehicles, laptops and electric grids, Imara plans to start with lower-hanging fruit — small-format batteries for power tools and outdoor equipment.
The company plans to reach annual production capacity of at least 8 million cells by the end of next year, with electrode manufacturing facilities in Menlo Park, Calif., and assembly for small-format batteries in Asia. According to Imara’s business development chief Neil Maguire, three contractors based in Asia are under consideration for the assembly deal.
Maguire told us today that while the Series B financing closed in January of this year will see Imara through the ramping-up of its production capacity, the company plans to seek another $20 million or more during the first half of 2009. Eventually the company will produce large-format batteries for vehicles and power grids.
Cleantech for lawnmowers may not be glamorous, but it does have regulations working in its favor. Small spark-ignition engines have tighter exhaust emissions standards coming into effect in 2011 and 2012 that could push garden equipment manufacturers toward battery technology. Imara, which has raised $20 million in venture capital and licenses its technology from SRI International, estimates that using a battery-powered lawnmower instead of a gasoline-powered mower for one hour cuts emissions equivalent to 11 hours of highway driving for an SUV.
Power tools are not immune to recession. Maguire said the sector has been hit hard by the fall in housing starts, and emphasized the company’s technology for high-power applications. While the company has not applied for government aid, Maguire said Imara is interested in Department of Energy and Defense Department grants and loan guarantees.
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Three Quick Green Holiday Packing and Wrapping Tips
jchait - Home & Garden
- Save all your old newspapers, magazines, and tissue paper, and send them through the shredder to make instant thin packing strips. If you have colorful strips, say from magazines, you can use them in holiday gift bags or baskets even.
- Skip gift tags and try simply jotting down who a gift is for on the package itself. You can also write on the gift’s bow or ribbon. Or use old gift tags (save them each year).
- Make a gift super reusable by packing it in a nice reusable bag or lunch sack. It’s a two for one gift!
For more green gift wrapping tips visit: Eco-Wrap Your Holiday Gifts
Signet Solar Chooses New Mexico for Plant
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
New Mexico might have lost out on the chance to have a Tesla electric car manufacturing plant built in the state, but it’s wooed solar startup Signet Solar. The company, which makes thin-film solar modules, says it will begin constructing a 600,000-square-foot solar module manufacturing facility in the town of Belen that could produce as much as 300MW per year and be operational as soon as 2010.
The plant could deliver as many as 600 jobs to the area, which is located 30 minutes south of Albuquerque. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on a media conference call wasted no time in pointing out the new green jobs and said that in the widespread economic difficulties, New Mexico is better off than most.
Menlo Park, Calif.-based Signet was one of the first licensees of Applied Material's thin-film solar equipment to get a "Final Acceptance Test (FAT)" certification. It’s already started high-volume production of its thin-film solar material at a manufacturing facility in Mochau, Germany. Signet says it took about seven months to get its thin-film line up and running with Applied's SunFab thin-film machines, which can bring down the cost and time to production. Signet, founded in 2006, currently has 100 employees.
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Kone to Launch More Energy-efficient Elevators
David Ehrlich - Big Green
Finland’s Kone, which makes elevators and escalators, announced a new line of elevators yesterday that will use LEDs and regenerative braking to cut power use, targeting a 50 percent reduction in its elevators’ energy use by 2010. The first of the new elevators, due out next year, are expected to reduce energy consumption by 30 percent compared to Kone’s current models.
The new elevators will use the company’s existing EcoDisc hoisting system, a permanent magnet synchronous hoisting machine that Kone claims uses 70 percent less energy than a hydraulic drive and 50 percent less than a traction drive.
Buildings account for about 40 percent of the world’s energy needs, according to Kone, and elevators, up to 10 percent of a building’s energy consumption. And according to a report by investment group Good Energies, constructing a green building costs on average less than 2 percent over a traditional building. The company’s new elevators, for which Kone did not release pricing info, could end up attracting attention in the U.S., with President-elect Barack Obama earlier this month announcing plans to seek energy efficiency upgrades for federal and public school buildings.
Kone said its regenerative braking system can recover excess energy from the elevator for use in building lighting or other applications. A similar system is being tested on the South Korean subway system, using ultracapacitors from San Diego’s Maxwell Technologies.
The elevator system can recover up to 25 percent of the total energy used, according to Kone, with the counterweight or elevator car becoming the motor, and the the EcoDisc hoisting system becoming a generator and converting the power into current. But Kone has more up its sleeve than just regenerative braking and energy-efficient LED lighting. The elevator could become one big smart appliance, using a standby mode for the lights and fan, as well as corridor illumination control.
The standby mode switches off the lights and the fan in the elevator after the last use and after a programmed time, reducing heat in the car and the amount of cooling needed in warm weather. With corridor illumination control, the system could be set up to automatically light up the floor where the elevator is stopping, cutting down on overall energy use in the building.
