Category: Energy

Howard Lovy wrote:

University of Michigan business student Adam Carver says he is a “mountain climber at heart.”

Maybe that’s why he’s going for two degrees at once. Last summer, he conquered the Matterhorn. Yes, the actual Matterhorn in Switzerland.

This year, he set out for the foothills of a longer, perhaps even more ambitious journey-to bring to market what he considers breakthrough technology that could completely replace today’s electrochemical batteries in portable devices.

And he is not a lone explorer. Together with colleagues Tzeno Galchev and Ethem Erkan Aktakka, both Ph.D. Fellows at U-M’s Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems, the three recently picked up the top prize of $50,000 in the 2009-2010 DTE Clean Energy Prize business plan competition.

Their project goes by the name of Enertia, and this prize could be the beginning of a long climb toward commercialization of a clean, renewable source of power. The invention is a device that can harvest energy from arbitrary vibrations in the environment, then run them through a little converter to general electric power.

Carver, who is simultaneously working toward his MBA at Michigan’s Ross School of Business and a master’s degree from U-M’s Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, set out specifically to look for a business project over at the engineering department. So, he went to an on-campus event that was open to entrepreneurs from the local community.

“I really wanted to get involved in cleantech. And I had this feeling that the real breakthrough technology was coming out of the school of engineering,” Carver says.

He immediately saw a great deal of possibility in Galchev’s and Aktakka’s project.

“What really attracted me to the project was the compelling technology, itself-the idea that we can utilize this ambient energy around us in the form of tiny vibrations and make renewable power,” Carver says.

“I felt that there was a very good environmental reason for this, there’s a very good economic reason, and it’s a scalable solution-that we will be able to reproduce, at high volume with quality assurance,” he says.

Carver, 28, is talking like a true entrepreneur, anyway. He even has a target year of …Next Page »

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

From Green Right Now Reports

U.S. office buildings have failed to keep pace with the revolution in automation that pervades modern life, according to a new survey of American office workers by IBM. The survey found that inefficiencies built into office buildings are taking a toll in lost productivity and added costs.

The study found that inefficiencies built into office buildings are taking a toll in lost productivity and added costs.

The survey also revealed a groundswell of desire among working people to help remake their offices into greener environments.

Data show that buildings consume 72 percent of all electricity (50 percent of that electricity is wasted), generate 38 percent of electricity-related greenhouse gases, and emit more emissions into the environment than our cars do.

IBM’s Smarter Buildings study surveyed 6,486 office workers in 16 U.S. cities on issues ranging from office building automation and security to elevator reliability and conservation issues. Respondents answered a series of questions about the office buildings in which they work.

Los Angeles emerged as the clear winner among the cities surveyed, coming in best or near-best in several of categories. For example, L.A. had the highest percentage (40 percent) of respondents who say their office buildings automatically sense when people are in a room and adjust lights and temperature accordingly – compared with the average of 27 percent. L.A. also had the highest percentage of respondents (22 percent) who say their office buildings make use of renewable energy sources such as solar. The average is 14 percent.

In addition, L.A. had the highest percentage of respondents (35 percent) who indicate that products promoting improved air quality (such as low VOC paint and sustainable carpet as well as bio-based cleaning fluids) are used in their buildings. The average is 26 percent.

Los Angeles holds the top spot on the Environmental Protection Agency’s list released last month that called out cities with the most Energy Star labeled buildings. L.A. had 293 of them in 2009, equaling $93.9 million in cost savings and prevention of emissions equivalent to the impact of 34,800 homes.

“Urban environments are experiencing growth at a rate where better efficiency at the system level is key,” Rich Lechner, vice president of Energy and Environment for IBM, said in a statement. “Yet, even as automobiles, transportation systems, electrical grids and other modern systems are achieving greater efficiency, many office buildings remain rooted in the past.  Bridging this ‘Intelligence Gap’ can create huge savings in energy and maintenance costs and improve a company’s bottom line, as well as create a healthier, more productive workforce.”

The cost of the intelligence gap is reflected in many ways, the report concludes. For example, the cumulative time that office workers spent stuck in elevators in the past 12 months totaled 33 years across the 16 cities.

