Green Options

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.

Civil and environmental professor and ecopreneur-inventor Jack V. Matson, PhD.
dedicates his life to practicing “intelligent fast failure,” an expression he coined to capture the essence of innovation. It’s captured in his irreverently titled book, Innovate or Die: A Personal Perspective on the Art of Innovation. As an ecopreneur, he started an environmental design firm, Matson & Associates Inc., housed in a green office building and personally holds two patents on water purification products.

In Innovate or Die, Matson suggests that the goal with intelligent fast failure is to move as quickly as possible from new ideas to new knowledge by making small and manageable mistakes — intelligent failures. By moving quickly, we can determine what works, and what doesn’t, without draining the bank account and energy devoted to developing the idea. With the increasing variability in climate and rapidly changing global marketplace and social fabric, ecopreneurs are creating new business models, products and services that defy common conventions. Some will fail. The key is to keep learning and try to avoid letting your intelligent failures negatively influence your emotions and self-esteem. And by all means, fail falling forward.

Given the widespread interest in producing biodiesel domestically, Matson launched the Green Biodiesel, LLC, a spinoff venture of Matson & Associates Inc., seeking to develop a new biofuel production process that relies entirely on nontoxic materials to produce a clean-burning alternative fuel from renewable resources in the US. One of the problems facing biodiesel producers and users is that the conventional biodiesel production process uses a number of toxic chemicals to convert vegetable oil feedstocks into a usable fuel. Methanol and sodium hydroxide, two toxic industrial chemicals widely used in the transesterfication process to produce biodiesel, are potentially dangerous to humans and the environment. In order for biodiesel to be a truly environmentally friendly fuel, current and future producers need an alternative process that does not use toxic chemicals or produce significant waste products.