Check me out on EcoGeek!

I just started writing for EcoGeek - one of my favorite blogs out there. You can see my first post (one of many to come) right now!

I will probably be focusing most of my cleantech-blogging-energy onEcoGeek for now, but all you guys have to do is change your homepage from www.greenrumors.blogspot.com to www.ecogeek.org and you'll hardly notice a thing!

But there's plenty of cleantech in this blogger, so hopefully I'll still have time to keep GreenRumors going, too.

Bill Gates loves algae, too

You may have noticed that a lot of my posts are about companies who make biofuel out of algae. This is for several reasons. I happen to think this technology is particularly promising, and because there are relatively few players in the market right now, it is easy to keep an eye on exactly what's going on. Oh, and I want to work for one of them. Real bad.

But it seems that I am not the only one who is infatuated with algae, because Bill Gates - that's right - has just invested an undisclosed amount of money into Sapphire Energy, a San Diego based company. For the record, I emailed Sapphire with a resume and cover letter, but they never got back to me. Anyway, Sapphire calls its product Green Crude, and according to this CNET review, it (the fuel) has been rated at 91% octane, which is good.

Other than that, all we know about Sapphire is that they can grow the algae in waste water. That is definitely an asset for Sapphire, but it's nothing that impressive. We all remember those pictures right before the Beijing Olympics - getting algae to grow usually isn't as much of a problem as getting it to STOP...

I'm glad, though, that we (me and Bill) see eye to eye on this issue. We had some slight disagreements over some new Windows Vista features, and when these new Seinfeld commercials started comming out... well, let's just say that our friendship was on the line. But investing in algae has redeemed Bill in my eyes, and I think I will invite him to my Chanuka party this year after all.

Green Jet Fuel: The Final Frontier

Planes are a big part of the oil problem. They burn through ridiculous amounts of oil and spew ridiculous amounts of carbon dioxide. But unlike cars, which can easily run on natural gas, diesel, electricity etc. (though marketing them is a different story...), airplanes are pretty much stuck running on kerosene. There are no alternatives. Until now.

I wrote about Solazyme a little while back. I mentioned their unique system of growing algae in the dark rather than in sunlight, like most other algae growers.

By genetically engineering the algae they grow, Solazyme can essentially grow any compound they want. Among other things, they picked jet fuel. And it worked- Solazyme recently released a statement about its biofuel saying that it displays all the same necessary properties as kerosene itself.

This is exciting for several reasons. Obviously, it is exciting because we might soon see a plane fly on this fuel. Maybe after that we'll see some commercial planes running on it, and maybe one day all planes will run on it.

But what is more exciting is that these algae are completely programmable. They can make a kerosene-like molecule, but they can make virtually anything else, either. So if Solazyme succeeds with jet fuel, they could simply go from there and use algae as a base system for the manufacturing of many different organic compounds.

Two other companies who are thinking along the same lines: Ls9, Inc (they use bacteria, not algae) and Amyris Biotechnologies (algae)

Google's energy plan

Last night, Google CEO Eric Schmidt outlined an energy plan at the Corporate Eco Forum, a conference of global executives in San Francisco. Schmidt's plan called for the following:

- 100% of US Power to be green in 20 years' time
- Millions of new plug-in hybrids
- A new, robust, sophisticated grid
- Action and leadership from politicians
- Investment from corporations

As far as an energy plan goes, I expected more from Google.

Don't get me wrong - those are all important goals. No one doubts that we'd be better off with green power, plug-in hybrids, or a better grid.

But the important question on the table right now is not "what?" but "how?" How are we going to put electric cars on the road? What is the business model?

Mr. Schmidt's plan, essentially, is: invest. Google itself has done seriously impressive amounts of investing, most recently in geothermal. Mr. Schmidt wants more big corporations and the government to invest generously and wisely.

Simply saying that we need to spend lots of money leaves something to be desired, in my opinion. Whether or not you believe in/agree with ideas like the Pickens Plan or Project Better Place, those are both solid proposals that you can wrap your head around. Eric Schmidt offered no such proposal.

I was a little disappointed, as I was hoping to be blown away by the outside-the-box Google approach to the energy crisis. Knowing Google, though, even if they don't come up with their own approach, they will hopefully continue to recognize and fund such approaches when they discover them.

Courtesty of Earth2Tech

I've got my philosophy

I just ran across a great article from EcoGeek, one of my favorite green blogs.

It argues that people generally won't make green or environmentally-friendly choices simply for the sake of being good global citizens. But they will if it saves them money or makes their life better.

I couldn't agree more. But the author makes his point better than I can summarize it, so check it out.

Courtesy of EcoGeek

A123: Batteries of the future

Keep your eyes on A123Systems. They are a battery manufacturer using proprietary MIT technology to make batteries that are far better than the standard lithium ions.

