Proposal For Center To Coordinate Energy, Climate Change Research

Proposal For Center To Coordinate Energy, Climate Change Research
More embarrassing riches - life sciences and energy research - FYI Mike
David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The University of California may soon become home to an ambitious, $600 million institute that would coordinate energy and climate change research at schools and labs throughout the state, supported by money from your monthly electric bills.

The proposed California Institute for Climate Solutions would bring together universities - such as UC Berkeley and Stanford - better known as rivals than partners.

Each school and national laboratory involved already has scientists and engineers hunting for sources of energy, more efficient ways to use power and other means to fight global warming. Now their efforts would be coordinated by a central administration hosted by UC.

The project's substantial price tag would be paid through Californians' utility bills. A typical homeowner could pay an extra 30 cents per month as a result.

The idea is the brainchild of Michael Peevey, president of the California Public Utilities Commission. The commission will hold a public workshop today in San Francisco to hammer out some of the issues, although a final commission vote on the project is probably months away.

Peevey sees the proposed institute as a way to cement California's position as the world's premier location for energy and climate change research.

"It's to marshal the best minds to address the biggest calamity mankind has ever faced," said Peevey, who under the current proposal could become one of the institute's co-chairmen. "You put all this together. There's so much going on here, and it builds on itself."

Although they have haggled over some of the details, the idea has drawn broad support from other schools after the University of California formally proposed it in September.

Several consumer groups, however, have questioned the wisdom of asking utility customers to pay for it.

The universities and labs, they note, already have funding for their own research. And utility customers already pay for other renewable energy projects, such as California's rebates for homeowners who install solar panels.

"The commission seems to have lost sight of the fact that even if you're spending money on the world's best cause - and I can't think of a better cause than climate change - it's possible to spend the money foolishly," said Bob Finkelstein, executive director of The Utility Reform Network.

He said the proposed institute should draw its funding from state taxes, if the state decides the project is worth pursuing. Peevey's five-member commission sets bill rates for California's three large, investor-owned utilities - such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. - but has no authority over taxes.

"It's probably faster to get the three votes on the utilities commission to raise rates than it is to raise taxes," Finkelstein said.

Peevey, however, considers the institute's proposed mission and its source of funding to be an appropriate fit.

"Why should (utility) ratepayers pay for it?" he said. "Because there's nothing more important to the environment of ratepayers."

As currently proposed, the institute would serve as an organizational hub for research. It would coordinate, rather than supplant, the efforts of member universities and labs.

Although it would most likely be housed at a UC campus, all the organizations taking part would have a say in running it. No one school or university system would have a majority of votes on its governing board.

That board also would include representatives from several government agencies, as well as utilities, consumer groups and environmental organizations. It would be co-chaired by the presidents of UC and the utilities commission.

The institute would draft a "road map" that would identify energy and climate change research already under way and look for gaps.

Those gaps would then get top priority for funding under the institute's budget, projected at $60 million per year for 10 years.

Research teams at individual schools or labs would have to bid for the institute's funding and win it through a competitive process.

"We'll be complementing existing research, not duplicating it," said Ellen Auriti, executive director for research policy in the UC system.

Stanford University worried at first that the project would be too dominated by UC, said James Sweeney, a Stanford energy economist working on the effort. But the proposed governing structure resolved those concerns.

He now looks forward to coordinating with other researchers throughout the state on such an important, daunting topic.

"There will be a planning process to make sure the whole thing has coherence, and I think that is valuable," Sweeney said. "Right now, the coherence comes about only because we all talk to each other."

Want to comment or learn more?

The California Public Utilities Commission will hold a workshop on UC's proposed California Institute for Climate Solutions starting at 9 a.m. today at the commission's San Francisco headquarters, 505 Van Ness Ave. The meeting will also be Webcast at www.cpuc.ca.gov. To comment on the proposal, call the commission's public adviser office at (415) 703-2074 or (866) 849-8390.

E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.

Vacaville Considers Deal For Power Plant

Vacaville Considers Deal For Power Plant
By Ian Thompson | DAILY REPUBLIC | December 06, 2007 14:14

VACAVILLE - Vacaville may get a power plant in four years that is designed to provide electricity during periods of high demand.

The city is considering giving Maryland-based Competitive Power Ventures a three-year option to lease 25 acres next to the Easterly Wastewater Treatment Plant, Vacaville Public Works Director Dale Pfeiffer said.

Competitive Power Ventures wants to build a natural gas-powered electrical plant similar to but larger than four power plants that are located in Fairfield and Suisun City. These plants are called peaker plants because they operate only during periods of high electrical demand.

The Vacaville City Council is expected to vote on whether to give Competitive Power Ventures that option at its meeting Tuesday night.

Competitive Power Ventures needs the option in order to be ready with a proposal when PG&E issues a request for proposals early in 2008 to a build a plant in this area.

If the plant is built, Vacaville could get as much as $1.7 million in revenue in lease payments, property taxes and selling treated wastewater to the plant that will be used to cool its generators, Vacaville finance head Ken Campo said.

The income will offset the costs of running the Easterly wastewater treatment plant.

'It will help the city government, and it will help the ratepayer,' Pfeiffer said.

If Competitive Power Venture gets the nod from PG&E and approvals from state agencies, construction could begin in 2010 with the plant coming on line in 2012.

Vacaville will be the third community in Solano County to build peaker power plants if this happens.

Fairfield has one natural gas-powered, 48-megawatt power plant on Cordelia Road, not far from the Fairfield-Suisun Sewer District's water treatment plant. Suisun City has the Lambie, Creed and Goose Haven power plants, all capable of generating as much as 47 megawatts.

All these plants were built in 2003 by Calpine Corp. under contract with the state to prevent rolling blackouts that occurred in 2000 and 2001.

