Posted by Greenbang on September 25th, 2008
The world’s richest software geek, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, is one of the investors behind the latest round of funding for algae biofuel company Sapphire Energy.
The Series B funding brings the total funding in Sapphire Energy to “substantially more than $100m” and investors include Gates’ investment company Cascade Investment, Arch Venture Partners, Wellcome Trust and Venrock.
Sapphire says the money takes it a step closer to bringing the algae biofuel production to commercial scale and plans to use the funds to scale up its production facilities accordingly. The company says it anticipates relying on existing investors to achieve its initial commercial production capability of 10,000 barrels per day.
The company is aiming to produce “Green Crude” on a commercial scale within three to five years.
For those wondering exactly how this stuff works, Sapphire uses sunlight, CO2, industrial micro-organisms, non-arable land and non-drinkable water to produce its Green Crude petrol alternative, which can be refined into chemically identical fuel products compatible with the existing energy infrastructure.
Sapphire Energy CEO Jason Pyle says:
“We created Sapphire Energy by working backwards and considering what a perfect fuel would look like – carbon neutral, renewable, not dependent on arable land or potable water. We are creating an entirely new category of energy – Green Crude Production – and are now at a point where we can focus on implementing our plans without worrying about fundraising.”
Photo credit: Microsoft
Posted by Greenbang on September 19th, 2008
GE and Google are teaming up to build a “smart” electricity grid and develop renewable energy and plug-in vehicle related technologies.
The initial priorities will include:
- Planning, siting and cost allocation for the transmission capacity necessary to enable large scale deployment of renewable electricity generation in the US
- Developing and deploying a “smart” electricity grid that will lower emissions; and collaboration on clean technologies such as utility scale geothermal renewable energy as well as software and services needed to enable utilities to integrate plug-in vehicles into the national grid.
The collaboration will work on an advanced approach to geothermal technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), which has the potential to provide large-scale renewable power all over the world. GE and Google specifically are expoloring EGS technologies such as reservoir visualisation and power conversion.
A Google blog post on the partnership says:
“Americans should have the choice to drive more fuel efficient cars – or even electric cars - and manage their home energy use to reduce costs, and buy power from cleaner sources, or even generate their own power for sale to the grid.”
More from the twosome themselves here.
Posted by Greenbang on September 17th, 2008
Scientists - we’ll not call them boffins as it annoys some readers - at the University of Sunderland have converted a Nissan Almera to run off hydrogen.
The project, called HyPower, has been carried out by the university’s Institute of Automotive and Manufacturing Advanced Practice (Amap) with regional partners to develop a car that produces only water at the exhaust.
The full details are under wraps until the car is unveiled at the region’s Partners4Automative conference today.
Adrian Morris, operations manager at Amap, says:
“This project marks a significant step forwards in our understanding of hydrogen as a fuel for the automotive industry. The vehicle will act as a test bed to evaluate novel hydrogen technologies in vehicles and will enhance the region’s status as an important automotive research and development centre.”
Amap has regular links with major automotive companies including Nissan and Komatsu and is looking for partners involved in fuel cells, engine development, biofuel testing, light weight materials and composites.
It’s not massively ground-breaking stuff but still great to see a project like this in the UK.
This category is brought to you in association with Tandberg
Posted by Rowan on September 12th, 2008
The first time I used a light-emitting diode (LED) was in a technology class during secondary school, and at the time I didn’t think much of them other than being a cheap light that I could solder to my elementary electrical board. But it is becoming increasingly clear there is much more potential in LED.
LEDs are now everywhere, with major brands such as Audi using LED headlights as a new feature. Now the little bulbs are set to brighten industrial greenhouses around the world with their 80 per cent energy saving attributes.
When walking around Copenmind’s cleantech conference this week, the alluring glow of LED’s drew me into see what the University of Southern Denmark had achieved with their research into LEDs and photosynthesis.
The university found plants grow better with the red and blue parts of the visible spectrum. So if only red and blue LEDs were used, the plants would grow more efficiently. Plants being grown in current industrial greenhouses use high power fluorescent grow lights, which shine white light and waste a lot of energy as the majority of light given off by the lamp doesn’t affect the plants growth.
The university’s research, which is now under the company name Fionia, can give greenhouse owners an 80 per cent reduction in cost as the LEDs can vary their intensity depending on weather conditions. This means when it is sunny a sensor can allow the lights to be dimmed, but when a cloud passes by the light intensity increases. This cannot be done with normal lights as they need a set amount of electricity to run, whereas LEDs can be run on any current.
Having the ability to adapt to weather conditions means flower production can remain constant throughout the year, which will ease costs and increase production for farmers.
The installation cost of LEDs is three times that of florescent lighting, but because they use 80 per cent less electricity the payback time is less than three years. What is even better news is that LED prices are set to reduce 20-30 per cent a year, so that time could be cut significantly.