The cities with the most time stuck in elevators in the past 12 months:

• New York City –  5.9 years
• Los Angeles –  4.3 years
• Chicago –  3.2 years
• Houston –  2.9 years
• Dallas/Fort Worth –  2.4 years
• Washington –  D.C. –  2.2 years
• Atlanta –  1.9 years
• Boston –  1.8 years
• Philadelphia –  1.7 years
• San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose –  1.4 years
• Detroit –  1.1 years
• Seattle/Tacoma –  1 year
• Denver –  1 year
• Phoenix/Prescott –  0.8 year
• Tampa/St. Petersburg –  0.6 year
• Minneapolis/Saint Paul –  0.5 year

The study found that time spent waiting for an elevator is even more onerous. The cumulative time that office workers spent waiting for elevators in the past 12 months totaled 92 years across the 16 cities, broken out as:

• New York City –  16.6 years
• Chicago –  9.0 years
• Los Angeles –  8.7 years
• Washington –  D.C. –  7.7 years
• Houston –  6.8 years
• Philadelphia –  6.0 years
• Dallas/Fort Worth – 5.5 years
• Boston –  5.4 years
• San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose –  4.5 years
• Atlanta –  4.3 years
• Phoenix/Prescott –  4.1 years
• Seattle/Tacoma – 3.2 years
• Minneapolis/Saint Paul –  3.1 years
• Detroit – 2.7 years
• Denver – 2.3 years
• Tampa/St. Petersburg –  1.6 years

Nationwide, only 33 percent of respondents rated their office buildings “somewhat high,” “very high” or “extremely high” in terms of environmental responsibility. And 65 percent say they would participate in the redesign of the workspace in their office buildings to make them more environmentally responsible.

Analysis of the survey results indicated a number of other key nationwide findings related to how intelligent buildings are in the U.S.:

• 79 percent of respondents say that they conserve resources such as water or electricity as part of their regular routine at work.
• 75 percent say they would be more likely to conserve resources at work if they were rewarded for the effort.
• 31 percent say their office buildings have low-flow toilets.
• More than one quarter (26 percent) say that low emission and sustainable materials are used to promote improved indoor air quality in their office buildings.
• 14 percent report that their office buildings make use of solar energy or another renewable energy source.
• 13 percent have been stuck in an elevator in their office buildings in the past 12 months, and of that group, 33 percent have been stuck for 5-10 minutes, and another 22 percent have been stuck for more than 10 minutes.

IBM compiled the results of the survey into a Smarter Buildings Index that ranks efficiency in each city on a scale from one to 10, with 10 being the best. Here’s how the cities stack up:

IBM said its index is comprised of 10 issues: elevator wait times, Internet access, badge access, lights turning off automatically in the evening, presence of sensors that adjust lights and temperature when people enter and leave rooms, use of renewable energy sources, low-flow toilets, use of air-friendly products, respondents opinion of how environmentally-friendly building is, respondents desire to participate in building redesign.

For over 70 years, GE has been a major industrial player in Saudi Arabia — delivering a range of heavy machinery, major infrastructure projects and services in energy, water, transportation and healthcare. Yesterday, that relationship moved to a new level with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, that’s designed to strengthen the country’s manufacturing sector and put it on a path to sustainable economic development by further diversifying its economy. Part of GE’s “company to country” strategy, the strategic partnership will focus on helping Saudi Arabia meet its development goals through industrialization, research and education, and creating new jobs for Saudi nationals. As U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James B. Smith says in the video below: “They [Saudi leaders] have rolled out an industrialization strategy to move Saudi Arabia to a knowledge-based economy. I know of no company that’s better positioned to help them do that than GE.”

As part of the MOU, GE will explore manufacturing opportunities in the country for local and export markets and potentially partner with Saudi Arabia on international development projects — with a focus on Africa and the Islamic world. In addition, GE will provide expertise in the establishment of a world-class export development fund and stress-test Saudi Arabia’s National Industrial Strategy — which is a $16 billion project being launched next month that will strengthen its manufacturing sector and double the industrial output of the country’s GDP.

From the top: In the video above, Nabil Habayeb, President & CEO, GE Middle East and Africa, provides an informal overview of GE’s work in the region as part of our “Meet GE” series of employee stories. Meet more GE people at http://www.ge.com/meetge/.

The agreement was signed at the U.S.-Saudi Business Forum, which concludes today in Chicago. The gathering of more than 200 attendees brings together leading entrepreneurs, top U.S. and Saudi government officials and civic leaders to enhance cooperation in a range of sectors including energy, finance & investment, agriculture and information technology.

As Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco, President & CEO of GE International, said: “The Kingdom’s multipronged development approach emphasizes education, research and industrialization — areas where GE can make a tangible difference.”

The video below provides an overview of GE’s work in the country:

* Read the announcement
* Read coverage in the Chicago Tribune
* Learn more about our work in Saudi Arabia

Learn more in these GE Reports stories:
* “China deals span coal, high-speed rail & locomotives”
* “GE & Kazakhstan ink major rail service & plant deals”
* “Pakistan boosts energy & infrastructure for 2020 goals”
* “GE and Nigeria ink landmark infrastructure agreement”
* “GE to supply $1B of gas turbines to Saudi Arabia“

While new government regulations have left investors in Canadian mining companies like Greystar Resources Inc. and Ventana Gold Corp., struggling to find anything good to say about Colombia these days, their oil and gas investing peers continue to sing the country's praises. 

"Colombia, in our opinion, remains the most attractive jurisdiction for companies operating in our coverage universe," George Toriola, an analyst at UBS AG said in a note to clients.  

"With its basins offering significant potential, Colombia offers decent growth opportunity, though most of the acreage is currently tightly held, resulting in a broad range of growth prospects for Canadian listed companies operating in Colombia."

Mr. Toriola said the most attractive risk adjusted location in Colombia in the Llanos basin, particularly the deep Llanos basin, located in the xx. He estimated risked project internal rates of return (IRR) as high as 240%, compared to risked IRR’s ranging from 0% to 74% across the remaining basins.

Although assets in Colombia are generally fairly priced, the analyst said investors should be selective in choosing their opportunities. His favourite name operating in Colombia is Petrominerales Ltd. followed by Gran Tierra Energy Inc. and Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp.

"Petrominerales remains the best positioned company in Colombia, driven by its contiguous land base, strong growth prospects and strong financial position," he said.

David Pett

A fun new technology that harvests power from a small generator embedded in the sole of your shoe has been developed by Dr. Ville Kaajakari at Louisiana Tech University (LTU).

The technology cannot power your house (yet), but it can be used for a range of useful purposes.

(more…)

2010April28: U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approves the Cape Wind project, the first wind farm on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The wind turbines are expected to produce enough power to meet 75% of the electricity demand for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Island (New York Times, 2010).

Reference: New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/science/earth/29wind.html

Read the Department of the Interior Press Release http://www.doi.gov/news/doinews/Secretary-Salazar-Announces-Approval-of-Cape-Wind-Energy-Project-on-Outer-Continental-Shelf-off-Massachusetts.cfm

Image Description: Gay Head Cliffs in Martha’s Vineyard. Photo by JP06035. Image Location http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gay_head_cliffs_MV.JPG Image Permission: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License. In short: you are free to share and make derivative works of the file under the conditions that you appropriately attribute it, and that you distribute it only under a license identical to this one.

Shell Oil Co. President Marvin Odum said he expects global energy demand to double by mid-century, with renewable sources making up a much greater part of the supply than they do now, and with fossil fuels remaining a major part of the mix.

Odum, who spoke Tuesday (April 27) at the Science Center, delivering the Harvard University Center for the Environment’s final “Future of Energy” lecture of the academic year, presented his views and those of the oil industry giant as it looks ahead.

According to Odum, energy from renewable sources would surge in the coming decades, to a scale that today would equal 60 percent of production. But with the global population expected to climb to 9 billion and the increasing industrialization of the developing world, he expected overall demand to grow enough that renewable sources will make up just 30 percent of the 2050 energy mix.

Much of the rest, he said, must come from fossil fuels, making mitigation technologies that keep carbon from being released into the atmosphere essential.

“Supply is going to have trouble keeping up with that kind of demand growth,” Odum said. “All forms of energy will be needed.”

Consequently, environmental stresses due to energy consumption also will increase, Odum said, resulting in more government regulation. He came to Harvard, in fact, expecting to talk about the new U.S. energy and climate bill, but negotiations on it collapsed last week when one of the sponsors, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, abruptly withdrew from talks with Democrats. Though the halt was surprising, Odum said he still expects some type of energy legislation to be passed.

The global energy industry is so enormous that major changes take a lot of time, Odum said. A look at the past century shows that it takes almost 30 years for any new energy source to reach even 1 percent of the market, he said. First come years of research and development, followed by small demonstration plants that lead to further improvements. That is followed by larger commercial plants that take a long time to site and build. Biofuels are now about 1 percent of the market, and wind will be about 1 percent by the middle of the decade.