In August, DG Power International of Walnut Creek approached the Fairfield City Council to build a larger gas-powered plant capable of generating between 200 and 500 megawatts. DG Power is presently working with Fairfield city staff and applying to PG&E for approvals.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

Solar System Pays Off for ALZA Plant in Vacaville

Solar System Pays Off for ALZA Plant in Vacaville
By Barry Eberling DAILY REPUBLIC December 05, 2007 16:39



People walk through a 6.5 acre, 1 megawatt solar panel field built by ALZA Corporation in Vacaville Wednesday afternoon. Pacific Gas and Electric Company and Pacific Power Management presented ALZA with a $2,999,313 rebate incentive Wednesday. Photo by Brad ZweerinkVACAVILLE

Sunlight means electricity for the ALZA Corp., enough to meet one third of the peak summer needs at its Vacaville plant, an equivalent to the power demands from 200 homes.

The pharmaceutical company's new solar array has rows and rows of black photovoltaic panels spread across 6.5 acres, some 5,740 panels in all. This is one of the largest privately owned commercial arrays in California.

'It's very impressive to look out and see a one-megawatt solar field,' said Dan Pellissier, who represented the Schwarzenegger administration on Wednesday at a celebration for ALZA's achievement.

The celebration took place inside a fancy tent near the solar array. Chandeliers hanging from the ceiling provided light. Flower arrangements abounded. A buffet included such items as anticucho de filete and wild mushroom phyllo pursettes.

PG&E officials came to the site to present the company with a $2.9 million rebate for the $9 million project. ALZA expects to save $300,000 annually in energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1.4 million pounds annually.

'We realize these initiatives are not only good for the environment and the community as a whole, but also make good business sense,' said Henry Esparza of the ALZA Corp.

Vacaville Mayor Len Augustine said the city is not really known as an environmental area. But, he said, the city not only has the ALZA solar array, but such things as the solar-powered homes at the Ventana subdivision, park-and-ride lots and a city program promoting compressed natural gas cars for residents.

'We're very proud of our environmental record,' Augustine said.

Novato-based SPG Solar Inc. built the solar array project.

ALZA has other alternative energy ventures. Its Mountain View plant is largely powered by methane gas from a closed city dump. The company has its headquarters in Mountain View and is owned by Johnson & Johnson.

This is just the latest solar energy effort in Solano County. In March, PG&E gave the Meyer Corp. in Fairfield a $1.4 million rebate for the cookware company's $4 million rooftop solar panel system.

PG&E has given $12.5 million self-generation rebates to Solano County ventures since 2002 and plans to award another $12.5 million for future ventures, said Clay Schmidt of PG&E.

Local governments are also trying solar energy. Examples include the Solano County health and social services buildings in Fairfield, the Solano County Government Center in Fairfield and the city hall, police station and city-owned pump station in Vallejo.

Reach Barry Eberling at 425-4646, Ext. 232, or at http://mailto:beberling@dailyrepublic.net.

Biodiesel Demands Fuel Firm's Growth

Biodiesel Demands Fuel Firm's Growth
Emeryville's Amyris set to go on hiring spree to expand business thanks to rise in popularity of alternative energy sources
By George Avalos STAFF WRITERContra Costa Times

Amyris Technologies Inc., riding a dynamic surge in the biofuels industry, has charged to a swift expansion of its business, harvested a new round financing and is poised for a hiring spree.

The East Bay biofuels company is fresh from landing $70 million in venture capital. Amyris also signed a lease in Emeryville that will triple its office and research space.

Emeryville-based Amyris intends to hire about 100 workers, which would roughly double its workforce, according to Kinkead Reiling, Amyris co-founder and senior vice president.

"We are looking at what we need to do to take the company to the next level," Reiling said.
The company's expansion is a reminder of the dynamic potential for an alternative-energy industry that has begun to hatch in the region.

"Alternative energy is big right now," said Jonathan Tomasco, a broker with the Cornish & Carey commercial realty office in Emeryville. "You hear about solar companies, biofuels companies popping up. This is a growing industry."

Amyris agreed to rent 70,000 square feet at EmeryStation East, an office project across the street from the company's present head offices. It's possible that when Amyris relocates next spring, it will also retain the 20,000 square feet it now occupies. The lease was arranged through Cornish & Carey.

The deal represents a payoff on something of a gamble for the creator of the new complex, Wareham Development. Wareham built the 245,000-square-foot project with no assurance it would land tenants.

"We built this to be a top-of-the-line research building," said Geoffrey Sears, a partner with Wareham Development. "We thought the market has evolved and is ready for that kind of project. We built it speculatively, but also with the hope that there would be demand for this type of research space."

It looks as if tenants will gobble up at least 75 percent of the building shortly. Besides Amyris, two other big tenants are believed to be headed to the building.

One confirmed tenant is Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics Inc., which is occupying 36,000 square feet. Another tenant, not officially disclosed yet, but believed to be linked to government-sponsored alternative-energy research, could occupy a big chunk of space in the building at 5885 Hollis St. between 59th and Powell streets.

"Emeryville, Berkeley, Richmond and, to a lesser extent, Alameda, are part of what is a strong biotech corridor," Sears said. "The I-80 corridor is close to UC Berkeley. UC San Francisco is right across the Bay."

Amyris is growing rapidly because it has invented a way to create microbes that can transform commodities such as sugar into fuel. Some researchers believe sugar as a fuel feed stock tends to be more energy-efficient and less damaging to the environment to produce than is corn, a feed stock for ethanol fuel.

"Amyris is designing better biofuels from designer bugs," John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a venture firm backing Amyris, said in a statement.

The biofuels efforts are one reason Amyris has stepped up its hiring. Amyris has about 95 workers but wants to double that size "in the foreseeable future," Reiling said. The company will be picky about who it brings on board the research-intensive company, which intends to ramp up to mass production by 2010 or 2011.