Their recent claim to (potential) fame is that they are being considered by GM to provide the battery for the Chevy Volt. GM was considering one other battery manufacturer, LG Chemicals. GM has announced that it has decided on one, but won't say which.

Personally, I like A123. From what I've read, their batteries are designed to charge quickly, not wear out over time and be able to handle damage without leaking dangerous chemicals or starting fires (which traditional lithium ion batteries are wont to do). I think they are on the right track, and I think their products will offer great performance.

I'm not crazy about the Chevy Volt, though. It still has an oil burning engine (which will charge the battery). I keep hearing that it is behind schedule. And, even though GM claims it is losing money on the thing, I think it will be too expensive for a lot of people (40k).

Still, I think that a lot of people are looking at the Volt as the first "real" EV. In that sense, a GM contract would be amazing for A123; it would establish the company as a major contender in the market of EV batteries.

Of course even without the Volt, I think many eyes are turned towards A123. I'm sure that anyone who is planning on building a fleet of reliable electric vehicles (such as Shai Agassi) has this company on their radar...

Courtesy of Greentech Media

Super material: ETFE

Materials are awesome. Although we might not associate new materials technology with green technology, we probably should. After all, if you can build a building that is stronger, lighter, cleaner and less resource-intensive it's a greener building, no?

Today's material is ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene). Described by one professor as "very sophisticated bubble wrap", it is a cheap, lightweight material that was used in the famous Water Cube swimming pool at the Beijing Olympics.

Here are some fun facts from this FOXNews article:

- Like Teflon (ETFE's cousin), ETFE is non-stick, thereby facilitating easy cleaning
- ETFE is a very good insulator
- ETFE can handle a lot of stress, but it can be easily cut with a knife
- Building with ETFE is substantially cheaper and less energy intensive than building with glass

Courtesy of FOXNews and Mordechai Treiger (although I don't know if Mr. Treiger wants to be associated with FOXNews...)

Don't forget about the grid

Here's an interesting article that was on the front page of the Times yesterday. It's about whether our grid is ready for a new generation of clean power.

Looks like the answer is no. To explain why, the author uses a road analogy; I prefer a pipe analogy, because I like pipes. The way the system works now, you are piping large amounts of energy through large pipes (think water mains) from places like big coal-fired power plants. As the energy gets carried out farther and farther, the pipes get smaller.

Now, if I build a big wind turbine out in the windy plains, I'm probably far away from that big pipe. Instead, I'm trying to jam lots of energy backwards through the grid, through the small pipes. Those pipes are going to burst!

...I hear you engineers out there saying "Big deal! So we build new transmission lines! Problem solved!"

Ah, if only it were that simple, my dear engineers. Although such an undertaking would be relatively simple, technologically speaking, we are talking a serious political mess. The grid is controlled by hundreds of authorities and each state has its own regulatory obstacle course that has to be run through.

Unless we get some federal support. To use the author's analogy, we need an interstate highway system, not local roads.

Personally, I think it's good that we are thinking about the grid itself again. Our grid is really old and could use a makeover anyway. We tend to think that infrastructure lasts forever, when really it doesn't. Roads are repaved all the time. Bridges are reinforced. City skylines are constantly in slow dynamic flux.

It's time to rebuild the grid.

Courtesy of the New York Times

Strong points on oil

There's a lot out there in the papers about offshore drilling, and Nancy Pelosi and whatnot. It's a hugely charged political issue - are you for or against?

Whether you are for or against, it is worth checking out this blog post. The author cites a lot of important facts at the beginning, and proceed to argue that we should really be focusing on fuel flexibility, not off-shore drilling - we need to build cars that can run on a variety of fuels.

I think he makes a solid point. At the same time, I'm no mechanical engineer and therefore I don't understand the technical challenges associated with building such engines. I do know that they definitely exist, though.

The author also emphasizes the connection between oil and national security. Although I, personally, agree with him it should be noted that strengthening national security and developing sustainable energy can also be considered independently.

The article is definitely worth a read, so check it out.

Courtesy of Cleantech Blog

Solazyme - 1 million barrels of algae fuel

Solazyme, a San Francisco company making algae-based biofuel has announced a timeline: they are ready to make one million barrels of fuel within three years. In three years time, they say, they will be producing fuel on the order of millions of barrels per year.

The basic idea with algae is that you think of an algal cell as a factory. Since 2008 genetics allow us to program that factory to make almost anything we want, why not program it to make fuel? Once the program is in, you simply let your algae grow in a pond - all they need is sunlight and sugar. The stuff doubles in size about every hour, and once you have enough, you simply squeeze out or extract the good stuff. Presto: biofuel.

So why is Solazyme differnet from all other algae start ups?

