21st Century Regenerative Technology

1. Battery Maker Boston Power Fuels Up With $55M
2. Solar's Dirty Side is Being Ignored, Report Says

Battery Maker Boston Power Fuels Up With $55M

2009-01-14 16:16

Katie Fehrenbacher - Energy

bostonpowersonata On the heels of news that it had scored a deal with laptop maker Hewlett Packard, lithium-ion battery maker Boston Power says this morning it has raised $55 million to keep growing its business. The 4-year-old company has now raised a total of $125 million, making it one of the most well-funded firms (other than the thin-film solar guys) in cleantech. The new financing was led by Foundation Asset Management and included existing investors Oak Investment Partners, Venrock, GGV Capital and Gabriel Venture Partners.

Batteries have long been a major pain point for our gadgets, cell phones and laptops, and much of the new innovation in consumer electronics is happening around better ways to store energy. Apple made news this month with a lithium-polymer battery for its MacBook laptop that can run for up to eight hours on a single charge. Boston Power’s lithium-ion batteries run for closer to four hours on a single charge, but they last for three years, and the charge fades less than other comparable lithium-ion batteries.

Boston Power’s deal with HP is for a premium (likely around $20 to $30 more) upgrade for its laptops, and the battery, called Sonata, will be branded "HP Enviro Series" for HP. Of course it’s Boston Power’s hope to strike a deal with a large manufacturer where its battery will be the standard, and Boston Power CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud told us she’s hoping that will happen in 2009. But HP's massive marketshare is a game-changing win for a relatively young company.

We’re also wondering if some of those new funds, will be going towards the establishment of a division to look into creating lithium ion batteries for vehicles. Lampe-Onnerud told us recently that the company was doing research into how to enhance the Sonata technology for transportation. Boston Power might have little experience in that area today, but let’s face it, U.S. firms are far behind their counterparts in Asia, so Boston Power wouldn’t be too far behind its peers in the U.S.

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Solar's Dirty Side is Being Ignored, Report Says

2009-01-14 15:07

Robert Mullins - Energy

Solar power may produce electricity without burning fossil fuels, but it brings its own set of environmental bad news: toxic chemicals in solar panels and solar manufacturing processes. And many of the environmental risks associated with production and end-of-life are being ignored by solar panel producers and lawmakers, according to a new report out today from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

The 45-page report, entitled "Toward a Just and Sustainable Solar Energy Industry," notes that, to solve the problem, panel manufacturers need to adopt "extended producer responsibility,” including take-back programs and environmental best practices now, while the solar industry is still in a nascent stage. As we’ve pointed out before, reclamation programs are a low priority for solar startups that are typically focused more on raising capital and building production, and many of those that do exist are in the pilot phase. Sheila Davis, executive director of the SVTC, tells us that panel makers “should look at this as an opportunity, not an economic hindrance.”

As a practical matter, solar panel makers could see cost benefits from reclaiming discarded panels; some of the materials used to make them — such as telluride and indium — are quite rare (and expensive). Some forward-thinking solar panel makers, such as AVA Solar and First Solar, have developed take-back programs where they set aside a certain amount of money from each panel sale to build up a reclamation fund.

Davis says the experience of the consumer electronics industry should help solar manufacturers understand the need to develop take-back programs early on. Solar panels carry some of the same e-waste issues as other discarded electronic devices, such as computers and video monitors, but the consumer electronics industry had to go back and develop costly programs to retrieve and recycle old products after their hazards became known, explains Davis. The solar industry should use the lesson to develop those best practices now. “There's a tremendous opportunity here,” Davis says, “There aren’t that many solar panels coming to end of life, so they actually have an opportunity to set up recycling systems.”

Beyond urging the solar industry to adopt a sustainability ethic now, the report hopes public policy will support that effort. President-elect Barack Obama campaigned on a proposal to invest $15 billion in renewable energy projects and some of that money should go toward promoting sustainable solar technology, says David Levine, principal of the company Green Harvest Technologies, which promotes the development of eco-friendly products and is an adviser to the SVTC report. He says federal subsidies should support true green energy instead of polluting clean energy.

The report also itemizes the environmental hazards associated with various chemicals used to make PV cells, as well as the risks they pose to solar workers, the hazardous waste byproducts and the potential risks of disposal at the end of a panel’s typical 20-25 year life span.