The deal will put Marathon Oil’s Senior Vice President Cliff Cook on Mascoma’s Board of Directors. Marathon President and CEO commented: “This investment in Mascoma’s leading-edge technology reflects our commitment to address increasing energy demand by bringing to market environmentally friendly, renewable fuel derived from non-food domestic biomass.”

Cellulosic ethanol is hot. Let’s hope all this investment money puts it out on the street soon.

Via: AutoblogGreen

With all the gloomy news coming these days from Wall Street, it’s great to see that when it comes to the environment, Wall-Street is still bullish. I’m talking about the news on Merrill Lynch new investment of $9 million to finance a project to protect 750,000 hectares of forest in Indonesia.

Dana Mattioli reported last week on the Environmental Capital blog of the Wall Street Journal about the new green deal. Firstly, let’s make one thing clear - this is not a donation or anything like that. It is an investment that according to the article is supposed to generate Merrill annual proceeds of $432 million over the next 30 years.

The expected income will come from in carbon financing, which means that someone will pay Merrill to offset polluting activities elsewhere with the amount of carbon dioxide that won’t be emitted (3.4 million tons of carbon dioxide every year) because of the fact that the trees will be kept alive and won’t be cut down.

Carbon financing based on forest protection wasn’t permitted under the Kyoto Protocol, but as we reported in the past, it was discussed in the U.N.’s Bali meeting in December last year. Though it is not approved yet, there’s a good chance it will be part of the post-Kyoto program that will replace in 2012.

Although carbon financing is far from being proven as an efficient and beneficial solution, I am very supportive of adding the forest protection into the program. Unfortunately, economic forces are the ones leading most of the deforestation and therefore it might be that economic forces may be the best realistic remedy.

I believe that Merrill will be followed by many other institutional financiers that will see an opportunity in protecting forests. For many forests this involvement will make the difference between deforestation and conservation.

As usual, Google is at the forefront of, well, everything. But this one is a little surprising: their philanthropic branch, Google.org, is putting $10 million into plug-in electric hybrid research and real-world testing. If you’ve been reading Gas 2.0 lately, you already know that’s as much as will be rewarded to the winners of the 2010 Automotive X Prize for revolutionary green car technology.

Last September, Google offered up the $10 million in a formal Request For Proposals (RFP), saying they wanted to invest in any company that would “accelerate the commercialization of alternative transportation that reduces vehicle fossil fuel use and climate emissions.” In other words, getting plug-in hybrids, fully electric vehicles, vehicle-to-grid capabilities, and batteries and other storage technologies on the market.

Google’s own project, called RechargeIT, hopes to accelerate the development of plug-in hybrid and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology. They’ve already set up a demonstration fleet by adding plugs and batteries to four Prius and two Ford Escape Hybrids. In an ongoing analysis, Google will be using performance data from the fleet to examine the usefulness of plug-in hybrids and their ability to transfer power to and from the electricity grid (that’s the V2G part). Google will also experiment with drawing power for the cars from their solar charging stations campus.

You can follow along with the results of Google’s performance data on the RechargIT.org dashboard or blog. You can also compare emissions and mileage data to your own vehicle with Google’s Vehicle Calculator.

To find out more about how a Prius or Escape hybrid can be converted into a 100 mpg+ plug-in vehicle, see these posts:

• 100 MPG+ Plug-In Hybrids Already Available (Check ‘em Out)
• Get 120 MPG Out of Your Prius (Plug It In)
• Sick of Gas?: Convert Your Car To Run On Electricity

Related Posts:
Plug-In Hybrids Could Require 160 New Power Plants By 2030 (Or None At All)
Plug-In Hybrids Use Over 17 Times More Water Than Regular Cars, Researchers Say
Could Hybrid Vehicles Hinder Development of More Sustainable Alternatives?

Source: SolveClimate.com (Mar. 23, 2008): Google’s New Search Function: The Best Eco-Engine

Photo Credit: RechargeIT.org

Renewable energy has attracted a lot of attention lately as the world looks for cleaner ways to power our world. Wind and solar stand as the most recognizable clean, green dynamos, but they still struggle to compete with traditional and entrenched power producers. True to conventional economic values, competition is everything. Yet, in the U.S.A. these technologies have survived in the dog-eat-dog industry for decades mostly without the aid of government subsidies (unlike coal and oil), and many claim that renewables could take off with just a little help from Uncle Sam. What are the obstacles? Are government subsidies the only saving grace for renewables? This post hopes to shed some light on the topic and burn through the conflicting noise that surrounds this fundamental and controversial industry.