Amyris initially focused on using its genetically created bugs to synthesize inexpensive medicines to combat malaria. Less costly anti-malarial treatments are seen as a great benefit to people in relatively poor countries. Despite its success with biofuels, Amyris says it is still strongly focused on the malaria enterprise.

"We have not forgotten, or lost any enthusiasm, about the malaria project that got our company going," Reiling said.

Reiling also said that the move by Amyris to hire John Melo, a former executive with British Petroleum, has been a catalyst for Amyris to explore horizons beyond malaria.

"If you bring in that sort of expertise, it changes things," Reiling said. "Our company has gone in some pleasantly unexpected directions."

George Avalos covers jobs, economic development, commercial real estate, finance and petroleum. Reach him at 925-977-8477 or gavalos@bayareanewsgroup.com

Biofuel developer Amyris targets $70M new funding

Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal - 12:30 PM PDT Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Biofuel developer Amyris Biotechnologies Inc. said on Wednesday it has raised part of $70 million in a second round of funding that it expects to complete by the end of the year.

The Emeryville-based synthetic biology company develops renewable hydrocarbon biofuels. The company said the funding will be used to commercialize and scale up production of the startup's hydrocarbon biofuels, with the aim of bringing biodiesel to the market in 2010

Duff Ackerman & Goodrich Ventures of Palo Alto led the deal, joined by return backers Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Texas Pacific Group Ventures, all from Menlo Park.

The company raised $20 million in Series A funding last year, and named BP executive John Melo as CEO.

Energy Cutter Gets In Fast Lane

Energy Cutter Gets In Fast Lane
SynapSense Wins $10 Million In Funding
By Clint Swett - Bee Staff WriterPublished 12:00 am PDT Monday, September 10, 2007

Folsom-based tech startup SynapSense Corp. will announce today that it's received $10 million in venture funding to pursue the fast-growing market for reducing power consumption at energy-hungry computer data centers
Founded by former Intel executive Peter Van Deventer and former University of California, Davis, computer science professor Raju Pandey, the company has developed a hardware and software system to monitor heating, cooling and power consumption at large computer data centers.
Zurich-based Emerald Technology Ventures led the second funding round, but initial investors DFJ Frontier, American River Ventures and Nth Power also participated
"They are totally performing," said Scott Lenet, who runs the West Sacramento office of DFJ Frontier. "They are focused on a great target market and are delivering results for customers."
"We think this is a real growth industry," added Scott MacDonald, a Montreal-based partner in Emerald, which focuses on clean energy companies. "(Data center operators) like Google and Yahoo and IBM and Intel all have a mandate to grow and to save money."
Van Deventer said some companies like Texas Instruments have a wireless sensor division, but he was not aware of any that had a complete hardware and software product for data centers.
Still, as a whole, the wireless sensor industry is forecast to grow an average of 117 percent a year through 2012, according to analysts at West Technology Research Solutions in Mountain View.
Van Deventer declined to say what companies were using SynapSense products or how much revenue is generated.
IBM has installed a SynapSense system in a Maryland data center to evaluate whether to use the technology or include it in products.
"They are small, but they act like a really mature company," said Drew Clark, director of strategy for the IBM unit that seeks out promising startups.
The Synapsense system centers on wireless technology, allowing clients to scatter scores of small devices around a data center to monitor temperature, airflow, humidity and even unclosed doors, Van Deventer said.
The monitors, each about the size of a package of Twinkies and running on two AA batteries, beam the information to a central computer that displays the information to the center operator.
Currently, if the temperature gets too high in some part of the data center, operators just turn up the cold air, without regard to where the heating problem is, Van Deventer said. "Most of the cooling isn't going where it needs to go."
SynapSense's system pinpoints the hot spots, allowing operators to fine-tune their systems, saving up to 30 percent of its cooling costs, he said.
Those costs are substantial.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, data centers gobbled $4.5 billion in electricity in 2006. Those 61 billion kilowatt hours accounted for 1.5 percent of all electricity used in the United States. And the amount is expected to double over the next five years.
"A typical data center uses 10 to 100 times more electricity than an office of the same size," said Dale Sartor, who studies building energy efficiency at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Such consumption could lead to a serious energy crunch. According to a study by Gartner Inc., 50 percent of data centers worldwide could run out of electricity and cooling capacity by next year unless they make their operations more efficient.
Yatish Mishra, president of RagingWire Enterprise Solutions, a Sacramento data center operator, said efficiency is essential because electricity is the single biggest expense in his business.
"Lowering our energy costs is paramount," he said.
He said RagingWire has a wired monitoring system, but he recognizes the value of a wireless system like the one developed by SynapSense because it makes it easier to alter when servers are added to the system.
That flexibility also impressed West Technology analyst Kirsten West, who said SynapSense's technology had the potential "to revolutionize the industry."
That's because, unlike offerings by its competitors, it can be easily installed and managed, she said. It also can easily be adapted to other industries, including chip manufacturing, where the sensors could monitor clean rooms and production lines for contaminants that could scuttle chip production.
For its part, SynapSense, which employs about 25 workers, will continue to focus on the data center industry, Van Deventer said.
"We can go into a data center and give them 1 million vital signs (on their system) that they don't have today," he said. "We can save them up to 30 percent in energy costs."

Beyond Wind and Solar, a New Generation of Clean Energy

Beyond Wind and Solar, a New Generation of Clean Energy

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 1, 2007; A01

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Oregon Iron Works has the feel of a World War II-era shipyard, with sparks flying from welders' torches and massive hydraulic presses flattening large sheets of metal. But this factory floor represents the cutting edge of American renewable-energy technology.