Fionia has also found another way to cut energy usage in this industry as LEDs can conserve heat energy usage too. Standard gas grow lamps give off a lot of heat into the atmosphere which cannot be captured and reused. But LEDs create heat in one place and this can be captured and used to heat water to water the plants, as farmers have to heat it up to 40 degrees centigrade.
Greenbang asked John Erland Ostergaard, professor at the University of Southern Denmark, what is stopping this LED lighting being introduced commercially now. He says:
“we are concentrating our efforts on producing a prototype unit, which is both robust and reliable enough to withstand the harsh environment of a hot and humid greenhouse, and at the same time capable of uniform illumination of the plants beneath it, but we anticipate to see these systems in late 2009.”
This is a perfect example of how university cleantech research can find a simple, yet very effective solution to cutting energy consumption and how investors can take this on board and probably make a packet from it.
With the greenhouse market size estimated to be worth €400m it shows a big industry like this can dramatically reduce its energy consumption, which will help both farmers and the planet at the same time.
Check out Greenbang’s interview at Copenmind on this YouTube video here.
Posted by Greenbang on September 9th, 2008
Hello, sailor. A phrase that might be internet giant Google’s corporate greeting in the future, if it’s latest plans are anything to go by.
Spotted in a filing on the US Patent and Trademark Office’s website is a patent submitted by Google last February for a wave-powered floating data centre.
There are various possible implementations of such a system outlined in the patent but essentially the wave-powered data centres would be housed in shipping containers several miles offshore.
More from the patent:
“The sea-powered electrical generator may comprise a wave-powered generator system, and may further include a plurality of motion-powered machines arranged in a grid and wired together. The wave-powered electrical generator system may likewise comprise one or more Pelamis machines.”
Google says these offshore data centres could help distribute computing power and internet connectivity closer to users over shorter regional links. It could also be used, for example, if military presence is needed in an area or in the case of a natural disaster, where there is a need for computing and telecoms until the local natural infrastructure can be repaired or rebuilt.
The patent goes into much more detail and has a bunch of drawings. Check it out for yourself here.
Posted by Greenbang on September 3rd, 2008
AIM-listed Renewable Energy Holdings (REH) has completed the installation of, and is now operating, three underwater pumps at the Western Australia test site of its CETO II wave power system off the coast of Freemantle, Perth.
CETO is REH’s proprietary wave energy technology that converts the energy of the waves into zero-emission electricity and zero-emission freshwater. The difference with other wave power tech is that CETO is fully submerged under the ocean and pumps water ashore to either a turbine to produce electricity, or to a reverse osmosis filter to produce fresh water.
This is the first time that multiple CETO II pumps have been installed and operated together in an array format and if this stage is successful a full-scale pump, CETO III, will be built and deployed at the test site early next year.
The company says it is confident of developing commercial CETO wave energy device sites in Europe and North America, including Mexico, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean.
Mike Proffitt, CEO of REH, said:
“This is an important milestone for the commercialisation of our technology, as we can now instrument and record an aggregation of pumps working together. We plan to collect operating data for this array of three pumps, and to add several more pumps to the aggregation. This will pave the way for the construction of the CETO III commercial scale pump and its deployment in early 2009.”
And it’s not just wave energy that the company is aiming to commercialise. REH is also owns two wind farm sites in Germany, producing a total of around 40MW, and is at various stages of development of further wind farm sites in Poland and Wales. In addition, the company owns a methane landfill gas project in Powys, Wales which is at an early stage of gas collection, currently producing at 1MW and which is expected to increase as the landfill matures.
More on the CETO project here.
Photo credit: REH
Posted by Greenbang on September 2nd, 2008
When not out hunting foxes and peasants, rich people are increasingly looking at sustainability and the environment when deciding where to invest their money.
That’s according to a study by the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif) into ‘high net worth individuals’ (that’ll be filthy stinking rich people to you and me) and sustainable investment.
The study, sponsored by Bank Sarasin and KPMG claims to highlight a fast-growing segment where wealthy investors want to make lots of money but still feel all fuzzy and warm about the environment and sustainability issues.
There are some stats that back up the trend. Eurosif estimates that sustainable investments currently represent about eight per cent of European high net worth individuals’ portfolios but predicts that will rise to 12 per cent by 2012, passing €1 trillion. Which is a lot of money.
It’s also interesting to look at which environmental issues these rich investors are putting their money behind, with clean energy and water being most popular.
Almost three-quarters of respondents to the study said they are seeing an increase in interest for sustainable investment in the last year among rich investors and 87 per cent said they think this will continue to grow over the next three years.
Andreas Knörzer, MD of the Sustainable Investment business unit at Bank Sarasin, says:
“The results of the study clearly show that wealthy investors are at the heart of sustainable investment. Eurosif’s research in this area clears up the distorted picture that large private capital owners are responsible for most ecological and social problems today. Investment strategies of High Net Worth Individuals are not part of the problem, but creating paths towards the solution.”
Tom Brown, European Head of Investment Management at KPMG added:
“Ultimately, the international High Net Worth market is likely to provide a significant source of private sector capital to complement public sector funding of sustainability focused industries, products, services and business practices. Its potential relevance to financial institutions, governments, and regulators as a source for sustainable business growth and a contributor to global emission reduction strategies is clear.”