That slow development pattern will have to be radically sped up, he said, if renewables are to be 30 percent of the mid-century energy mix. Government can help, with regulations and incentives. Odum said that government establishment of a carbon market, with pricing and trading, will be a big factor driving growth of renewable energy sources. Without that, he said, it will be difficult to attract the kind of private capital needed to finance that growth, and it is unlikely government will step in to fill the gap.

Odum said he sees the industry having several roles to play in the future. First, it needs to provide more energy to meet demand. Second, it needs to increase the efficiency of its operations. Third, it needs to provide more low-carbon energy.

Carbon capture and storage is an example of the third role, Odum said. Shell has begun one such large project associated with its oil sands effort in Canada. It’s being done in partnership with the Canadian government, which has invested $800 million. He expects to begin injecting carbon into underground storage areas by 2015 at the earliest.

Another example is Shell’s continued investment in natural gas. Though a fossil fuel, gas produces much less carbon dioxide than either oil or coal. By 2012, natural gas is expected to make up more than half of Shell’s production.

Odum said the company expects the number of motor vehicles to double worldwide by mid-century, with 40 percent of miles driven by electric-powered vehicles. That expected explosion in demand for transportation fuels has Shell investing in biofuels, working with a producer in Brazil.

Though Shell was not involved, Odum also addressed the recent Gulf of Mexico oil drilling platform tragedy and the spill that has resulted. Such platforms, he said, have so many redundant systems that he doesn’t understand how the tragedy happened. Whether the accident and the resultant oil pollution affects the acceptability of offshore drilling elsewhere depends on how the situation is resolved and how successful mitigation efforts are, he said.

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

The U.S. will soon join Europe in drawing electricity from off-shore wind power. Today, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the first off-shore wind project in the U.S., the proposed Cape Wind installation planned for Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Wind advocates and environmentalists were thrilled that the project, nearly a decade in the making, will be built. It had faced opposition from some residents, including Kennedy family members, concerned about how the wind farm will affect views. Recently, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation had recommended rejection of the project.

But Salazar said that a careful analysis had shown the benefits outweigh the concerns.

“With this decision we are beginning a new direction in our Nation’s energy future, ushering in America’s first offshore wind energy facility and opening a new chapter in the history of this region,” he said in announcing the approval in Boston.

The American Wind Energy Association, which represents wind producers and affiliated industries, responded that the decision could be an impetus for the U.S. wind businesses.

“Such forward-thinking decisions are necessary for the U.S. to realize the many environmental and economic benefits of offshore wind,” said American Wind Energy Association CEO Denise Bode.

As the first U.S. offshore wind installation, Cape Wind will be precedent setting. But it will benefit from two decades of offshore wind development in Europe, Bode said.

“In fact, American manufacturers have announced plans to build factories in Europe to service the robust offshore wind industry there. With policy support in the America we can incent(ivize) that new manufacturing sector to build here,’’ Bode said.

Frances Beinecke, president of the NRDC, also praised Salazar for green lighting the project.

“The United States can be a world leader on clean energy, and offshore wind power has enormous potential to help us get there,” Beinecke said. “This is a major victory for America’s clean energy future – and will help ramp up the U.S. offshore wind industry.”

Cape Wind needed federal approval to move ahead with the installation, which will be located about five miles off shore in Nantucket Sound and is projected to supply enough electricity for about 400,000 residents in the region. The project will include 130 turbines to produce 420 megawatts of power.

Last week, the wind industry association in Great Britain announced that it had reached 1 gigawatt of power from offshore wind as a new facility began operating. The UK is the world leader in the offshore wind sector with installed wind farms providing energy for 700,000 homes, the  industry group Renewable UK (formerly BWEA) reported.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Wade Roush wrote:

In a joint press conference today with Governor Deval Patrick at the Massachusetts State House, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar said his department has approved a scaled-down version of the long-delayed Cape Wind project at Horseshoe Shoal in Nantucket Sound. Salazar said that the revised project approved by the department will consist of 130 wind turbines rather than 170, that the turbines will be moved farther away from Nantucket Island than originally proposed, and that additional seabed surveys will be conducted before construction to ensure that any as-yet-undiscovered submerged archaeological resources are protected. Some of the changes were made specifically to reduce the visual impact of the wind farm from the Kennedy family compound in Hyannisport; deceased Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy was a longtime opponent of the project. The wind farm, first proposed in 2001 by private developer Cape Wind Associates, is expected to supply enough power for Nantucket Island, Martha’s Vineyard, and much of Cape Cod and create several hundred construction jobs. “This will be the first of many projects up and down the Atlantic coast,” Salazar said at the press conference.

