Green Options

Pollution from industrial facilities like this one at East Harbor in Indiana up to the 1970s left a legacy of contamination still in need of cleanup from new Great Lakes restoration funding.

Giving President Obama a major victory, Congress on Thursday sent him a spending bill containing $475 million in new funding to help restore the Great Lakes. During his 2008 campaign, candidate Obama committed to a multi-year effort to combat Great Lakes invasive species, habitat loss, climate change impacts and threats to water quality. The Great Lakes contain almost one-fifth of the world’s available surface freshwater.

Many manufacturers of high-mpg and electric vehicles have adopted a 3-wheeled layout for cost and weight savings, and—in some cases—aerodynamic efficiency. In most states, however, these vehicles are classified as motorcycles. That motorcycle moniker has made them ineligible for DOE funds set aside to foster innovation among American automakers… until now!

More details, after the jump.

In an unexpected U-turn, the U.S. Senate has agreed to continue to back research for the next generation of hydrogen cars - funding that the Obama administration had earlier proposed to cut.

The move came last Thursday as Senate members voted to commit $187 million to hydrogen research, almost as much as was promised before the indecision.

Santa Monica, California-based EV start-up Coda Automotive has raised a cool $24 Million to support the development and 2010 California market entry of its all-electric sedan and funding of its battery manufacturing joint venture.

The funds came after a successful bid under the Series B Investment Round, backed by a team including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. & Farallon Capital Founder Thomas F. Steyer.

In a press release Kevin Czinger, president and CEO, Coda Automotive said, “Coda’s ability to raise capital under challenging market conditions and the caliber of our investors attest to the strength of our business model (video) and the opportunity that exists in the electric car and battery sectors.”

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) announced yesterday that over the next three years it is ploughing $11 million into research projects to develop advanced batteries for electric cars.  The projects are also in line to benefit from a whopping $19 million in further support from the private sector.

A total of seven cutting-edge projects will focus on improving battery material performance and developing the manufacturing processes to produce them.  The ultimate aim is to reduce the cost of batteries for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), one of the main financial barriers to more widespread uptake.

Having spent considerable time discussing how ecopreneurs can get a piece of the stimulus money, I was eager to read the new Green Stimulus Guide published by The Green Research Council.  A 83-page document, it summarizes all the various opportunities presented by the stimulus package.

The Guide is filled with lots of information and hundreds of links to sites where more info and funding applications can be found.

The Guide starts by explaining the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and how it breaks down. Contained within the Guide is info about Green Energy Initiatives (DOE), Tax Credits, Green Environmental Projects (EPA)  Green Transportation Initiatives (DOT), Green Building Initiatives and Green Jobs/Job Training. It provides a modest number of “tips” and information as to how to actually land stimulus money which will be helpful to many people outside the Beltway. One that stuck out to me was contained within the “How To Apply” section:

China has announced plans to take on the US head-to-head in the race to develop low emission vehicles, with a massive $2.2 billion investment in electric cars over the next three years.

The news comes hot on the heels of President Obama’s announcement of a whopping $2.4 billion investment in electric vehicles in the United States.

The Chinese government hopes that the investment will help the country to make 500,000 all-electric and hybrid vehicles a year by 2011 - and encourage organizations like city governments and airport taxi firms to enjoy subsidies of more than $70,000 on fleets of new vehicles.

Eleven government agencies participate in the Small Business Innovation Research program which makes grants to science and technology-based firms.  EPA and NSF just announced the open proposal window for applications “for small businesses to grow, add workers, and expand into new markets.”

Both programs will be accepting applications for Phase I funding. These are small grants: A total of $70,000 is available in funding for each EPA Phase I award. The NSF’s SBIR Phase I solicitation funding is $150,000 per award. One expert told me that it probably means 5 awards from EPA and 6 awards from NSF for grants ranging from $15k to $25k each.

Under Phase I, the scientific merit and technical feasibility of the proposed concept is investigated…Through this phased approach to SBIR funding, EPA can determine whether the research idea, often on high-risk advanced concepts, is technically feasible, whether the firm can do high-quality research, and whether sufficient progress has been made to justify a larger Phase II effort.

Money flowing into Canada’s government to protect the environment may actually never be going there… and nobody would know any better.

It may be a bad time to seek funding, but some cleantech investors see it as a good time to get a deal. At the Clean-Tech Investor Summit in Indian Wells, Calif., last week, Kevin Walsh, managing director of renewable energy for GE Energy Financial Services, said GE is taking advantage of the economic environment to snag good deals and is also looking at smart-grid and energy-efficiency opportunities. “We’re being opportunistic,” he said. “You’ll see more deals on the venture side in the next few months.”

[Creative Commons photo by Josh Hallett]

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) is $60 million in the hole - double their expected revenue shortfall for 2008. Administrators are talking about raising fares and reducing consumer services to help the transit system cope with the losses.