The full report is available here.
This story is brought to you in association with Delta Simons
Posted by Greenbang on August 27th, 2008
Where’s the record-breaking, trumpet-toting Roy Castle and Norris McWhirter when you need ‘em, eh? A solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has set a new unofficial world record for the longest unmanned aerial flight by staying up in the sky for an impressive three and a half days.
The solar-powered Zephyr flew for 82 hours 37 minutes, exceeding the current official world record for unmanned flight which stands at 30 hours 24 minutes set by Global Hawk in 2001 and Zephyr’s previous longest flight of 54 hours achieved last year.
Built by QinetiQ, Zephyr’s development has been funded to date by the UK’s Ministry of Defence, which partnered with the US Department of Defense under their Joint Capability Technology Demonstration Programme, which aims to get cool new technologies more rapidly onto the frontline.
Launched by hand, Zephyr is an ultra-lightweight carbon-fibre aircraft. During the day it flies on solar power generated by amorphous silicon solar arrays no thicker than sheets of paper that cover the aircraft’s wings. At night it is powered by rechargeable lithium-sulphur batteries, supplied by SION Power, which are recharged during the day using solar power.
Simon Bennett, MD of QinetiQ’s Applied Technologies business said in a statementt:
“The trial is a step towards the delivery of Zephyr’s capability for joint, real-time, battlefield persistent surveillance and communications to forces in the field at the earliest opportunity.”
According to QinetiQ, potential applications for Zephyr include earth observation and communications relay in support of a range of defence, security and civil requirements.
More details and photos on the QinetiQ website here.
Posted by jumperhead on August 21st, 2008
It seems that the US Department of Energy (DoE) can’t get enough of giving away cash to clean tech projects. Stories about the largesse of the DoE seem to crop up with all the regularity of editorials about Princess Diana/binge drinking/house price crashes in the Daily Mail, rubbish BBC sitcoms or chewing gum on Greenbang’s bus seat.
So naturally Greenbang was very excited to see someone actually reporting on what they’ve done with all that cash. And that someone was Umit Ozkan, professor at Ohio State University, who’s conjured up a new catalyst that can help make ethanol into hydrogen faster and more cheaply than its alternatives.
The catalyst, which the University refers to, rather spookily, as ‘dark grey powder’ is made from cerium oxide - a bog standard material you get in ceramics - instead of the precious metals that are normally used in this sort of thing.
The cost: precious metal catalyst - $9,000 an ounce. Grey powder catalyst - $9 a kilo.
And just because it’s cheap doesn’t mean it’s lower quality, oh no - it can get hydrogen out of ethanol with 90 percent efficiency.
The end result? According to Ozkan, it’s a big old boost for the hydrogen cars out there.
She reckons:
“There are many practical issues that need to be resolved before we can use hydrogen as fuel — how to make it, how to transport it, how to create the infrastructure for people to fill their cars with it.
Our research lends itself to what’s called a ‘distributed production’ strategy. Instead of making hydrogen from biofuel at a centralized facility and transporting it to gas stations, we could use our catalyst inside reactors that are actually located at the gas stations. So we wouldn’t have to transport or store the hydrogen — we could store the biofuel, and make hydrogen on the spot.”
Posted by RobAshwell on August 21st, 2008
A couple of years ago Greenbang headed north on the M6 to visit the Lake District and saw countless pictures of Donald Campbell and his world record breaking boat, Bluebird.
Now, two Brits are going for a wind power land-speed record and have named the vehicle in Campbell’s honour - albeit reflecting the environmental credentials - Greenbird.
Showing that eco doesn’t mean slow, the record currently stands at 116mph. In fact, it can travel at speeds between four and six times the actual wind speed - don’t you just love physics.
Entrepreur Dale Vince and engineer Richard Jenkins are behind the project. Vince told the Beeb:
“Campbell did it with the prevalent fuel of the day - we’re doing it with the prevalent fuel of tomorrow… The wind will still be here in 50 or 100 years time - the age of renewables has been a long time coming but will endure.”
Albeit, it didn’t sound as cheesy when he actually said it on BBC News 24.
The team from Gloucester is already in Australia to test the vehicle and has told the BBC he is “eight out of 10 confident” of breaking the record. The team will have to wait for the weather to behave and the ground to dry up.
Writing on the Greenbird blog, Jenkins stated:
“The remaining water on the lake surface is causing quite serious concern. Although probably only 30 per cent of the lake surface is covered, it blows around depending on the wind direction. Last night we received the first signs of wind approaching with a cold shift and a southerly wind at about 15 mph, gusting 20.”
The team also plans to make a challenge on the Ice World Speed Record, again using wind power alone.
For those fancying plotting a course home, tacking up wind along the M4, the team behind Greenbird is working on a domestic wind-powered vehicle. Vince said:
“We’re going to have our prototype on the road in December.”
