Green Wombat

Lenovo is the greenest consumer electronics giant while Apple (AAPL) turned brown in Greenpeace’s latest ranking of companies according to their e-waste recycling policies and their use of toxic materials in their computers, mobile phones and other gadgets. The Chinese computer maker, which now own IBM’s (IBM) personal computer division, won kudos from the environmental group for taking back old computers for recycling and for reporting the volume of waste it recycles as a percentage of its sales. “Given the growing mountains of e-waste in China – both imported and domestically generated – it is heartening to see a Chinese company taking the lead, and assuming responsibility at least for its own branded waste,” said Greenpeace official Iza Kruszewska in a statement. “The challenge for the industry now is to see who will actually place greener products on the market.” Greenpeace ranked Apple last for what it calls its "failure to take a green initiative." The enviro group has campaigned against Apple (see ad above) in recent years but the company has denied the group’s charges that it is among the least environmentally friendly of the major consumer electronics giants. But unlike  Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Apple has not gone out of its way to portray itself as clean and green. Nokia (NOK) took the No. 2 spot on the Greenpeace list while Sony Ericsson (SNE) came in third, Dell fourth and Samsung fifth. Greenpeace highlighted Sony’s efforts to remove toxic materials like phthalates and beryllium from its products.

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Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) today began selling a series of desktop business computers designed to meet strict new federal energy-efficiency standards for PCs that go into effect in July. Called Energy Star 4.0, the standards are the first update to computer energy efficiency requirements since 2000. Hewlett-Packard says its HP Compaq dc5700, dc5750 and dc7700 can be configured to use 52 percent less electricity than standard desktops, saving between $6 and $58 in power costs annually per computer. That means the computers  run cooler and need less air conditioning. Electric utility companies like PG&E (PCG), Xcel Energy (XEL) and Southern California Edison (EIX) have been pushing Dell (DELL), HP and other computer makers to improve the energy efficiency of  PC power supplies to lower the demand on the grid.

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photo: PowerLight

What do solar panel maker BP Solar (BP), Silicon Valley renewable energy software startup Fat Spaniel, Canadian power inverter maker Xantrex, the Palo Alto Research Center, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and the Georgia Institute of Technology have in common? They’re members of one of 13 solar energy "teams" that have come together to secure funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to advance solar technology innovation. The BP Solar-led team, for instance, qualified for up to $19.1 million in government grants over three years – provided Congress approves the Bush administration $168 million budget request for the program – to increase the efficiency and cut the price of solar panels to make photovoltaic power competitive with fossil fuel-fired electricity. While such corporate-government-academic collaborations are not uncommon in Europe, Asia and Australia, it’s a bit of a departure in the epicenter of dog-eat-dog capitalism – particularly in a highly competitive market like renewable energy chock full of startups all hoping to be the Google of green tech.

Among the teams selected by the feds for funding: Boeing (BA), whose Spectrolab subsidiary has developed the world’s most efficient solar module, is leading a research effort to make high-efficiency concentrating PV systems. The team, which could get up to $13 million, includes utility Southern California Edison (EIX), PV Powered and the California Institute of Technology. PowerLight, the Berkeley-based PV system installer now owned by SunPower (SPWR), will use its $6 million in government cash to research ways to make improve manufacturing of non-solar cell components with the help of partners like design software company Autodesk (ADSK). SunPower itself will lead a team, which scored nearly $18 million, that includes MIT to find ways to produce cheaper PV cells and systems.

Silicon Valley thin-film solar startups Miasole and Nanosolar each are heading teams to  develop high-volume manufacturing of flexible solar cells and to research technologies to incorporate them into commercial buildings, respectively. Each team qualifies for up to $20 million. Meanwhile, multinational conglomerate General Electric’s (GE) team will use its $18.6 million to work on ways to speed up the adoption of solar systems through a new type of silicon cell.

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originally uploaded by Simon Kapadia

When it comes to incubating clean technology which city is the greenest of them all? Austin, according to a survey by SustainLane, a San Francisco service that provides environmental management and policy information to governments and businesses. The Texas capital won for its Clean Energy Incubator, the University of Texas’s research and development programs and Austin Energy, a municipal owned utility pursuing renewable sources of electricity. (It probably doesn’t hurt that the city itself has declared it will go carbon neutral by 2020.)

Taking the No. 2 spot is San Jose, the self-proclaimed capital of Silicon Valley. No surprise there, given the valley’s venture capital firepower and concentration of tech companies going green, like chip equipment maker Applied Materials (AMAT)’s move into solar cell machines. And while not green tech companies themselves, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Sun Microsystems (SUN) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are pushing energy-efficiency chips and computer servers.

Green Wombat’s hometown of Berkeley ranks No. 3 due to the University of California’s new $500 million biofuels research center funded by BP (BP) and the presence of the  Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Berkeley also is the headquarters of solar energy company PowerLight, recently acquired by SunPower (SPWR).