It seems like I’m always reading articles about improvements, investments, and the promise of renewable energy. For a more practical perspective, I recently asked a successful businessman, who sometimes works with solar panels, for his opinion. Did he think that solar was going to boom in the next few years? His opinion was that the industry would need more government subsidies to really take off. Even with high oil prices, it was still simply too expensive to invest on a small scale. You might regain your initial investment in 15+ years in ideal conditions. Even in states with incentives to support renewable energy, it’s expensive. His view echoed my cousin’s frustration. Yet despite the initial cost, renewables are still an attractive option. As expensive as it may be to buy and install solar panels, it’s also very expensive ($1.8-billion and rising) to build a new coal-fired power plant with “clean coal” technologies. Hidden costs also plague coal power plants: the cost to clean up mercury emissions, the water required to operate, and in some places, the cost of carbon credits. Finally, the bottom line: how much does it cost to generate each kilowatt hour? Compare two graphs, one for coal and one for solar, and you may be surprised.

But what about the cry for “subsidies!”? I’ll state right out that I don’t intend to offer an analysis, or interpretation of U.S. energy subsidies. There is enough information out there to fill a multitude of posts, and books have already been published on the issue. Boiled down, the federal government tends to support traditional oil and coal over renewables like solar and wind. Ethanol has received a lot of attention and support from the Bush administration, but studies show that it poses its own problems. There is a new proposal to extend renewable energy subsidies after similar measures were shot down in the last energy bill. There’s increasing pressure for Uncle Sam and other international governments to lend a hand or even tax carbon. Subsidies could help make renewables not just competitive, but accessible and profitable - much in the same way subsidies currently reduce the price of gasoline for consumers. But are subsidies the one and only answer? How long can we afford to wait for the government to draft and pass complicated and contentious legislation?

Enter Google. This year Google announced that it would invest millions in renewable energies to support R&D and building facilities. The idea seemed so attractive that it started a craze: this week, “U.S. institutional investors… pledged $10 billion dollars over two years in renewable energy technologies and project development, energy efficiency, green building and clean technologies” (my emphasis). These are investors we’re talking about - people who assess risk and intend to make a profit. With a multi-billion dollar injection into the industry, maybe some of the new advances I get so excited over will leap off the drawing board and into our lives. But we need not wait for new technology to save us. I agree with Peter A. Darbee, Chairman, CEO and President of PG&E Corporation when he says the technology is already available.

“In conversations with other business leaders, I have heard more times than I can count that it’s impossible or impractical to make much headway on greenhouse gases until we have better technology,” Darbee said. “That is not the case. It’s a red herring…. The biggest obstacle right now is a lack of will — not invention.”

In case you don’t know, PG&E stands for Pacific Gas & Electric company. They are a major energy provider that supports renewable energy. Looking at all of this information, I admit that I feel a little overwhelmed. I’m not an economist but I’ve come away with the strong sense that renewables are valuable for more than their guilt-free eco-friendly qualities. Right now, they stand firmly on the cusp of competitiveness with other forms of electricity generation, and constant improvements in technology will push them into the forefront of the industry even if legislation and subsidies do not. This fact is proved by commitments of large international corporations to invest not millions, but billions of dollars into the development and implementation of renewable technologies. Even if we cannot agree on the politics of renewables, I think we can agree that investments on this scale signal an economic shift. Renewable technologies have already been around for decades, but now it seems certain that they’ll move into the spotlight of our energy generation as the promise of their benefit comes to outweigh crumbling economic obstacles.

Admittedly this article is limited as it has focused on comparing solar to oil and coal. I had difficulty finding the statistics and numbers I wanted for wind power. Other options of energy production, such as non-food ethanol, plasma gasification, hydrogen, wave or tidal power, and other technologies are either controversial, still under development, or both. They may play a larger role in the future, but I wanted to limit my scope for the sake of simplicity and brevity.

Do you have any ideas, opinions, links, or comments?

Resources:

Solar Buzz

Earth Track: for detailed info on subsidies.

Images provided courtesy of Smart Planet and the Roosevelt Institution

Venture capital investments in clean technology reached an impressive $5.18 billion last year in North America and Europe. North American-based companies received three times the investments of the European-based companies. Not surprisingly, energy generation was responsible for $2.75 billion in investments, with solar energy shining.

“In 2007, solar emerged as a significant investment theme, and it was notable to us that of the top five solar deals of the year, three of the largest were solar investments in China and India,” said Cleantech Group Managing Director of Global Marketing Kristina Messdaghi.

