21st Century Regenerative Technology

1. EnerDel Scales Back Battery Plant Plans
2. The Green Guide to CES 2010
3. 10 Political Connections In Greentech

EnerDel Scales Back Battery Plant Plans

2010-01-04 18:50

Josie Garthwaite - Energy Storage

Lithium-ion battery maker EnerDel once expected to generate 800 jobs and invest $184 million in an Indiana manufacturing plant – but no more. Although it has not disclosed revised numbers, the company has scaled back its plans for the new facility, according a county official quoted in local media reports this morning.

Reining in the size of the project could mean saying good-bye to some of the $28 million in incentives proposed by local officials. EnerDel’s original plans for the new facility called for both manufacturing and assembly, and the company said last year that it had applied for low-interest federal loans to support the project.

It’s unclear at this point how big the cuts in EnerDel’s investment plans or projections for job creation may be, but the fact that the company is pulling back some of its ambitions at this point illustrates how elusive green jobs can be. That’s often not because of empty or misguided promises, but simply because it’s a long and bumpy road from laying out a best-case scenario plan during the fund raising stage to securing financing, building or retooling a facility, hiring workers (for both the plant construction and longer term manufacturing jobs) and finally firing up a factory.

Currently EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1, has two facilities in Indiana (a manufacturing plant in Indianapolis and an assembly plant in Noblesville). IndyStar.com reports today that the company is now seeking approval from Hancock county officials for special-use zoning to set up the new facility in an industrial business park in Mount Comfort. But various Indiana counties have been competing for more than four months to lure the new development and other sites still remain in the running.

At stake for these counties is the economic growth that could be spurred by potentially major federal support for EnerDel’s scheme. In the first week of January 2009, Ener1 announced plans to build a plant that could churn out batteries for up to 1.2 million vehicles by 2015, and also double the capacity at its Indianapolis plant to produce 600,000 battery packs per year by 2011 – if $480 million in government loans come through (Ener1 requested loans under the popular $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program).

Ener1 CEO Charles Gassenheimer told us in an interview last year that the Department of Energy advanced the company’s $480 million loan application to the final evaluation stage around May. Noting that Ener1 is the only battery maker to "stand up a plant on shore," Gassenheimer said that while he's not banking on the DOE loans, "I cannot envision a scenario where government is not going to be part of our future."

But while EnerDel snagged a $118.5 million grant that will go toward work at the Indianapolis plant under a separate DOE program — the green car loan program, through which many startups remain in a waiting game for the government’s shrinking pile of funds. Gassenheimer said in a November earnings call that he expected to announce federal loans “before the end of the year,” but that announcement has not been delivered.

Photo courtesy of EnerDel/Argonne National Laboratory

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The Green Guide to CES 2010

2010-01-04 17:10

Katie Fehrenbacher - Green IT

The gadget-frenzy that is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) kicks off this week, and like in recent years past (2009, 2008), we’re keeping an eye out on the energy efficient and “greener” gadgets on display at the show. Like in 2008 and 2009, expect to see a variety of light emitting diodes (LED) products, energy-efficient TVs (particuarly to meet the coming California mandate) and new, experimental energy management gear.

The Consumer Electronics Association, which puts on CES, has started to focus more heavily on greener gadgets in recent years, buying the Greener Gadgets conference in 2008 (disclosure: that was owned by my sister, explainer here) and opening up a Sustainable Planet section of the show.

But to be honest, a lot of the green efforts at CES in past years has left me a bit bored — the sustainable section is a small side event that’s filled with companies that aren’t generally that interesting. Hopefully CES 2010 will surprise me with some big announcements about how major, mainstream, highly anticipated gadgets from the industry leaders are more sustainable, more-easily recycled and more energy-efficient than standard gadgets.

Here’s some of the green goods I’ll be watching for this week:

Embertec: Australian company Embertec plans to show off its microchip technology which can monitor and learn both the electrical system and human interactions of gadgets and can make them more energy efficient. I’m not exactly sure how it works, but they’re launching it at CES, having a press conference on Thursday and will be at Booth #4413.

Direct Energy’s Energy Management Tool: Energy reseller Direct Energy and a group of gadget heavyweights, including appliance maker Whirlpool, retail group Best Buy, and gadget developer OpenPeak, tell us they plan to launch a home energy management device dubbed the Home Energy Management (HEM) center at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show on January 7.