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How much land area does CCS require? It depends on the site.

Earlier this week, the Guardian highlighted research that questioned the feasibility of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS), the process of trapping carbon dioxide from power plants and storing it underground. Researchers from the University of Houston have claimed that we would need the underground capacity the size of a small state in order to store the CO2 from just one power plant. Geologists and engineers quickly refuted this claim, pointing to the success of ongoing pilot projects.

This latest dispute about CCS raises the question: how do we know if there is room to store CO2 underground?

U.S. Estimates of CO2 Storage Capacity

CCS depends on storing CO2 in deep geological formations underground. But of course, geology varies greatly by region, and some areas are more suitable than others. For example (PDF), Texas and Louisiana have the highest potential, while states like Maine, Vermont, and Wisconsin have no storage potential at all.

The US Department of Energy publishes a national atlas of storage capacity by state. The calculations assume (PDF) that even in areas that look promising for CO2 storage, only 1-4% of available geologic capacity will actually be used for CCS. Even with this limitation, the DOE still estimates overall potential for storage in the US to be at 3,600 to 12,900 billion metric tons of CO2. To put that in perspective, the United States’ current annual emissions are about 3,200 million metric tons per year. That is why, despite the challenges, CCS is such a potentially important opportunity in the fight against climate change.

CCS and Land Area

When evaluating how much land would be needed to store carbon dioxide, it is important to remember that not all land is created equal in terms of CCS potential. This makes generalizing about CCS an imprecise art. For example, the study cited by the Guardian suggests that a single 500 MW power plant capturing and storing CO2 for 30 years would require 686 mi2 of underground land area, quite a large number. However, the researchers base their calculations on the assumption that the underground geologic reservoir would be only 200 ft thick. If you apply the same methodology to sites with much thicker reservoirs, those power plants would require considerably less land area. That’s why true capacity can only be estimated with site-specific geological information.

Moving Forward with Carbon Capture and Sequestration

CCS for power plants is, to be sure, a complicated process. In the United States there is currently one coal fired power plant that is capturing CO2, injecting it and storing it underground today (the Mountaineer Project in New Haven, West Virginia). Others are in the planning stages, and there are many legitimate issues that each CCS project will need to address in order to be successful. That’s why the World Resources Institute convened over 90 leaders from national laboratories, research institutes, environmental organizations and energy companies to create guidelines for safe, effective carbon dioxide storage in the United States. These guidelines answer many of the concerns that CCS skeptics have about issues such as seismic events, potential leaks, and correctly evaluating underground capacity.

The important point to remember in discussions about CCS is that every geologic reservoir, and thus every CCS site, is unique. The only way to answer remaining uncertainties about CCS, and bring the cost down over time, is through demonstrations and commercial deployments – in other words, real life, site-specific scenarios – as soon as possible.

Additional Information

Birkholzer, J.T., Zhou, Q., Tsang, C.F., 2009. Large-scale impact of CO2 storage in deep saline aquifers: a
sensitivity study on the pressure response in stratified systems. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 3(2), 181–194.

Birkholzer, J.T., Zhou, Q., 2009. Basin-Scale Hydrogeologic Impacts of CO2 Storage: Capacity and
Regulatory Implications, International Journal of Greenhouse Gas Control, published online on 8/8/2009,
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijggc.2009.07.002.

Dooley, J., Davidson, C., 2010. A Brief Technical Critique of Ehlig-
Economides and Economides 2010: “Sequestering Carbon Dioxide in a Closed
Underground Volume.” United States Department of Energy. Available here.

Nicot, J.P., 2008. Evaluation of large-scale carbon storage on fresh-water section of aquifers: A Texas study.
Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 2(4), 582–593.

Yamamoto, H., Zhang, K., Karasaki, K., Marui, A., Uehara, H., Nishikawa, N., 2009. Numerical investigation
concerning the impact of CO2 geologic storage on regional groundwater flow. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas
Control, 3(5), 586-599.