Emerging solar technologies appear to be very promising, potentially dropping the cost of solar energy considerably. Nanosolar coating for example may lower the cost of solar energy to $1 a watt and does not require silicon. Over the last few years, this technology has received significant investment from venture capitalists.

Solar manufacturing capacity has been increasing considerably. Sharp Solar announced early last year that they will double production in Europe from 110 to 240 MW annually. Sharp increased production in Japan in 2006 to a staggering 600 MW. The Nanosolar plant in San Jose, California plans to produce 250 MW in 2008 and 430 NW in 2009.

Policy has helped fuel this increase in demand for solar energy. 20 countries in Europe now have electricity buy-back guarantee programs. 40 states in the U.S. have net-metering programs, with New Jersey, California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Maryland having highly regarded programs. Net-metering requires the utility companies to purchase surplus electricity generated from small-scale wind and solar systems, thus giving an incentive to system owners. Such programs also reduce the cost of residential solar and wind systems because they eliminate the need for batteries, while boosting the efficiency of the solar system.

Cleantech has certainly gained recognition by many venture capitalists and is seen by many as a lucrative opportunity. Many investment opportunities are also springing up for more casual investors with renewable energy mutual funds and exchange traded funds.

The utilities involved have more than 20 million customers and cover 22 states: Con Edison (ED), Edison International (EIX), Great Plains Energy (GXP), Duke Energy (DUK), Pepco Holdings (POM), PNM Resources (PNM), Sierra Pacific Resources (SRP), and Xcel Energy (XEL). Up until now, the only utilities that want to grow profits through energy efficiency investments have been in California.

The move by these utilities comes at a time when demand is growing, concerns and lawsuits about emissions abound, and global warming is a hot political and business issue.

Energy efficiency is the cheapest and fastest way to cut global warming emissions, and the utilities agree: " …we share a common belief that energy efficiency is the greatest untapped resource in addressing global climate change in the near-term." Here are the major elements of their plan:

• Boost investments in energy efficiency projects to $1.5 billion per year in the next 10 years.

• Create a national institute for electric efficiency. The Energy Efficiency Institute will work on regulatory policy models, notably how utilities can make money when customers use less energy rather than more. It will be formed within the Edison Electric Institute, which represents the nation’s investor-owned utilities.

A group of state officials, state pension fund managers, investors, and other organizations think so. They are asking the SEC to make all public companies formally address the financial risks their company could face as a result of climate change.

Supporters — led by organizations like Ceres (a network of investors and organizations working on sustainability issues) and the Calvert Group (an assets management firm) — have asked for this disclosure before, and the SEC ignored them. This time, they're hoping for action by filing a formal petition stating public companies should reveal their total global warming emissions, provide a strategic analysis of the risks and opportunities present by global warming, assess the physical risks to their operations, and analyze any regulatory risks (such as limiting carbon dioxide emissions).

So far, the SEC hasn't said much except that the requirement for triggering disclosure is that the impact or potential impact has to be material to a company, and therefore material to investors.

Vestas Australia Wind Technology will close its 2 1/2 year-old turbine blade factory in Portland, Victoria at the end of this year. Consequently, 130 jobs will be lost. The Danish company's Asia-Pacific senior vice president, Jorn Hammer, was quite forthcoming with his criticism of the Australian government:

"It's not viable for us to make further investments in the Australian market...we don't see the market as big enough in Australia to justify the expense...When we committed to build the factory we believed there was support for the wind industry in Australia, and that has not come through to the extent we anticipated.

We have the view that if the government steps up to the plate and puts the necessary security for a long-term market in place we'll have another look at the market, but I guess we'll be a little more careful next time...(Not) just believing in what they've been telling us, we need to see some hard evidence to justify investment."

Australian officials were upset with the divestment, and some pointed fingers at the Howard administration, which has been criticized in the past for moving too slowly to address climate change and implement solutions.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Census was published by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, a quasi-public agency that runs a renewable energy trust fund of green power projects. The study found that clean energy industry had a 26 percent increase in jobs and now accounts for more than 14,000 jobs in the state. Those jobs are expected to grow three times faster than any other major industry, adding about 3,000 jobs in 2007. The next biggest increase was in the scientific, technical, and management services sector with an increase of 5.4 percent.

Three hundred and two companies, government agencies, and university research centers responded to the survey. Those in the renewable energy category said they will increase staff by an average of 30 percent in the next 12 months, while the energy efficiency sector will add an average of 25 percent more employees.

High fossil fuels costs and venture capital funding are contributing to the strong clean energy performance, as well as politicians and a public wanting action on global warming emissions.