Pasadena scored the No. 4 slot for hosting NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, the California Institute of Technology and a variety of Southern California alt energy companies.

The Boston area came in fifth for its concentration of renewable energy startups and big brains at MIT.

Runner-ups: San Francisco, New York, Seattle, San Diego and Houston.

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Web 2.0 helped save Silicon Valley. Now will widgets help save the world?
The environmental movement and its corporate allies hope so. They’re tapping Web 2.0’s real-time, interactive technologies in an attempt to spawn a national social network for social do-gooding in the campaign to slow global warming. The past week saw the launch of two such efforts: Beat the Heat from the Natural Resources Defense Council and 18seconds from a coalition that includes NRDC, Environmental Defense, Yahoo (YHOO)
and Wal-Mart (WMT). Beat the Heat lets individuals put themselves on an interactive map of the United States, listing their global warming worries and what they’re willing to do to cut greenhouse gas emissions. For instance, Jorge, a retired Army sergeant in Texas, says he’ll buy energy efficicent appliances while Jenni,
a 35-year-old Ohio nurse, says she’ll consider purchasing a hybrid car. "NRDC is really wading into the Web 2.0 waters for the first time, but we think the opportunity the social web presents is enormous," NRDC’s Kim Ranney told Green Wombat, noting that nearly 1,300 people appeared on the map in the first two-and-half days after its launch. "The social web … lets us get the message to people directly that solutions to solving global warming exist now, and then it lets people carry that message forward and get ideas from each other."

Potentially more disruptive to the eco-political status quo are sites like 18seconds, which maps purchases of high-efficiency compact fluorescent bulbs in near real-time by state and metroplitan area. The data is supplied by major retailers to AC Nielsen.

As you probably know by now, CFLs use 70 percent less electricity than standard incandescent bulbs, and are thus, potentially a big gun in the fight against global warming. Australia last week banned traditional light bulbs, and in the U.S. there’s a push to replace incandescents with CFLs. (Which would be a bonanza for retailers like Wal-Mart and Home Depot (HD) as well as CFL makers such as General Electric (GE) ) It’s a quick – takes 18 seconds, in fact – easy, and a concrete, high-impact step every citizen can take to combat a global problem that often seems beyond the influence of the average Joe or Josephine. Thus the power of a Web 2.0-powered site like 18seconds, hosted by Yahoo. It tallies the consequences of the simple act of changing a light bulb: the nearly 15 million CFLs purchases since January 1 have eliminated 6.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the equivalent of taking 104,501 cars off the road. Better yet, to incite some good old-fashioned capitalistic competition, the site ranks states by CFL purchases per capita. Green Wombat was a bit shocked to see redder than red Texas – No. 10 in the rankings – kicking California’s green butt (No. 18). In fact, in another sign that green issues do not necessarily break along the red state-blue state divide, the top 5 CFL-buying states per capita are Arkansas, Wyoming, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Ultra-liberal Massachusetts, mind you, came in No. 48. As far the as the metropolitan rankings go, how did the left-leaning, Mother Earth-loving Bay Area do? As I write this looking out at the lights – incandescent apparently – of San Francisco, we’re No. 103 in the per capita rankings with 396,755 bulbs bought. Silicon Valley, the green tech epicenter of green tech and home to enviro-friendly companies like Google (GOOG), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Sun Microsytems (SUN), was No. 107 with 165,890 CFLs purchased. (The top spot went to Bellingham, Washington.) To make the campaign viral, the 18seconds includes a customizable CFL-tracking widget that people can put on their own websites and blogs to show bulb buys in their metropolitan area or state.

Now imagine other mashups that make planet-warming personal. Like combining vehicle registration records with auto emissions data and Google Maps to create a widget to show geographical concentrations of the "hottest" cars and trucks. In fact, one can even picture a pitch for a startup that makes green widgets……

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The new issue of Business 2.0 magazine – where Green Wombat is an editor – is out and the cover stories feature companies developing technologies to help solve some of the planet’s most intractable environmental challenges. The wombat’s colleagues at CNNMoney.com have transformed the print version into a great online package of stories, photos and video. Check out  "8 Technologies for a Green Future" and profiles of companies tackling nine of the world’s most pressing problems in "Go Green, Get Rich."

Now we want to hear from you. Can technology save the planet and ensure
a green future while making a buck for entrepreneuers?  Let us know
what you think by giving us your comments below.