Zero Emissions Platform, The Realities of Storing Carbon Dioxide

Zhou, Q., Birkholzer, J.T., Tsang, C.F., Rutqvist, J., 2008. A method for quick assessment of CO2 storage
capacity in closed and semi-closed saline formations. Int. J. Greenhouse Gas Control 2(4), 626–639.

Wade Roush wrote:

There’s an unexpected transition underway at Boston-based energy management company EnerNOC (NASDAQ:ENOC) and the Cambridge, MA-based New England Clean Energy Council (NECEC). In a pair of announcements today, the organizations said that Nick d’Arbeloff, founding president of NECEC, has joined EnerNOC as vice president of enterprise energy management. Peter Rothstein, former senior vice president of the three-year old council and director of its Clean Energy Fellowship program, has been appointed as the council’s new president.

d’Arbeloff’s role at EnerNOC will be to help customers with multiple sites, such as state governments, understand how to make the most of EnerNOC’s energy management systems. (Just this month, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick announced the state will put $10 million over three years into a project using EnerNOC’s software to monitor 17 million square feet of state-owned facilities, and the company has similar contracts with Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, and Vermont.)

d’Arbeloff could not be reached immediately for comment on the move, but in a statement, he called EnerNOC “a leading player in the clean energy sector” and said “I very much look forward to bringing the power of these applications to state governments, which are constantly under pressure to derive greater efficiencies and savings from their operations.”

In the same release, EnerNOC chairman and CEO Tim Healy said the company had come to know d’Arbeloff well through his work on the Clean Energy Council. “His relentless dedication to building New England into a cornerstone of our country’s clean energy economy, coupled with his broad awareness of the energy management opportunity within a range of organizations, make him uniquely suited to this new role,” Healy said. “Nick is a great addition to our team, whose accomplishments and knowledge of the sector-combined with his passion for bringing clean energy solutions to market-will help EnerNOC continue to grow its market-leading position.”

d’Arbeloff, who will remain as co-chair of NECEC’s board, is no stranger to the private sector. Before founding NECEC, which was originally known as the Massachusetts Clean Energy Council, he was CEO and founder of sales productivity software startup Conjoin, which was acquired by Intranets in 2005. He was also vice president of marketing for Wildfire Communications, which was founded by Avid Technology founder Bill Warner and Android founder Rich Miner and acquired by Orange in 2000.

Meanwhile, Rothstein tells Xconomy that he is looking forward to leading “the next stage of growth” for NECEC. “I think Nick has done a phenomenal job as the founding president of the council,” growing its membership from an original 20 organizations to over 175 today, Rothstein says.

d’Arbeloff’s switch from a non-profit clean energy policy and advocacy group into the private sphere is not a terribly surprising one, Rothstein argues, because “We are all entrepreneurs here. I would say Nick and almost everyone who is part of the council community driven by the economic opportunities and the environmental challenges, and by the excitement of being able to bring clean energy technologies and solutions to market.”

Rothstein himself joined NECEC in 2009 from Flagship Ventures, where he was an entrepreneur in residence. He was previously the founder of Allegro Strategy, a cleantech venture development firm.

Rothstein says the next big challenges for NECEC will include reaching out to more organizations across New England with its programs for fostering clean energy innovation and workforce training. “We have been Massachusetts-centric in some ways, because we had to start at the core, but it’s been part of our plan for a while to expand and do a better job of involving all of New England in building a clean energy economy,” Rothstein says.

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UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS

At noon, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will announce the fate of a proposed offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, near Cape Cod — and The Boston Globe is reporting that Salazar will be giving the project a green light.

Cape Wind will be the country’s first offshore wind farm, and its approval marks a huge victory for clean energy advocates over NIMBY opposition and (contested) claims by a local Native American tribe that the site is sacred. Construction could begin within the next year.

From the Globe:

Horseshoe Shoals, the part of Nantucket Sound where the wind farm is proposed, is widely considered the best place along the East Coast to build a wind farm. That’s in part because the site is in shallow, sheltered waters close to shore — the nearest beach is five miles away. But it is also because it is in federal waters: Political will to build such a massive wind farm in state waters three miles from shore does not exist.

Cape Wind Associates said the wind farm could produce enough wind power to handle three-quarters of the electric needs of the Cape and Islands.