The plant is assembling a test buoy for Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company that hopes to harness ocean waves off the coast of Oregon to produce electricity for U.S. consumers. And Finavera is not Iron Works' only alternative-energy client: So many companies have approached it with ideas that it has created a "renewable-energy projects manager" to oversee them.

"In the last year, it's just exploded with ideas out there," said Vice President Chandra Brown. "We like to build these creative new things."

As policymakers promote alternative energy sources to reduce the United States' emissions of greenhouse gases and its dependence on foreign oil, entrepreneurs are becoming increasingly inventive about finding novel ways to power the economy.

Beyond solar power and wind, which is America's most developed renewable-energy sector, a host of companies are exploring a variety of more obscure technologies. Researchers are trying to come up with ways to turn algae into diesel fuel. In landfills, startups are attempting to wring energy out of waste such as leaves, tires and "car fluff" from junked automobiles.

This push for lesser-known renewables -- which also includes geothermal, solar thermal and tidal energy -- may someday help ease the country's transition to a society less reliant on carbon-based fuels. But many of these technologies are in their infancy, and it remains to be seen whether they can move to the marketplace and come close to meeting the country's total energy needs.

Some technologies are more advanced, though still small in the nation's overall energy mix. Nevada boasts 15 geothermal plants, with the capacity to generate enough electricity for 73,000 homes. California utilities are looking at solar technology that would use mirrors to heat water and spin turbines in desert power plants.

Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), whose Bainbridge Island home overlooks Puget Sound, said that after being thrashed around by the ocean as he kayaked near his house, he became convinced that efforts such as Finavera's could succeed.

"There's just such an enormous power out there," Inslee said, noting that there is nearly 900 times as much energy in a cubic meter of moving water as in a cubic meter of air. "I was wondering how we could capture that."

Finavera's chief executive, Jason Bak, believes he knows how. The equipment his company designed, called AquaBuOY, aims to generate electricity from the vertical motion of waves. The buoy, anchored in an array two to three miles offshore, will convert the waves' motion into pressurized water using large, reinforced-rubber hose pumps. As the buoy goes up the peak of a wave and down into its trough, it forces a piston in the bottom of the buoy to stretch and contract the hose pumps, pushing water through. This drives a turbine that powers a generator producing electricity, which would be shipped to shore through an undersea transmission line.

"This is the new source of power," Bak said. "It's the highest-energy-density renewable out there. Wind is like light crude oil, and water is like gasoline."

In many cases, Americans are working with overseas experts who have more experience developing renewable energy. This month, Iceland America Energy -- a partnership between Icelandic and U.S. entrepreneurs -- will start drilling just west of California's Salton Sea to build a geothermal power plant to supply Pacific Gas and Electric with 49 megawatts of electricity by 2010.

Magn?s J?hannesson, Iceland America's chief executive, said the facility will pump naturally heated water from underground, run it through turbines to generate electricity and re-inject it into the earth, "making it a renewable, giant battery that can run for 20, 30, 50 years."

Iceland America has several other U.S. geothermal projects in the works, including a potential second Salton Sea plant that would serve Los Angeles and a home-heating plant for the ski resort town of Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

"There's huge potential for geothermal energy in this country, especially on the West Coast," J?hannesson said.

It is hard to predict what portion of the country's needs could be met by these emerging technologies. The United States is already the world's largest producer of geothermal electricity, with 212 plants generating 3,119 megawatts. A panel convened by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded in a recent report that by 2050, geothermal plants could produce 100 gigawatts, which would be equivalent to 10 percent of current U.S. electricity capacity.

"That level would make it comparable to the current capacity of all our nuclear power plants or all our hydroelectric plants," wrote the panel's chair, MIT chemical engineering professor Jefferson W. Tester, in an e-mail.

A 2005 report by the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry consortium, said there is "significant" wave energy potential along America's coasts, predicting that it, too, could eventually generate as much electricity as the entire hydropower sector.

Both the Bush administration and Congress are promoting renewable energy through a mix of federal largesse and mandates.

Last month the House passed, as part of its energy bill, a requirement that by 2020, renewable energy must account for at least 15 percent of private utilities' energy supply, and authorized $50 million for marine energy research over the next five years.

Over the next two years, the Energy Department will offer up to $13 billion in loan guarantees for energy ventures that "avoid, reduce or sequester air pollutants and greenhouse gases," said department spokeswoman Julie Ruggiero, "to make new and emerging clean-energy technologies cost-competitive with traditional sources of energy."

Still, it will be years before many of these projects will come on line. Oregon Iron Works is nearly done constructing the AquaBuOY prototype, which will be 72 feet tall and 12 feet in diameter, and Finavera hopes to install it off the Oregon coast as early as next week. After testing the technology and applying for the necessary federal permits, Finavera officials hope that by 2010 or 2011 they can operate two wave parks -- one off Bandon, Ore., and another off Trinidad, Calif. -- that would each span two to three square miles and produce 100 megawatts, enough for 35,000 homes. They plan to start up another wave-power operation in British Columbia around the same time.

Operating equipment in the hostile environment of the ocean poses challenges, however. Josh Pruzek, who oversees government contracts as military marine manager at Oregon Iron Works, said the company uses high-grade steel that is less vulnerable to corrosion, and designs parts to be easily maintained.

The power of moving water can also overwhelm high-tech equipment. In December, Verdant Power placed turbines off New York City's Roosevelt Island amid much fanfare, promising to harness the tides of the East River and convert that energy into electricity. By last month, all six of the turbines, battered by the current's strength, had been shut down. The company is repairing and redesigning its equipment.

Still, such projects are popular with politicians across the nation, from New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) to Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), who is hoping to make his state a breeding ground for renewable-energy projects. David Van't Hof, Kulongoski's sustainability policy adviser, said government officials are exploring ideas, from solar projects on the eastern side of the state to biomass energy culled from Oregon's forests, in an effort to generate 25 percent of the state's energy from renewable sources by 2025.