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Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
New Fuel Cell Swaps in a Cheap Nickel Catalyst for Platinum: Researchers in China have developed a membrane material that allows cheaper metals to withstand the acidic environments of fuel cells. It could be the beginning of the end of expensive platinum catalysts. — Technology Review
Green Companies Bleeding Red in Bad Economy: Europe’s carbon market has tanked, corn ethanol has gone bust, and T. Boone Pickens has put renewable energy investments on hold. Are we watching a “green bubble” deflate? — Newsweek
New Global Agency to Act as “Voice of Renewables”: When the International Renewable Energy Agency launches next month in Germany, it will be the first worldwide agency dedicated to promoting renewable energy. –Science and Development Network
Auto Companies Planning Community Outreach to Boost EV Demand: Financial incentives aren’t enough to drive mass adoption of plug-in electric vehicles. GM is considering a “geek squad” to install charging boxes, and other companies are seeking community involvement to make EVs more desirable and convenient for consumers. — CNET
Don’t Bet on Recession Lowering Emissions: Despite the gloomy economic forecast for 2009 (and the usual lockstep between GDP and emissions), annual growth of greenhouse gas emissions will likely slow only modestly next year. — Guardian
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Calling for Submissions for Green:Net Startups!
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
At least we think so. So we’re dedicating an entire day to the intersection of energy and technology with an event called Green:Net on March 24th 2009 in San Francisco. And one of the most exciting parts of the day is that we’re going to unveil 10 startups already focusing on such an intersection. Do you think you should be among the 10? If so, apply now! Green:Net startups will present their ideas on stage, in front of hundreds of industry insiders, investors and members of the press. Whether you’re a fresh-faced student working on an innovation in your university lab program or a gray-haired entrepreneur that cut your teeth on the dot-com boom, we want to hear from you. Don’t miss out.
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Green IT to See Slow, Steady Growth Despite Recession
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
With the global economy heading south, you might expect companies to scale back efforts aimed at reducing the environmental impact of computing operations. And if improving software and hardware efficiency — a central focus of green IT initiatives — was all about doing good for the planet, that would indeed be the case. But more often than not, companies see green IT (generally defined as using computing resources efficiently) as a way to cut costs, according to a new report from Forrester Research. In fact, when it comes to changing the pace of green IT initiatives due to the economic downturn, twice as many companies plan to speed them up than slow them down.
Overall, Forresters’ analysts expect corporate awareness of green IT and plans for real action to continue slow but steady growth. As for service providers like IBM and Dell, their plans are seeing an upswing: Companies considering green IT service engagements jumped to 30 percent of respondents (a pool of more than 1,000 companies), up from 18 percent last year.
*Source: Forrester Research, Inc. Global Green IT Online Surveys, compiled in December 2008 Market Overview
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Norway's Electric Car Maker Think in Jeopardy
David Ehrlich - Automotive
Another electric car maker is feeling the pinch of the global credit crisis. Norway’s Think halted production yesterday, with CEO Richard Canny telling reporters that his company is in “urgent financial distress.” Canny said the company was seeking state aid to get Think back on its feet, but this morning Reuters is reporting that the Norwegian government said it won’t intervene to save the car maker.
“There are many companies that are in a demanding financial situation because of the financial crisis,” Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry Rikke Lind told Reuters. “The government cannot go in on the ownership side or provide loans to specific companies in today’s situation.”
In September, Think was reportedly looking to raise a third round of funding of about $80 million to boost its production capacity. There’s no word on the status of that funding, but Think isn’t the only startup struggling to find more financing these days. Electric car superstar Tesla Motors in California is trying to build a manufacturing plant in San Jose to boost production of its sports car and to begin production on a new line of electric sedans, but the company said it needs a $200 million loan guarantee from the federal government to get it started.
And any plans for electric and hybrid vehicles out of the Big Three in Detroit are in serious jeopardy after the failure of a Congressional bailout bill last week. But the outgoing Bush administration has now said it will tap the $700 billion financial rescue fund for the struggling automakers, although they’ll have to wait until President Bush gets back from his trip to Iraq before anything is decided.
Think temporarily stopped production at its Norway plant — its only facility — laying off between 50 and 70 percent of its workforce. The company said it needs 100-200 million kroner ($14.5 million to $29 million) in short-term guarantees to keep operating.
Think only just started production on its new electric vehicle, the Think City, and news of the shutdown could put a North American venture in question. In April, Think formed Think North America in partnership with its investors RockPort Capital Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers. The venture had originally planned to start selling the Think City in the U.S. this year, pricing the car at under $25,000 — less than the cost of a Prius.
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7 Eco Lighting Startups to Watch
Josie Garthwaite - Picks
Big players in the lighting market have snapped up startups in recent years at a breakneck pace. Cree acquired LED Lighting Fixtures in March. Lighting Science Group bought Lamina Lighting’s assets in July. Philips spent $5.4 billion on startups between 2005 and 2007 and acquired four LED companies: Lumileds, TIR Systems, Color Kinetics and Genlyte. We’ve rounded up some of the brightest startups working on lowering the cost of LEDs, developing energy-management software, and devising ultra-efficient lighting technology — and raising millions from investors while they’re at it — to see where they’re headed.