Update: In making the announcement, Salazar acknowledged that “there are people who will be unhappy with this decision,” and as a result he laid out several measures to mitigate concerns. “We are reducing the scale of the project from 170 turbines to 130 turbines to reduce the visual impact,” he said, adding that archaeological resources would be protected and efforts would be made to prevent disturbances on shore. “I believe these and other common-sense measures will allow us to strike the right balance,” he explained.

Salazar also promised that future offshore wind projects will move more quickly than Cape Wind and will not require ten years of debate.

Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) added, “This decision affirms that on balance, Cape Wind is good for our environment and good for our energy needs. … Cape Wind is also good for Massachusetts.”

This is Poseidon 37, a floating power plant with the durability of an oil rig and the efficiency to generate up to 50 gigawatts of hydro and wind power a year. I’m assuming the trident is underwater in this shot. More »

Howard Lovy wrote:

Yesterday, we ran Part 1 of my interview with Michelle Crumm, co-founder and chief business officer for fuel cell manufacturer Adaptive Materials of Ann Arbor, MI. We discussed how it took a decade of old-fashioned hard work to get to a point where the company is signing deals to supply the military with the fuel cells needed for unmanned aerial vehicles and robots helping to fight the war in Afghanistan. Today, in Part 2, Crumm talks about how, despite the 7,100 resumes she received for nine open engineering positions, the company has had difficulty finding workers who fit her company’s culture.

Xconomy: I’ve not only been reading about these recent contracts Adaptive Materials has been getting, but also the fact that you’re hiring new engineers.

Michelle Crumm: If you can put that in there, I’d love to have a great systems engineer.

X: Absolutely. You know, the way I first heard about your company was that it had been Tweeted a few times that you were on a resume-gathering blitz, looking to hire nine new engineers. How many resumes have you collected?

MC: We had 7,100 resumes during that resume blitz. We pulled in 90 people to come in for short interviews, then we pulled in 20 of those to come in for day-long interviews, and we ended up hiring five people. So, we still have four open positions that we’re trying to fill.

X: You must have a pool of a lot of qualified candidates. There are a lot of talented engineers in the area who are out of work. How was the quality of the resumes?

MC: Well, I think the biggest challenge is that there are a ton of really smart engineers out there—and some of them are employed and some of them are not employed, unfortunately. The biggest challenge is can we find the right cultural fit, and that is a lot harder than just having a smart engineer that’s out of work. You know, it’s so much bigger than that. Do they have the right attitude? Can they come in and make decisions? Are they an empowered thinker? How quickly can they learn? So, it’s all those things that we’re interviewing for. It’s the core values of the company that’s our weed-out process. They’re all intelligent, they all have their plaques on their walls, there are great, talented, wonderful people out there, but just because they’re great, talented, wonderful people does not mean that they’re a great cultural fit for our organization. We’re still small enough that every single person, you know, they have to fit in culturally. Otherwise, they can tip over the apple cart.

X: Sounds like you still have that startup mentality. People have to be flexible, think on their feet.

MC: Yes, that’s the way we hire. Our technicians out on the floor, they may have a high school diploma but they need to have a strong enough personality to push back to the engineers and say, “This is not a manufacturable design. Let’s work on this together to try to get something that I can actually put together a lot easier.” I don’t need a technician. I need a technician that’s confident enough that they can stand up for themselves, that they can talk to the engineers and work together to get these products so they design for manufacturability. So much of it is just a personality issue.

X: Let me broaden the conversation a little more and talk about the funding environment. Venture capital in this area has been pretty dismal for a while. It’s improving a little bit, maybe for early stage companies or companies right out of academia. But you’ve mentioned before that there is gap for companies like yours. What needs to be done, culturally, to change that in this area?

MC: I’ve never thought that it made sense to have venture capitalists—we always call it OPM around here, Other People’s Money. Well, Other People’s Money, to me, is something that you take …Next Page »

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Gregory T. Huang wrote:

Seattle-based EnerG2, an advanced materials and energy storage company, has raised $3.5 million in new equity financing from an undisclosed investor, according to a regulatory filing. The company, led by CEO Rick Luebbe, develops nano-scale materials to make better ultracapacitors for electric and hybrid vehicles and other applications. EnerG2 spun out of the University of Washington and raised $8.5 million led by OVP Venture Partners and Firelake Capital in 2008. Last August, the company won a $21.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a manufacturing plant in Albany, OR.

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