Pennsylvania is beautiful this time of year, but I missed most of it since I made the 400+ mile drive mostly in the dark. It took eight hours of dodging speeding semi-trucks and going through many miles of tunnels, but I finally made it to the Westinghouse Plasma Center in Madison, PA. In case you’re asking, yes, the same Westinghouse that makes flat screen televisions (among other nifty tech stuff).

The Coskata semi-commercial flexible ethanol plant, dubbed “Lighthouse”, is located here. This facility is essentially a working scale model of a full size ethanol plant, and the processes and technology here can one day soon be scaled up to produce as much as a 100 million gallons of flex ethanol annually. The important word here is flexible, because unlike other ethanol products, the Coskata process can use just about any carbon matter to produce ethanol. This means the very garbage filling our dumps may one day instead fill our cars.

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Even as Detroit is felled by horrific 28% unemployment levels unseen in this nation since the Dust Bowl era, eight Government Motors’ Volts headed out for their first long distance real world test drive this month.

They drove on real world Government Interstates from Milford in Michigan to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to see if they are going to able to make the transition from being just another concept vehicle - to actual reality, now that they’re government funded.

Apparently, yes they can.

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The demise of retail giant Filene’s Basement may have a positive effect on proponents of vertical urban farming and algae biofuels alike. Since 2007, the developers of a Filene’s site in downtown Boston have been unable to find funding to move the project forward. But now Höweler + Yoon Architecture and their partner Squared have put forth a proposal to erect a temporary vertical, modular, algae bioreactor high-rise in its place.

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Setting its sights on the burgeoning US market for car batteries, cutting-edge Swiss zinc-air battery company, ReVolt, has decided to take advantage of Oregon’s generous business tax credits for development of next generation car technologies.

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Entrepreneurs have begun to retrofit ordinary combustion vehicles into all-electrics or plug-in hybrids. Here’s why this could be the “big fix” that the auto-industry needs.

Are we stuck with our oil addiction? What if millions of our middle-aged vehicles could be reincarnated as superior versions of their youthful selves, while developing new revenue streams for Detroit? What if that “fix” could start reducing the billion a day we spend on imported oil, while creating tens of thousands of local jobs in communities and cutting greenhouse gases from fossil fuels?

Automakers could do all this—by thinking of vehicles as upgradable high-tech products. For example: A pioneering Chicago startup makes a prototype Ford F-150 pickup with an all-electric range of 30 miles per charge. After that it’s a hybrid, boosting the best-selling truck’s 15 city miles per gallon to 21.

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At first glance, the latest numbers from the Cleantech Group look like terrific news. After all, they conclude that 2008 was a record year for cleantech investments, with venture deals in North America, Europe, Israel, China and India reaching a total of $8.4 billion, up 38 percent from $6.1 billion in 2007.

But most of that money was dealt out in the first three quarters, with investment slowing significantly – as expected – in the fourth quarter.

According to preliminary numbers, venture capitalists in these regions committed $1.7 billion in 99 deals in the fourth quarter, down 35 percent from the third quarter and 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007. In North America, by far the biggest venture-capital region, fourth-quarter investments totaled $1.14 billion, a decrease of 38 percent from $1.83 billion in the third quarter and of 5.8 percent from $1.21 billion in the last quarter of 2007.

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Editor’s Note : This is a guest post from William Ellard, an economist specializing in energy and renewable energy markets. He is currently working with national solar energy firms to bring distributed solar power to municipalities in the American Southwest.

During a recent work meeting with the Western Renewable Energy Zones Initiative, it became clear that the recent push for renewable energy in the western US has major wildlife and environmental implications. As an alternative energy economist, my contribution in the meeting was to present some of the new solar energy technologies and explain how distributed solar could be deployed without disturbing wildlife ecosystems.

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In a recent Op-Piece in the New York Times, Mr. Buffett explains his reasons for investing in US Equities and urges others to do the same.  He encourages investors to “be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”  Warren may be speaking from the perspective of a patriot, but he is also a pretty darn savvy investor, consistently ranking among the richest people in the world.  He acknowledges that “people have a right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions.  But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.”

If Warren’s betting on the US Economy, deal me in. 

Check out the rest of the article, on top of being an incredible investor, he is also a witty writer.  It is well worth the read. 

Photo Credit: By Photo Credit: One Trick Pony in FlickR’s via Flickr’s Media Commons

That lifetime is longer than we think. First and second U.S. owners typically keep vehicles seven to ten years. Many large guzzlers—built on durable frames, where it pays to replace rusted bodies—are then sent overseas, where they still produce greenhouse gases.