This MIT Technology review article points it out:

Unlike most people who grow algae out in ponds via sunlight, these guys are growing it in the dark, inside. They feed sugar to the algae, and the algae metabolize the sugar into fuel. This offers a number of advantages:
- The algae produces more oil in the dark (the factory doesn't have any photosynthesis to do, so more "workers" can work on turning sugar into fuel)
- When algae is growing on sugar (a concentrated energy source) rather than the sun (a relatively dilute energy source) they can grow in higher concentrations. Out in the pond, if they get too concentrated, they die. And that's bad.

[On that note - and this wasn't in the MIT article - it seems to me that a big issue algae fuel makers are having these days is how to control the growth of their algae. Again, too much is no good but not enough isn't good either. So it's a balancing game. It's hard to balance something that's growing as a function of sunlight - it's hard to control the sunlight. But if your algae is growing as a function of sugar concentration, that's very controllable.]

If Solazyme is successful, it will make a big statement. Right now people are skeptical about whether algae can start contributing serious amounts of fuel to the market. If one startup is already talking millions of barrels a year, I think it reduces such skepticism.

Courtesy of CNET, MIT Technology Review

Better Place in WIRED

It is most fitting that I dedicate this inaugural post to Project Better Place. PBP is an electric car company and yet so much more than an electric car company. It is a vision of a completely new driving experience. It is a realistic way to get off oil. It is a source of pride and glory for the State of Israel. More than anything else, it is Shai Agassi, the former software entrepreneur who made it happen.

Mr. Agassi was featured recently in a length WIRED magazine article. PBP has been getting good press lately, most notably in a NY Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman in July. But the WIRED article delivers far more PBP information than anything I've seen thus far, both in terms of business progress and the people themselves. Here are some of the highlights:

- Mr. Agassi got the idea for his company at a Young Global Leaders retreat in Switzerland. He was assigned the topic of making the world a better place by saving the environment, and the rest is history.

- PBP's all electric cars will be charged by smart charging hubs located all over the place, especially in areas where cars are parked - curbs, parking lots, etc. When you plug your car in, the hub identifies your account and charges you according to your plan with PBP.

- PBP uses an ongoing cell phone metaphor. The car is like a cell phone and miles will be like minutes. PBP owns the infrastructure, which includes the car batteries, the hubs and the charging stations (see below). Like a cell phone plan with either limited or unlimited minutes, you get a miles plan.

- If you need a quick recharge, you pull into a charging station. These stations will be like car washes - you pull in, a machine takes out your dead battery and puts in a new one. Meanwhile PBP starts recharging the dead battery so that it can go into someone else's car when it is fully charged.

- The cars will have their own "operating system" - AutoOS - which is designed to make the whole PBP experience more user friendly. AutoOS will enable a number of features, such as

• A car key with an indicator light telling you how charged the battery is
  
• A navigation system which will recognize common driving routes
• Informing the driver of available parking spots with PBP charging hubs
• Automatically decide how to most efficiently and cost-effectively charge the driver's car
• Text message the driver the status of his car charge
• Find battery-swap charging stations if needed
  
  
  

- Shai, his father Reuven and his brother Tal are all working on PBP.

- The charging hubs may include robotic arms that automatically dock with your car when you pull into a spot, saving you the trouble.

- The State of Israel is PBP's first customer. PBP is proposing a tax scheme where the normal Israeli 78% car tax will be lowered to 10% for non-fossil fuel cars. Over time, the tax on non-fossil fuel cars will be brought back to 78% but the tax on fossil fuel cars will be raised as well. Israeli politicians are generally supporting PBP's ideas.

- The first cars will be made by Renault, the French partner of Nissan.

- Mr. Agassi's financial partner is Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer.

- After Israel, PBP will be working with Denmark. Denmark has a lot of wind power that gets wasted during the night, when people use less electricity. By working with PBP cars, that otherwise wasted electricity could be used to charge thousands of cars.

- In the U.S., PBP is going to focus on Hawaii, where fuel costs are high and there is a political culture that supports alternative fuels.

That's all for now. Tomorrow night I'm going to hear Michael Granoff, PBP's head of oil independence policies speak in New York. I'll let you know if I get any more details...

Welcome to Green Rumors

People ask me what I'm doing these days. If I told them I was going to medical school, they'd nod approvingly. If I told them I was going to law school, they'd nod approvingly. If I told them I'm getting an MBA, they'd nod approvingly. But instead, I tell them that I'm interested in alternative energy. They don't nod...

... they start asking questions. Turns out, lots of people want to know more about solar panels, biofuels and electric cars. It's on everyone's mind. Instead of a dead-end nod, I have opened up something better - a conversation.

The goal of this blog is to continue that conversation on a daily basis. I'm here to talk to you, and to keep you in the loop. The Green Revolution is moving pretty fast, though, so stay with me!

Am I qualified? Maybe. I have a degree in biochemistry, for what that's worth. More importantly, though, I have time on my hands, way too many Google reader feeds for my own good and an undying passion to tell you the latest.

This is going to be fun, I promise.