A new survey shows that 92% of Americans think developing and using solar power is important. The results cross political boundaries and favor solar over all other energy sources.

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Clean tech has passed biotech and IT as the top venture capital (VC) investment category in the world. This is after investments in leading clean tech markets increased by 10% in the third quarter of this year.

Cleantech Group released findings on Wednesday showing that the cleantech sector “accumulated $1.59 billion across 134 companies” and this was 10% more than the $1.2 billion it had accumulated in the second quarter.

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Rare earth metals are a key component in the clean technologies of today, with elements like neodymium, lanthanum, dysprosium essential to the creation of hybrid and full-electric vehicles produced by Toyota in the Prius line of vehicles and their competitors in the green car market, as well as for use in generators in wind and tidal turbines. But as the production of clean technology relies upon the use of these rare metals that we’re found little use for in the past, there’s a chance that the earth’s supply might be depleted before there is ample opportunity to take green technology to an all new level, far beyond where we are today.

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I had the opportunity to be a sustainability coach to some of the Clean Tech Open semifinalists last week.

The Annual Business Competition provides green mentoring and sustainability workshops to help clean tech entrepreneurs integrate sustainability into their business plans. And I found myself stressing the business case for why integrating green made business sense.

While some of the companies we met with were very committed to sustainability, others seemed to be going through the motions because it is required by the competition.

I understand CEOs of start-ups have many competing issues to focus on.

I thought it might be helpful to review here the three key reasons why it is makes good business sense to invest in sustainable business practices:

• It will save you money
• It will provide better access to capital
• It will drive top-line revenues

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Like a rock from a slingshot, the MINI E electric car shoots up the onramp and into the traffic flow. Press the accelerator (don’t call it the gas) and the 150 KW motor delivers its 204 horsepower in a burst.

You’ll hardly need the brakes. The regenerative braking system kicks in like the flaps on a landing 727. It’s like someone dropped the anchor or popped the ‘chutes. It takes some getting used to. Just lift your right foot as you approach a red light and cruise to a stop.

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For a city with so many amazing trees, Portland is getting ready to add a bunch of new LEAFs to our streets.

No, that’s not a typo. I’m talking about the LEAF, Nissan’s just-unveiled electric vehicle, which is set to hit dealerships in the fall of 2010. In our quest to be the nation’s leader in electric vehicle infrastructure, usage and development, the Portland region took a big step forward today with the announcement that Nissan and eTec selected Oregon as one of five test markets for the largest deployment of EV’s and the associated charging station network in American history.

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Two Kenyan students have invented a device that allows bicycle riders to charge their phones as they pedal.

Deemed a “dynamo-powered smart charger”, the device should make it more economical for the 17.5 million Kenyans who use mobile phones to charge them. Even more impressive, the environmentally-friendly phone charger was originally built from scraps retrieved from a junkyard.

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If Florida embraced its solar and wind power potential and got 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, it would create 37,000 new jobs, generate more than $16 billion in economic activity by 2025, and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 319 million tons, a new study commissioned by the state Department of Environmental Protection shows.

The just-released report examined 28 policy measures in Republican Gov. Charlie Crist’s 2008 Climate Action Plan, including the 20 percent by 2020 renewable electricity standard.

In all, it found that implementing the full Climate Action Plan could add almost 150,000 new jobs and bring almost $40 billion in increased economic activity to the Sunshine state.

Unfortunately, the Florida legislature undermined the governor’s efforts to turn that renewable energy standard into law this spring during what longtime observers of the statehouse said was one of the most dysfunctional and depressing legislative sessions in memory.

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Fuel cell technology is a pollution-free electricity generation technology that is expected to compete with traditional methods of creating and distributing electricity. Fuel cells can be likened to a continuously fuelled battery that operates by using the chemical properties of hydrogen and oxygen to create useable electric current.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/22/fuel-cell-technology-in-the-uk/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/07/nasas-biofuel-proposal-off-shore-algae-harvesting-in-plastic-bags/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/07/nasas-biofuel-proposal-off-shore-algae-harvesting-in-plastic-bags/#comments Thu, 07 May 2009 10:10:31 +0000 Dr Vandana Prakash http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/07/nasas-biofuel-proposal-off-shore-algae-harvesting-in-plastic-bags/

Picture: Offshore Algae Harvesting in Semi-permeable bags

NASA’s design calls for using large plastic bags, made of forward-osmosis membranes, and filled with sewage for offshore harvesting of algae for bio-fuel.