"Wind's going to continue to be the king, both in Oregon and the nation, for the next five years," Van't Hof said, but that will last only for so long. "People are already asking, 'What's next after wind?' "

Staff writer Steven Mufson in Washington contributed to this report.

Research is vital to Sacramento region's green-tech growth

Research is vital to region's green-tech growth

Brainpower at universities could fuel product development, industry

Sacramento Business Journal - August 24, 2007

by Melanie Turner

Staff Writer

Dennis McCoy | Sacramento Business Journal
Ingrid Rosten is executive director of CleanStart, an incubator for renewable energy businesses.

Any attempt to turn Greater Sacramento into a green-technology hub would require a solid foundation of research into new approaches to reducing waste and conserving energy.

Local universities are working on it, from pure research on raw materials to practical applications for new technology. Most notably, the University of California Davis is recognized as a top research institution in the green-tech sector, exploring aspects of energy efficiency, advanced transportation technology and policy, wind energy and many other areas. California State University Sacramento is newer to the field, but pushing ahead, and other players, from major corporations to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, also are active.

Andy Hargadon, director of UC Davis' centers for entrepreneurship and energy efficiency, said research is a necessary ingredient for any community striving to breed a particular industry. Cutting-edge technology clusters, such as Silicon Valley and a computer technology hub in Boston, all had major universities nearby, he said.

Even more important than the research itself, he said, is the "intellectual capital" that research universities generate -- well-informed people who create products and work in the industry.

"You've got to start with the research before you can make product, so it's vital," said Ingrid Rosten, executive director of CleanStart, a renewable-energy business incubator that's an initiative of McClellan Technology Incubator and the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance.

Most of the funding for local green-tech research comes from federal and state agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission. Funding also comes from nonprofits, industry groups and private industry, such as $5 million from the energy commission to study consumer attitudes about plug-in hybrid electric vehicles at UC Davis.

In September, Chevron Corp. pledged up to $25 million over five years for UC Davis research on developing transportation fuels from "cellulosic biomass," such as rice straw or other crop residues. The company hopes the research will lead to a small production plant demonstrating a commercially viable method of making biofuels, said Chevron spokesman Alex Yelland.

Chevron expects to spend $2.5 billion over the next couple of years on renewable-energy and energy-efficiency projects, and has similar biofuel projects with other schools, the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory and forest products company Weyerhaeuser Co. (NYSE: WY).

Concentrated knowledge

Chevron selected UC Davis because of its expertise in alternative transportation research, Yelland said. "UC Davis has a top research and teaching program on hydrogen and biofuels."

The Davis school is home to a variety of other "clean-tech" research:

• The university received a $1 million grant from the California Clean Energy Fund and $500,000 from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. last year to establish an Energy Efficiency Center, which studies methods for cutting energy use in buildings, agriculture, food processing and transportation. "They're trying to revolutionize the way we cool our large retail centers, like Wal-Mart or Target," said Sylvia Wright of UC Davis News Service.
• UC Davis' Institute of Transportation Studies is an internationally recognized program with more than 60 affiliated faculty and researchers, 80 graduate students and a $6 million annual budget. The institute examines topics from studying ways to make tires more efficient to drafting California's new low-carbon fuel standard.
• The Biogas Energy Project, launched last year, is the country's first large-scale demonstration of a technology developed by a UC Davis professor that diverts food waste and yard clippings away from landfills and into the energy grid. The technology has been licensed from the university by Davis firm Onsite Power Systems Inc. and adapted for commercial use.
• UC Davis is one of few universities in the country where researchers are studying ways to make wind turbines more cost-effective. Companies across the country and the U.S. Department of Energy are taking notice, but UC Davis is still a "very small player" when compared to research in the field taking place in Denmark and the Netherlands, said C.P. "Case" van Dam, director of the university's five-year-old California Wind Energy Collaborative.

Between 70 percent and 90 percent of the program's roughly $400,000-a-year in funding comes from the state and federal government. Funding also comes from individual companies, such as Clipper Windpower Inc. near Santa Barbara and General Electric Co. Private research dollars are the toughest to get in all clean-tech fields, he said. "You run into patent and intellectual property rights."

• The California Lighting Technology Center works on ways to turn laboratory discoveries into energy-saving products, such as night lights with motion sensors. The center is working with a Bay Area lighting manufacturer to develop research into commercial production of more energy-efficient office lights.

Companies have emerged as result of research at the university. UC Davis has licensed several alternative-energy technologies to small companies often started by university researchers who created the inventions.

Those include:

• West Sacramento-based Q1 Nanosystems Corp., working on tiny "nanotubes" to increase the efficiency of solar power cells.
• HyPhase Energy of Davis, which is trying to raise money to commercialize a polymer material for fuel cells.
• SynapSense Corp., a Folsom startup developing technologies that could cut energy use in data centers. The company is in a pilot project with International Business Machines Corp., has raised $2 million in venture capital and is expected to close a third round of financing soon.
• High Merit Thermoelectrics Inc. of Sacramento, which is raising money to develop a material that helps convert heat to electricity. "We believe with energy costs increasing there will be more applications for our new devices," said Geoff Jennings, co-founder of the startup.

Jennings said the device could tap heat from the exhaust in catalytic converters on large trucks. "We believe we can increase truck fuel efficiency by about 15 percent," he said.

Other research

While UC Davis has been conducting environmental research for decades, for the past year Sacramento State has been working to develop courses in biofuels, solar and wind power, said Emir Macari, dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science. The university is tapping into resources at UC Davis, and is united with SARTA and the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce in efforts to create a thriving clean-tech sector here, he said.