PowerGenix’s AA Nickel Zinc: Ten-year-old nickel-zinc battery maker PowerGenix sells AA rechargeable NiZn batteries for gadgets, along with batteries for hybrids. The San Diego, Calif.-based company says its gadget batteries are less toxic, provide more power and are “the first true replacement for disposable battery technology.” They’re also a little costly, selling for $34.99 per pack of four with a charger and $14.99 for a pack of four without.

Sean Energy: The weirdly-named Sean Energy’s battery division will be on display at CES, and the company says its “successfully tested a new battery which can power the iPhone in Video mode for almost 48hours.” Not sure what’s green about it, but we’ll send our crew to the booth to check it out. I absolutely love the company’s intro on its About page.

Qualcomm’s Energy Efficient Screen Tech: As Pedro on GigaOM Pro (subscription required) points out, Qualcomm will be showing off its MEMS-based Mirasol display that only requires power when the screen is refreshed, but can also handle video. Game-changer?

Energy-Efficient TVs: Many TV makers are upset at the ruling that new TVs sold in California in 2011 (58 inches and smaller) need to reduce energy consumption by an average of 33 percent by 2011 and 49 percent by 2013. But expect to see a rush of more energy efficient TVs at the show from makers like LG, Sharp, Hitachi, along with the typical ‘the bigger the better’ TVs that are usually on display at CES. Many will be turning to light-emitting diode (LED) backlighting for LCD screens, replacing less efficient cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFLs).

Solar Gadgets: One reason I’ve gotten a bit tired of the Sustainable Planet section is that (as TreeHugger put it last year) it’s been filled with “solar junk” in years past. While we appreciate the solar-powered (and wind-powered) cell phone chargers, they’re really not the end-all, be-all of what green gadgets should be. Solio and MiniWiz will be showing off their goods again this year.

Sustainable Planet Section: The section will be will be 40 percent larger than the Sustainable Planet section at last year’s CES, with more than 30 exhibitors and 5,500 square feet of exhibit space.

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10 Political Connections In Greentech

2010-01-04 08:00

Katie Fehrenbacher - Policy

As we’ve all heard before, it’s often “who you know,” instead of “what you know,” when it comes to the world of business. And that’s even more true for the greentech industry, which became the leading venture capital investment sector in the third quarter of 2009 largely based on investments from the U.S. government’s stimulus package. While greentech investors readily backed President Obama during his political campaign, former cabinet members all the way back to the Reagan administration have joined the boards of greentech startups in droves in recent years, particularly former Department of Energy Secretaries. Here are 10 we know of, and if you have more to share, add them in the comment section.

Politician	Former Office	Greentech Connection
Condoleezza Rice	Former Secretary of State	Director of carbon startup C3, (formerly on board of Chevron). She has said a cap-and-trade system could be easily abused.
Spencer Abraham	Former Secretary of Energy	Director at carbon startup C3. Non-executive chairman of the board for the U.S. arm of French nuclear company AREVA. Has reservations about a cap-and-trade system, but thinks that a system would likely be implemented eventually in the U.S.
Al Gore	Former Vice President	Partner with venture firm Kleiner Perkins, chairman of Generation Investment Management
Colin Powell	Former Secretary of State	Strategic limited partner at Kleiner Perkins. While Powell hasn’t played a major public role at KP (one of the most aggressive greentech VC firms) he’s a fan of electric car Fisker, and reportedly joined the firm to help with international consulting, which could benefit greentech.
R. James Woolsey	Former director of the Central Intelligence Agency	Partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners, adviser to GridPoint, and focused on security and the smart grid
Bill Clinton	Former President	Founder of the William J. Clinton Foundation, which has the Clinton Climate Initiative
John Herrington	Former Secretary of Energy	Board of directors for natural gas fuel company Clean Energy Fuels
James C. Miller III	Former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, chaired the U.S. Federal Trade Commission during the Reagan administration	Board of directors for natural gas fuel company Clean Energy Fuels
James Schlesinger	Former Secretary of Energy	Advisory board of biofuels startup GeoSynFuels
Wesley Clark	Four-star general, former presidential candidate and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander	Board of directors of ethanol trade group Growth Energy