My earlier post about leveraging nanotechnology for increasing the commercial viability of Algal bio-fuel opened me up a fantastic world of realizations. The wonderful technologies being developed by NASA have been time and again used to improve the quality of life for the people who inhabit this world and not just the journeys and stays of astronauts in the space. And particularly, because I felt that my hope for algae as commercially viable source of alternate energy had an even greater chance of being realized because NASA researchers too are pitching their effots in the same direction.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2009/05/07/nasas-biofuel-proposal-off-shore-algae-harvesting-in-plastic-bags/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/23/nanotechnology-to-aid-the-commercial-viability-of-algal-bio-fuel-production/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/23/nanotechnology-to-aid-the-commercial-viability-of-algal-bio-fuel-production/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 05:49:00 +0000 Dr Vandana Prakash http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/23/nanotechnology-to-aid-the-commercial-viability-of-algal-bio-fuel-production/ This post contains additional media. Click here to view the full post.

The algae! Yes – the same slimy brown-green ‘plant’ that makes a pond or a lake look yucky – is the creating a great buzz as the most promising source of alternative energy. And now nanotechnology is being leveraged to add some more zing to the promise!

Algae are some of the simplest of the living organisms and can’t even be classified as plants as they lack any differentiation into various structures such as leaves, roots or other organs that characterize a plant. Yet this simple structure is the very reason for the alarming growth rate of the algae: Under optimal conditions, it can double its mass overnight.

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]]> http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/23/nanotechnology-to-aid-the-commercial-viability-of-algal-bio-fuel-production/feed/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/12/first-carbon-capture-plant-to-begin-operating-this-month/ http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/12/first-carbon-capture-plant-to-begin-operating-this-month/#comments Sun, 12 Apr 2009 07:44:40 +0000 The Guardian Environment Network http://ecoworldly.com/2009/04/12/first-carbon-capture-plant-to-begin-operating-this-month/ The world’s first retrofit of a power plant with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will begin operating this month in the south of France. By Alok Jha of the Guardian.

At a power plant at Lacq, energy company Total has upgraded an existing gas-fired boiler with CCS technology – a crucial step towards reducing carbon emissions from fossil-fuel power plants worldwide.

With renewable energy sources a long way from covering the world’s increasing demand for energy, many experts believe that developing reliable technology to allow countries to burn fossil fuels without releasing dangerous amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere is essential to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

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It’s plentiful, it’s homegrown, and it could help clean up the environment while powering our cities. The idea of transforming algae into a fuel is a reality. Nowadays there are numerous implementations of algae into the renewable energy market.

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Announced by Gov. Schwarzenegger last week, the program provides for 1,000 youth, ages 16-24, to be enrolled. They will learn 21st century skills in energy and technical fields, while continuing their education and giving back through community service. The Green Corps will be housed within CaliforniaVolunteers, which (thankfully) already has experience in administering similar job corps programs.

Though this program will provide opportunities for these kids that they might not get elsewhere, it’s really a drop in the bucket as far as the number of workers needed for green jobs. The NRDC recently reported that between 52,000 and 114,000 new workers will be needed by 2010 to fill jobs created by green investments. Let’s hope that’s true!

Photo credit: Office of the Governor

Despite agreement from almost all sides that CCS must be made commercial if the world can ever hope to meet its carbon-reduction targets, a full-scale system remains years away, largely because of the costs involved in its development. As a result, many leading power companies have been reluctant to fund CCS individually, arguing that governments should also shoulder some of the financial risks.

The UK government wants to fund a single demonstration plant using post-combustion capture technology and is running a competition to decide which new power station will get the go-ahead. Within the next few weeks, ministers are expected to announce proposals on how to fund further CCS projects in the UK beyond the competition.

But the British government’s procrastination has forced many CCS projects planned in the past decade to be abandoned or moved abroad. These include BP’s plans to build a carbon capture plant at Peterhead and Centrica’s Eston Grange project.

Haszledine also criticised the lack of research effort in the UK, saying just over £6m has been spent on CCS research in the UK in the past decade compared with $2bn to date in Canada, and annual spends of around £40m in Norway and several hundreds of millions of dollars in Australia. New CCS demonstration projects are due to start operating later this year in the United States and Australia.

At Lacq, Total has fitted one of the plant’s 30MW gas-fired boilers with oxyfuel technology, where the fossil fuel is burned in an atmosphere enriched with oxygen. The resulting exhaust gas is then composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide and water vapour, which can be easily separated and stored.