Research in solar, biofuels and wind energy is taking place at Sacramento State's Center for Clean Energy, launched early this year. The university also hopes to land a $5 million federal grant next year, to be split between SARTA, the university and Los Rios Community College District. The money would help develop an educational system focused on clean-tech. Plans include an associate degree in clean energy at Los Rios, he said.

The Center for Clean Energy, which so far is funded with seed money from the university, also aims to work with green-tech startups to help them get established here.

The center is working with one local startup so far -- venture-capital backed Marquiss Wind Power Inc. of Folsom, which is developing a new type of wind turbine. Students and faculty are studying the efficiency and viability of the technology. "That's the idea, for us to be able to provide such services to small startups that don't have huge R&D departments," Macari said.

While municipal utility SMUD does not conduct long-term exploratory research on basic materials or chemicals -- the kind seen on university campuses -- the utility is examining green-tech advances in more than 10 commercial projects in various stages of development, working with private industry.

SMUD worked with two manufacturers on a research and development project to create solar modules that work on concrete tile roofs, for example.

"We couldn't penetrate that market," said Mike DeAngelis, manager of SMUD's Advanced Renewables and Distributed Generation Technologies Program. "The technology didn't work well for new residential roofing."

Today, the interlocking modules that resemble roof tiles are being used throughout California. General Electric owns the technology for the modules.

Among its many current projects, SMUD has a CEC-funded contract with Clipper Windpower, a Carpinteria-based company that's publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange, to test its idea for a new turbine that would use four generators per turbine, instead of one. The hope is that fewer wind turbines would sit idle and maintenance costs would go down.

Staff writer Celia Lamb contributed to this report. melanieturner@bizjournals.com | 916-558-7859

Oakland investment coalition might fund green startups

Oakland investment coalition might fund green startups

East Bay Business Times - August 24, 2007

by Mavis Scanlon

Stephanie Secrest | East Bay Business Times
James Nixon with Sustainable Systems Inc.

Oakland aims to form a green finance network that would invest in startup companies, a move to encourage its emerging clean technology, green building and energy efficiency industries.

The effort is still in the early stages, and the final shape of the network and number of participants is yet to be determined.

The Green Finance Network will line up prospective startup businesses with potential investors.

The network is just one facet of the economic development strategy Oakland is undertaking under the auspices of the Oakland Partnership, a collaboration among government, business, education, labor and the community.

The network's potential members include the more than two dozen investment organizations in Oakland and the Bay Area characterized as green or socially responsible, or that look for a so-called double bottom line that considers profits as important as social and environmental goals.

The idea percolated for at least a year, starting with a conversation between Karen Engel, director of economic development for the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, and James Hurd Nixon, chair of Oakland's Sustainable Systems Inc., a business and economic development firm.

Engel and the chamber commissioned a study by consulting firm McKinsey & Co., released in May, that looked at the burgeoning business clusters Oakland could nurture. Those clusters include green industry, international trade, health care and digital arts.

"In the course of that conversation the proverbial light bulb went off," Nixon said. "There are a whole lot of double-bottom-line investment organizations in Oakland, and we have never convened those organizations and had them look at Oakland in a coordinated way to encourage investing in deals in Oakland," he added.

Nixon has been working with a green finance subgroup of the Oakland Partnership's green industry cluster that includes Peter Liu, a founder and vice chairman of New Resource Bank in San Francisco; Jacob Singer, the CEO of OBDC Small Business Finance in Oakland; Dan Adler, vice president of the California Clean Energy Fund; Paresh Patel, vice president, corporate finance, Shoreline Pacific LLC in San Francisco; David Schecter of Oakland's Community and Economic Development Agency; and Brian Garrett, president and CEO of Oakland's Community Bank of the Bay.

The network would be modeled on the Bay Area Community Investment Network, or BACIN, the San Francisco network of commercial and community financial institutions, investors and funds that invest in low-income neighborhoods. BACIN and the Bay Are Council in San Francisco have agreed to co-sponsor the Green Finance Network.

At an Aug. 16 meeting, Nixon presented an initial business plan that called for twice-annual meetings, at which four to six companies would present their business plans in hopes of securing startup capital. Nixon's firm, Sustainable Systems, would coach the companies in advance to ensure they were well-prepared. At these meetings network companies could also share underwriting criteria in an effort to encourage joint equity or debt investments. Presenting companies would also be advised or directed on the best resources to help them grow.

The network business plan will be presented at the next Oakland Partnership meeting on Sept. 5.

Success will be measured by several criteria, including the number of firms that join the network, the number of Oakland green businesses that receive funding and the amount of capital invested, the number of jobs created and the quality of the semi-annual meetings.

Engel of the Oakland chamber said the network is a visible way for the city to communicate the positive aspects of investing here. "Since we've identified (the green cluster) as a very important sector that's critical," she said.

Nixon "has a lot of experience putting these networks together," said Patel of Shoreline Pacific. Over the last five decades Oakland has not been a strong draw for business, he added, but "if properly positioned and properly used Oakland can draw amazing green businesses. The key is developing a coherent and progressive strategy to do it."

Another key will be targeting the right kinds of companies. Companies in the clean-tech space are more likely to be plugged in to Silicon Valley, where venture capital firms have a well-established lead and plenty of capital to invest.

Green companies outside of tech may actually be a more-interesting space to focus on, said Singer of OBCD, as they are the types of firms that could become more entrenched in the local community. "As community economic development lenders, that's really what's of interest to us." he said, "How do we work with companies that are going to create a variety of jobs?"

The network itself would be "very straightforward" to start, Nixon said. "We know the drill." In the green space, it's not the serial entrepreneur or the later-stage companies that typically need the type of investment he envisions the network making.