Why electrify transportation? Compared to combustion engines that waste most of their fuel in heat and friction, over the entire cycle from fuel extraction to use, electric motors are four times more efficient, making electric miles that much cheaper. Since we generate electricity from multiple sources—but almost none from imported oil—we get improved energy security. Electric vehicles are the only ones that get cleaner as they get older—because the power grid is becoming more cleaner. And electric motors have instantaneous torque for fast acceleration.

Why not just wait for the plug-in models OEMs will introduce by 2015? Unproven demand means they won’t make many. Hybrids took ten years to become 1% of all U.S. vehicles and 2% of new sales. So new plug-ins won’t significantly reduce petroleum use and CO2 for 15 years or longer.

Fortunately, we can get those benefits sooner by fixing tens of millions of over 250 million U.S vehicles—and nearly one billion in the world.

Electric Car Retrofits

Here’s how it could look: OEMs, dealers, and partners map out new revenue opportunities. Multiple customer-service pathways extend vehicles’ lives, reducing fuel and use and lifetime total cost of ownership. Electrification is the biggest but not the only fix. Dealers equip recent cars with real-time engine displays—videogames with fuel-saving tips. Some models get improved engine efficiency and aerodynamics. Dealers offer discounted home tire inflators, remote diagnostics, and at-home component swap-outs.

Past customers get validated, warrantied retrofits, installed by dealers or on idled assembly lines. OEMs certify franchises and garages as “qualified vehicle modifiers,” as they do now for customizers of everything from sunroofs to stretch limos.

The result? Hundreds of thousands of green installer jobs and a recharged supply chain for motors, electronics, batteries, and mechanical components. U.S. companies gain global leadership and licensing opportunities. Vehicles originally built anywhere get stickers, “Fixed in the U.S.A.”

How do we get there? By jump-starting a conversion industry, eventually paired with automakers. OEMs help commercialize safe, reliable conversions by blessing small companies’ retrofit solutions even if they’re inherently not optimized.

Washington has set a goal of a million new plug-ins by 2015. As the largest fleet owner, it could offset high costs for initial prototypes. Federal procurement could spark retrofits to military and civilian pickups, shuttle vans and buses. Innovation-friendly regulations could pave the way to rapid approval of conversion designs.

“Cash for Clunkers” could expand to incentivize converting vehicles, helping companies get started. Washington put a toe in the water with a 10% tax credit for plug-in conversions, up to $4,000. With gas over $3, a conversion industry could take off if, like the Chevy Volt, the first 200,000 of each model like the Chevy Silverado could get a $7,500 credit.

This could lead to financing by automotive “energy service companies,” which, like those working with building owners, could offer fleet owners one-day conversions at no up-front cost, with the installer collecting credits and sharing in fuel savings over time.

None of this depends on new technologies or infrastructure. Silicon Valley can show Detroit how continuous improvements and upgrades can accelerate the transition from foreign oil to domestic electricity. Visionary entrepreneurs can pluck the low-hanging fruit. We can finally align the interests of buyers, sellers, and get everyone rooting for great cars from a profitable industry.

Serial entrepreneur Felix Kramer is the founder of Calcars.org, a Palo Alto, CA-based nonprofit promoting plug-in hybrids. (He is also an advisor to several aftermarket retrofit companies.) For more see “Conversions to electrify World’s 900+ Million Cars.” All images courtesy of calcars.org.

Many have questioned U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s decision to let Lehman Brothers fail. Christine Lagarde, French finance minister, claimed that the decision was “horrendous.” This has been echoed by many other European policy makers and investors who blame the decision on ideology, claiming that Paulson refused to offer aid to avoid accusations of moral hazard.

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Photo credits: Wired.com.

Entrepreuneur.com recently wrote an excellent guide for small business owners on proactive moves they can take to survive - and better yet, thrive - in the nose-diving economy.

“You Can Weather the Economic Storm (Product price sensitivity and financial creativity can help you thrive in any economy)” is especially relevant for green entrepreneurs as many of the principles underlying Dennis Romero’s advice aligns with what sustainable business leaders already know: go for local resilience, understand the value of community-based goodwill and when in doubt, simply, simplify, simplify to the bare essentials (do the latest farm-fresh food recipes or eco-cleaning supplies mantras sound familiar, anyone?).

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Okay. Let me get this one out of the way: gas hasn’t been all bad. In fact, gas has allowed us to accomplish some pretty amazing things. To be clear, when I say “gas,” I’m using the term as an easy way to loosely refer to all liquid fuel products made from buried and fossilized hydrocarbon deposits.

Ooooh… I can hear the flamers’ keys clicking away furiously already. But, before you type that horribly thought out gunslinging response, hear me out.

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