“Total needs to master this new technology,” said Luc de Marliave, climate change coordinator at the energy company. “Oxycombustion had never been tested at this scale in such an integrated CCS scheme.”

Philippe Paelinck of Alstom, the engineeering company that designed and built the CCS equipment at Lacq, said the experiment was an important milestone. “We first proved the feasibility of retrofitting an installation to carbon capture and storage, but also this will be the first demonstration in Europe of CCS with [existing] integrated CO2 pipeline transportation and storage.”

De Marliave said Total chose to test oxyfuel because it could potentially save costs in future. “Our calculations showed that, with oxycombustion in that type of application, you could reduce the cost of capture – which is a large part of the cost of the CCS chain – around two-thirds of the cost roughly. For just capture, existing post combustion technologies would cost you something like 70 euros per tonne of CO2. Oxycombustion could reduce this to 35 euros per tonne.”

Despite that, he said Total was still open to the investigating the other types of CCS technology, both pre- and post- combustion. “We are not set on one technology. We selected oxycombusiton for the pilot but it doesn’t mean that we are not very much interested in post-combustion as well.”

Plans for government-funded CCS demonstration plants across Europe have been moving slowly. The EU wants 12 demonstration plants in operation next decade and has reserved 300m carbon credits from the next stage of the European emissions trading scheme to help fund the technology.

In January, the European Commission proposed earmarking €1.25bn to kickstart carbon capture and storage (CCS) at 11 coal-fired plants across Europe, including four in Britain: the Kingsnorth plant in Kent, Longannet in Fife, Tilbury in Essex and Hatfield in Yorkshire would share €250m under the two-year scheme.

* Written by Alok Jha of the Guardian and published at EcoWorldly via the Guardian Environment Network.

Image credit: pfala via Flickr, under a Creative Commons license.

Experts say only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, would need to be covered to produce enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. Written by David Adam at the Guardian.

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Editors Note: This is a guest post by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. See his last post for us on EV charging stations on Gas 2.0.

Today, San Francisco took a meaningful step toward turning the promise of renewable ocean energy into reality. We submitted a preliminary permit application to the federal government to develop a wave power project off our coast that we believe can generate between 10 to 30 megawatts of energy, with potential of up to 100 megawatts. When this project is fully operational, upwards of 100 jobs could be created in San Francisco.

Ocean power is a true “game changer” in the area of renewable energy. When wave and tidal power technologies reach commercial scale, they are expected to be able to provide thousands of megawatts of power to our coastal communities, dramatically green our energy portfolios and create thousands of new American jobs. In San Francisco, we’ve been doing our part to spur these technologies by aggressively advancing tidal and wave power pilot projects.  We are 100% committed to this challenge.

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One of 30 wind turbines in the Kentish Flats wind farm, which produces up to 90 MW of renewable energy for the UK.

Another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could generate enough electricity by next decade, concludes a British government energy department study.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change study concluded that another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could be built off the coast by 2020, generating 25 GW of energy, equivalent to 25 large coal-fired power stations. The new capacity would be on top of 8GW already being built or in planning, making a total of 33GW.

The results of the year-long research into the geology, birds and marine life goes even further than the Carbon Trust, a company set up by government to help businesses reduce carbon emissions, which last year said the UK could build a total 29GW of off-shore wind.

However, the announcement was clouded by claims from the energy company E.ON that the economics of what is the UK’s biggest current off-shore wind project, the London Array off the coast of Kent and Essex, were “on a knife edge”.

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Eighty percent of corporate sustainability executives in the Fortune 500 plan to maintain or increase their budgets in 2009 - despite today’s down market, according to a new survey.

As we discussed in this piece on How To Cut Your Costs And Make Your Package Greener, cost saving efforts often have the unintended or sometimes intended impact of making your product and processes more eco friendly. As more and more companies discover this salient fact, the scales will tip from just incidental greening of product to full scale efforts to promote sustainability WHILE cutting costs.

We may have reached a tipping point.

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In the interview, Fraser said he felt “very confident” that “real anger at Wall Street” will result in better regulation and more oversight of commercial and investment banking. The steady deregulation of these sectors over the past 25 years has created an “orgy of speculation” and brought us to the current crisis. The future of our economy will depend on rebuilding our infrastructure and a shift to new forms of clean energy, according to Fraser. Any overhaul of our banking and investment sectors should move capital into these areas and away from highly leveraged speculation.

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