Rather, he says, minority entrepreneurs or very young companies need a better understanding of how to access the financial markets. If successful, the network could provide that. Under the theory of cluster-based economic development, in which many businesses going in a similar direction drive additional investment, the network could be a boon for Oakland as well.

mscanlon@bizjournals.com | 925-598-1405

Clean-technology companies that open in the former Sacramento Army Depot could save a little more green

City Council aims to bring clean-tech to town

Sacramento Business Journal - 3:23 PM PDT Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Clean-technology companies that open in the former Sacramento Army Depot could save a little more green -- as in money.

The Sacramento City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved an effort to market the area's existing enterprise zone to clean-energy companies and to help develop the Sacramento region as a green-technology hub.

About 80 "clean-tech" companies -- such as Altergy Systems and Jadoo Power Systems Inc. -- operate in the four-county region. City officials and economic leaders are hoping to attract others and become the center for the fast-growing industry.

"Our region is well positioned to become the clean energy capital ...," Michael Faust, senior vice president of public policy and advocacy for the Sacramento Metro Chamber, told the council on Tuesday. "This will be the significant industry of the future."

The area in south Sacramento already has an enterprise zone designation, allowing qualified companies to enjoy tax credits for equipment purchases, sales-tax rebates and the hiring of some workers.

The chamber aims to bring -- or create -- 20,000 direct and indirect clean-energy jobs to the region by 2015.

"Not only do we believe this number is achievable, the Metro Chamber believes it can and will be the bedrock of the next tidal wave of economic development in our region," Faust said.

Analysts say the clean-energy industry is expected to increase from $16 billion in sales this year to more than $100 billion by 2015.

Executing on Cleantech

Executing on Cleantech
Print All Articles Letter to the editor on 15 August 2007, 11:24by Red Herring Staff
When Mitch Mandich left his job as head of worldwide sales at Apple, he thought he was going to retire. Seven years later, he’s building a cellulosic ethanol plant that pumps out 100 million gallons per year.
“I really wanted to do something to make a material difference in the world. I wanted to apply my skills to combat global warming,” says Mr. Mandich, now CEO of Range Fuels, a biofuels startup in Broomfield, Colorado.
He’s hardly alone. Drawn by idealistic notions—and the opportunity to hit the jackpot—business veterans like Mr. Mandich are joining cleantech startups in droves. The nascent sector, considered too risky just a few years ago, has become the hottest area for venture capital investment almost overnight. Several companies have hit the market with successful IPOs, and some are even making money.
“I would describe it as a dramatic change,” says Ira Ehrenpreis, general partner and head of cleantech investing at Technology Partners, a venture firm in Palo Alto, California. “Some of the world’s best entrepreneurs and executives are now focused on trying to be part of the cleantech revolution.”
Until recently, most battery, fuel cell, solar, and biofuels startups were headed by scientists or idealistic save-the-earth types who weren’t that interested in making money from the technologies. David Pearce, CEO of Miasolé, a Santa Clara, California-based thin-film solar manufacturer, says the “tree huggers” he’s used to seeing at solar conferences are now outnumbered by top talent from the semiconductor industry and other tech fields.
He says the expertise he developed at OptCom, a startup devoted to precision thin-film optical filters, is applicable to the photovoltaic solar cells Miasolé now produces. His story is not at all unusual. “You have (cleantech) founders like myself who have been in the IT industry for a long time,” he notes.
A common, and idealistic, refrain heard in cleantech circles is that the people behind the startups want to make a difference in the world. That’s no doubt true, but in terms of getting hard-driving entrepreneurs and executives involved, it certainly helps that they can make a bundle in the process.
That’s because venture capitalists have been sinking billions of dollars into the sector. Last year, venture capital investments in cleantech in the United States totaled $2.4 billion—more than triple the $739 million invested in 2004, according to the Cleantech Venture Group consultancy. To boot, renowned VCs like John Doerr and Vinod Khosla have become cleantech boosters, giving the sector added credibility.
Tangible signs of progress have made the sector all the more attractive. Shares in energy management systems provider Comverge, which reported $34 million in revenue in 2006, have shot up about 55 percent since they began trading in April. Shares in Chinese solar cell makers LDK Solar and SunTech Power have been volatile in recent months, but they continue to rise as the two companies post profits. VeraSun stock has fallen since the company went public, but unlike many of the dotcom startups, the ethanol producer can point to real revenues and earnings.
“There has been an awakening of the sheer magnitude of the cleantech opportunity,” Mr. Ehrenpreis says. “This is now a real business with real revenues and real profits.”
It’s not known exactly how many veteran executives have joined the sector, but a couple of industry observers suggest that about one-third of cleantech startups can now point to an experienced management team. That’s a far cry from even just a few years ago, when cleantech managers were largely scientists and environmentalists who were ill-prepared to run a company of any size.
The influx of executive talent is creating a reservoir of business experience in the sector. Whether it be market knowledge, understanding of industrial production, or simple business basics, seasoned veterans have the skills to help cleantech startups boost their output and bring down costs. They also use their connections to recruit other executives and board members.
And the list of candidates is not limited to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. High level executives from companies like General Motors, 3M, and General Electric are also getting in on the game, says veteran cleantech investor Maurice Gunderson, senior partner with CMEA Ventures. “The quality of candidates is the highest I have ever seen,” Mr. Gunderson says.
Cleantech is even attracting oil industry executives such as John Melo, who used to run British Petroleum’s U.S. fuels operation. He took over in January as CEO at Amyris Biotechnologies in Emeryville, California, a fast-growing startup that uses engineered microbes to produce a drug for malaria as well as new biofuels. The chance to help the environment as well as build a big company is exciting, says Mr. Melo.
“For me it’s an opportunity to create a whole new industry and to do it in a way that can make a difference in the world from a climate change perspective,” he says. “There are not that many places where you can do both.”
But for all the excitement about clean technologies, there are still many cleantech startups, and their backers, looking for seasoned executives. Mr. Gunderson says the sector still lags other Silicon Valley industries, in which new companies are inevitably launched and run by serial entrepreneurs with several successful startups under their belt.
“Cleantech is not quite there yet,” he says, “but it’s catching up fast.”
Related Topics: Cleantech, Vinod Khosla, Miasolé, Comverge, Technology Partners, John Doerr, Suntech Power, CMEA Ventures, Range Fuels, Amyris Biotechnologies, Cleantech Venture Group, LDK Solar