SuperBulbs: With investment from VantagePoint Venture Partners, this stealth startup is working on LED bulbs that look like conventional incandescents and use 30 percent less energy than compact fluorescent light bulbs. While SuperBulbs has named the standard 4″x2″ A19 bulb as its first product, it plans to develop a family of bulbs for the $12 billion replacement market.
Oree: Israel-based Oree added $4 million in venture loans last month to $7 million raised in its Series A round of equity financing. In the two years since its founding, the company has secured funding from Silicon Valley Bank, Kreos Capital, Genesis Partners and Gimv for development of flexible, credit-card-sized LEDs for office or retail spaces and LCD displays.
HID Laboratories: American River Ventures, Big Sky Ventures, Greenhouse Capital Partners and the CalCEF Angel Fund have invested in HID Labs, which is working on a demand-response platform to control and dim high-intensity-discharge lighting, often used for large areas (think stadiums, warehouses, big-box retail stores). The company says its digital ballast can boost efficiency by 40 percent over existing magnetic-ballast options.
Adura: Funded by VantagePoint Venture Partners and Claremont Creek Ventures, Adura has developed a wireless lighting management system already in use at UC Berkeley and the Alameda County Water District headquarters. The company’s software combines timers with motion and ambient light sensors to automatically turn off unused lights, delivering savings of 40 to 70 percent.
Vu1: Vu1, which announced the close of a $5 million round of financing last week, is working on a technology that accelerates electrons toward phosphor-coated glass to produce light in a standard bulb casing. The company says it’s aiming for efficiency on par with today’s compact fluorescent light bulbs. Reflector bulbs — floodlights often used for recessed kitchen lighting — are first in line for production.
Bridgelux: One of the older kids on the block, six-year-old Bridgelux raised a Series D round of $40 million in April, bringing its total financing to more than $70 million. The company makes LED chips (the light-emitting part of light emitting diodes), mostly for electronics and vehicles. Bridgelux’s other claim to fame: Patent litigation from Cree.
Luxim: Luxim works with solid-state plasma for studio and stage lighting, producing high-intensity light with 50 percent less energy than conventional HID options. Sequoia Capital joined the $21 million round of financing the company announced earlier this year.
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Can Semiconductors Save the World?
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
“Everything that is important to this world will be solved by semiconductor technology.” That was the claim of National Semiconductor CEO and Chairman Brian Halla at the EcoChip forum hosted at chipmaker Actel’s Silicon Valley campus on Monday. It’s a tall order, of course, not least of all for an industry expecting to see its annual sales plummet by 5.6 percent to $246.7 billion in 2009 compared to 2008. For the fourth quarter alone, the Semiconductor Industry Association anticipates sales will drop 5.9 percent from the previous 3-month period.
But Halla sees the seemingly unfavorable set of circumstances — good profit margins, bad markets, and a “butt-ugly economy” — as something of a perfect storm that will allow the semiconductor industry to do for renewable energy and zero-emissions vehicles what it did for consumer electronics: make them practical, affordable and profitable. Here’s how:
The Good: The big semiconductor companies are good at making money, Halla said. Good enough, anyway, that they have R&D budgets even for clean technology. These companies don’t need a government aid package (ahem, Big Three) to develop products that manage energy use and prolong battery life, although more funding for pre-competitive research in universities would be nice.
The Bad: The semiconductor industry’s core markets have stalled. “Too many of us were chasing the easy money,” Halla said, citing cell phones, video games and gadgets. According to SIA, consumers now drive about half of all semiconductor sales. This reliance on consumer spending has already dealt serious blows to chip manufacturers in Asia, as the Wall Street Journal reports:
Rapidly declining demand for semiconductors because of the global economic slowdown is squeezing Asian chip makers already bruised by a supply glut and losses, forcing them to scramble to stay afloat.
Halla left “bruised,” “glut,” and “scramble” out of his talk at Actel. Rather, he referenced the semiconductor industry’s cyclical nature, saying the growth phase of consumer electronics is now behind us, and that chipmakers stand poised to seize the next opportunity. By the accounts of the EcoChip panelists — Halla, TJ Rodgers of Cypress Semiconductor, and John East of Actel — semiconductors in the service of energy storage, efficiency, and generation is the cycle to catch. Potential applications for the technology include photovoltaics, fuel cells, intelligent devices like National’s SolarMagic, and vehicle-to-grid systems.
The Ugly: “We’ve been hit by a butt ugly economy here,” which means reduced demand for the cell phones and gadgets that use semiconductors from companies like National, according to Halla. But that also means opportunity. “We’ve all got a chance in this industry to put our dollars into solving real problems,” he said, listing the “quality-of-life megatrends” he’s been talking about for nearly a year (since shortly after National launched its PowerWise brand of energy management products), including instant battery-charging (for cell phone and electric car batteries, for example) and power management.
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