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ThinkEquity alternative energy analyst David Edwards has released his Trends for 2007 list, and there’s a couple I wanted to highlight. No. 1 is a move from bolting solar panels to roofs – effective but not aesthetically pleasing – to integrating solar cells into building materials themselves. Solar-panel maker SunPower (SPWR) president Richard Swanson recently acknowledged in a speech that customers – call them the Dwell magazine demographic – increasingly are buying solar systems based on their look. Thus SunPower’s sleek black rooftop panels, shown above. As Green Wombat recently reported, thin-film startup HelioVolt will work with building material companies to incorporate its solar cells into walls, windows and roofs. A second trend Edwards identifies is the emergence of new business models to finance alternative energy systems. Probably the biggest obstacle to wide-spread adoption of solar power systems is the fact that you have to wait as long as a decade before the free energy pays back the cost of the solar panels. "It’s like buying 25 years worth of gas when you buy your car," quipped Dave Pearce, CEO of thin-film solar company Miasole, at a recent conference. One possible alternative, according to Edwards, is to have the solar panel installer retain ownership of the rooftop system and then strike a power purchase deal with the homeowner or business owner. He notes that Wal-Mart’s recent request for proposals to equip its stores with rooftop solar systems – a development first reported by green blogger Joel Makeover – requires bidders to present alternative ways to finance such systems, including ownership or leasing of solar panels by the retail giant or ownership by the installer.

Other green tech trends for the New Year predicted by Edwards are:
3. A move away from using silicon in solar cells.
4. More consolidation of solar panel producers and installers, such as SunPower’s 2006 purchase solar systems installer PowerLight.
5. Adoption of new ethanol technologies.
6. The emergence of a bioplastics industry as an offshoot of biofuels production.
7. Stepped up efforts by automakers to develop electric cars or hybrids that rely more on battery power than internal combustion engines.
8. More investment in the development of storage technologies to be used with renewable energy sources like solar and wind power.
9. The continued rise of China as a huge market for renewable energy.
10. The Democrat-controlled Congress will take the lead on renewable energy legislation to bolster the solar and biofuels industries.

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When it comes to environmental technologies, developing countries are not only a huge potential market but are leap-frogging the post-industrial world in going green from the get-go. Take Fiji. A  local renewable energy firm, Clay Engineering, brought Vodafone (VOD) mobile phone service to an off-the-grid island in the South Pacific archipelago by installing a cellular station powered by a solar array and a wind turbine. (Photo at left) That was a more sustainable alternative to lugging a polluting diesel generator up to the peak of the 1,500-foot-high (500 meter) mountain where the cell repeater station sits. Servicing such a generator would have been costly. But the station’s solar and wind array is monitored and controlled remotely via the Web and mobile phone with technology made by Silicon Valley distributed energy software company Fat Spaniel. In another sign that renewable energy software is a growth market, the Fiji project was the startup’s 500th installation.
 

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This morning Green Wombat spoke to a CEO whose startup tech company’s
revenues have shot up from $400,000 to $4 million in two years. Verdiem
isn’t about Web 2.0, it doesn’t do online video or mobile
social networking for Generation Z. It makes software that – wait for
it – manages corporate personal computer networks to lower energy usage. Sounds as sexy as, oh, selling CRM or SQL server database

software, right? But to companies looking to save money and enhance their enviro cred
as global warming concerns escalate, Verdiem’s software is a justifiable buy, and the 25-person Seattle startup has carved out a high-growth niche as Big Business goes green.  "The whole ethos of integrating an environmental or sustainability strategy as a corporate objective is the single biggest change we’ve seen over the past year," says Verdiem chief executive Kevin Klustner.

Verdiem began selling its Surveyor
software in 2004 to school districts and other public institutions and
non-profts that need to keep costs under control. "But we saw very
little interest on the corporate side," Klustner says. "We save energy
on a PC network. The IT guys are the ones that manage the network and
they don’t pay the energy bill." But with more and more Fortune 500
companies appointing VPs for sustainability and environmental policy,
demand for Verdiem’s software has grown, according to Klustner. He says corporate clients – currently about 15 percent of Verdiem’s customer base –  include Quad/Graphics, the big Wisconsin printing company, and several Wall Street firms he said did not want to be identified at this time. Verdiem sells seat licenses to the software and charges a yearly maintenance fee, which includes updates and an annual energy audit. That gives customers hard data on how much money they’re saving by lowering electricty usage – a figure that can be translated into how many fewer tons of greenhouse gases they’re emitting. Verdiem has also cut deals with 25 utilities that will rebate part of the seat license if companies can show they’ve lowered electricity use.

(more…)

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The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $1 billion in tax credits for nine companies developing gasification and other so-called clean coal technologies. The winners include Duke Energy (DUK) and the Southern Company (SO), two giant utilities in the southeast United States that have been targeted by environmentalists over pollution from their coal-burning power stations. Gasification breaks down coal and transforms it into a gas that can be burned with lower emissions of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide, greenhouse gases that form smog and acid rain and contribute to global warming. Gasification plants operate more efficiently than standard coal-fired power stations and thus have lower carbon dioxide emissions. The technology, of course, does nothing to ameliorate the high environmental costs and greenhouse emissions that result from coal mining itself.

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