More ethanol to be added to gasoline in CA

Article:More ethanol to be added to gasoline:/c/a/2007/08/05/BUDKRBMBJ1.DTL

Article:More ethanol to be added to gasoline:/c/a/2007/08/05/BUDKRBMBJ1.DTL

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More ethanol to be added to gasoline

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, August 5, 2007

California regulators have decided to greatly expand the amount of ethanol blended into our gasoline as a way to fight global warming.

Unfortunately, we don't make much of it. And the type of ethanol California uses - most of it made from corn and imported from the Midwest - has serious drawbacks as a weapon against climate change.

The great boom in ethanol plant construction that swept the nation's farm belt in recent years has barely touched the Golden State. Biorefineries here make only 8.6 percent of all the ethanol California uses. Other states supply the rest, shipped by rail over the Sierra or through the Southern California desert.

The California Air Resources Board this summer decided to raise the amount of ethanol that oil companies can blend into the gasoline they sell here. By 2013 - after the new rules kick in - California's ethanol use is expected to jump more than 78 percent, to 1.7 billion gallons per year.

Ethanol companies will likely build more biorefineries in California to feed that fast-growing market. California has four already, with three more under construction. But the state will still have to import most of its ethanol from elsewhere, much like it already imports oil, gasoline and natural gas.

That doesn't worry many energy experts. So many ethanol plants have been built across the Midwest that California should have ample supplies at reasonable prices, they say.

But here's the rub - importing ethanol into California makes it less useful as a tool to cut greenhouse gas emissions, because the diesel-powered trains and trucks that bring it here belch carbon dioxide. All the same, many experts consider it preferable to relying solely on oil.

"Its problems pale in significance to the problem of dependence on petroleum from the other side of the globe, and dangerous places on the other side of the globe," said James Boyd, vice chairman of the California Energy Commission. "I don't think of the Midwest as dangerous."

The United States had 110 biorefineries in 2006, producing 4.9 billion gallons of ethanol, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry trade group. Some 73 more plants were under construction by year's end, capable of adding another 6 billion gallons to the country's supply.

Although many Californians don't realize it, they're already driving on ethanol. Gasoline sold in the state contains about 6 percent ethanol, used to help the fuel burn more completely.

Starting in 2010, that portion will increase to about 10 percent, under rules the Air Resources Board adopted in June.

For the companies that make ethanol, the new rules look like an opportunity.

Pacific Ethanol Inc. runs the state's largest ethanol biorefinery, a plant in Madera, near Fresno, that can churn out 40 million gallons per year. The Sacramento company, co-founded by former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, also markets ethanol made by the state's second-largest biorefinery, which produces 31.5 million gallons per year in Goshen (Tulare County).

New Pacific Ethanol plants are under construction in Stockton and Calipatria (Imperial County), which is near the Mexican border. Both will make 50 million gallons of fuel per year.

"It is critically important to have other sources of new fuel, and that's what ethanol represents," said Neil Koehler, the company's chief executive officer. He says that increased use of ethanol could help stabilize California's volatile gasoline prices, because a higher percentage of the gasoline in drivers' tanks will come from a different raw material than petroleum.

"Diversity is a good thing, in terms of price," he said.

That's still a matter of dispute. Past changes to the state's gasoline blend have been responsible for giving California some of the highest pump prices in the country. In addition, a spike in ethanol prices last summer helped push up gasoline prices across the country. The biofuel, in other words, has its own price swings.

There's also disagreement about the kind of ethanol California uses.

Most of it is made from corn, the most common raw material for ethanol made in the United States. Many experts argue that corn-based ethanol has significant drawbacks. Some studies show that corn ethanol takes almost as much energy to produce as it provides as a fuel.

Shipped from the Midwest, it also may not be the most effective weapon against climate change. A recent study for the California Energy Commission looked at the greenhouse gas emissions that come from growing corn in the Midwest, turning it into ethanol and shipping the finished product to California.

With all those factors considered, corn ethanol still produced fewer greenhouse gases than gasoline, but not by much. And if the biorefinery that made the ethanol drew its electricity from a coal-fired power plant, it actually produced more greenhouse gas emissions than regular gasoline.

As a result, many environmentalists and state officials view corn ethanol as a transitional fuel.

They hope it will soon be replaced by cellulosic ethanol. Distilled from a wide variety of plants - including crop waste or switch grass - cellulosic ethanol produces fewer greenhouse gases than corn ethanol. No one has perfected a way to make mass quantities at commercially viable prices, although many researchers and entrepreneurs are trying.

"Cellulosic (ethanol) is going to be happening faster than people think," said Carl Zichella, regional director for the Sierra Club in California. "A lot of the technology exists, but it hasn't been scaled up to commercial size. That's an investment problem, not a technology problem."

Pacific Ethanol is working with several partners to develop cellulosic ethanol. But for now, it relies on corn. The company imports grain, but Koehler expects more California farmers to start growing corn as ethanol production climbs. It's already happening, he said.

"We've seen a huge increase in the amount of corn acreage in the country, and in California, very much so," he said.

That raises its own problems, since land devoted to growing fuel isn't growing food.

"It's a really tough issue, because you're going to have to plant those food crops somewhere," said Patricia Monahan, deputy director of the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

E-mail David R. Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com.

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This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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