Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam, even from icy cold water. Researchers at the Houston, Texas university show that the solar steam method has an overall energy efficiency of 24%, whereas photovoltaic solar panels typically have an overall energy efficiency around 15%.

Environmental research web (23 November 2012):

Rice unveils super-efficient solar-energy technology

Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam. The new “solar steam” method from Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water.

Details of the solar steam method were published online today in ACS Nano. The technology has an overall energy efficiency of 24 percent. Photovoltaic solar panels, by comparison, typically have an overall energy efficiency around 15 percent. However, the inventors of solar steam said they expect the first uses of the new technology will not be for electricity generation but rather for sanitation and water purification in developing countries.

“This is about a lot more than electricity,” said LANP Director Naomi Halas, the lead scientist on the project. “With this technology, we are beginning to think about solar thermal power in a completely different way.”

The efficiency of solar steam is due to the light-capturing nanoparticles that convert sunlight into heat. When submerged in water and exposed to sunlight, the particles heat up so quickly they instantly vaporize water and create steam. Halas said the solar steam’s overall energy efficiency can probably be increased as the technology is refined.

“We’re going from heating water on the macro scale to heating it at the nanoscale,” Halas said. “Our particles are very small – even smaller than a wavelength of light – which means they have an extremely small surface area to dissipate heat. This intense heating allows us to generate steam locally, right at the surface of the particle, and the idea of generating steam locally is really counterintuitive.”

To show just how counterintuitive, Rice graduate student Oara Neumann videotaped a solar steam demonstration in which a test tube of water containing light-activated nanoparticles was submerged into a bath of ice water. Using a lens to concentrate sunlight onto the near-freezing mixture in the tube, Neumann showed she could create steam from nearly frozen water.

Steam is one of the world’s most-used industrial fluids. About 90 percent of electricity is produced from steam, and steam is also used to sterilize medical waste and surgical instruments, to prepare food and to purify water.

Most industrial steam is produced in large boilers, and Halas said solar steam’s efficiency could allow steam to become economical on a much smaller scale.

People in developing countries will be among the first to see the benefits of solar steam. Rice engineering undergraduates have already created a solar steam-powered autoclave that’s capable of sterilizing medical and dental instruments at clinics that lack electricity. Halas also won a Grand Challenges grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to create an ultra-small-scale system for treating human waste in areas without sewer systems or electricity.

“Solar steam is remarkable because of its efficiency,” said Neumann, the lead co-author on the paper. “It does not require acres of mirrors or solar panels. In fact, the footprint can be very small. For example, the light window in our demonstration autoclave was just a few square centimeters.”

Another potential use could be in powering hybrid air-conditioning and heating systems that run off of sunlight during the day and electricity at night. Halas, Neumann and colleagues have also conducted distillation experiments and found that solar steam is about two-and-a-half times more efficient than existing distillation columns.

Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, professor of physics, professor of chemistry and professor of biomedical engineering, is one of the world’s most-cited chemists. Her lab specializes in creating and studying light-activated particles. One of her creations, gold nanoshells, is the subject of several clinical trials for cancer treatment.

For the cancer treatment technology and many other applications, Halas’ team chooses particles that interact with just a few wavelengths of light. For the solar steam project, Halas and Neumann set out to design a particle that would interact with the widest possible spectrum of sunlight energy. Their new nanoparticles are activated by both visible sunlight and shorter wavelengths that humans cannot see.

“We’re not changing any of the laws of thermodynamics,” Halas said. “We’re just boiling water in a radically different way.”

Paper co-authors include Jared Day, graduate student; Alexander Urban, postdoctoral researcher; Surbhi Lal, research scientist and LANP executive director; and Peter Nordlander, professor of physics and astronomy and of electrical and computer engineering. The research was supported by the Welch Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Source: www.environmentalresearchweb.org

As Asia is told it is going to suffer greatly from a warming planet, it cannot ignore its own considerable contribution to the global problem. Coal is the biggest culprit as it’s the cheapest available fuel for many countries in Asia. It is responsible for about 40% of the world’s CO2 emissions and about a quarter of global energy needs. Almost 2,000 new coal-fired plants are being proposed worldwide, just over three-quarters in China and India alone. Michael Richardson writes that a warming climate is a threat to Asia’s rise. Read More

Warming climate threat to Asia’s rise

By Michael Richardson, for The Straits Times (26 November 2012):

A RECENT report on the humdrum subject of plans to build new coal-burning plants to generate electricity helps to explain why Asia – led by its rising economic giants, China and India – is now at the epicentre of concern about global warming and climate change.

As policymakers from nearly all over the world meet today in Doha, Qatar, for annual United Nations climate negotiations this week and next, researchers have issued fresh calls for action to reduce the relentless rise in emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity that are heating the world.

They do so as the Kyoto Protocol, the existing plan for curbing these emissions, is due to expire at the end of this year. The protocol has been ineffective because it is limited to developed nations, which no longer produce the bulk of emissions.

In addition, the United States, although it signed the UN pact, refused to ratify it.

Canada, having greatly exceeded its emission limits, withdrew from the protocol in December. Several other protocol members, including Japan, Russia and New Zealand, have indicated that they are not prepared to join a second commitment period.

Nearly 200 nations at the last UN climate conference in Durban, South Africa, nearly a year ago agreed to try to negotiate a global treaty by 2015 to limit emissions. But even if they succeed in Doha, it will not take effect until 2020.

Meanwhile, the World Bank has just issued a report warning that without further commitments and action to reduce emissions of long-lasting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that act like a heat-trapping blanket around the earth, the average temperature is likely to rise more than 3 deg C above the pre-industrial climate.

This may not seem like much. However, Mr Andrew Steer, president of the World Resources Institute (WRI), a respected climate monitoring body, notes that it took little more than 4 deg C of cooling to create the last Ice Age when much of Central Europe and the northern United States were under ice several kilometres thick.

“So imagine the havoc four degrees of warming would create,” he says.

The World Bank put it in stark terms: A 4 deg C rise “would be one of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought, and major floods in many regions, with serious impacts on ecosystems and associated services”.

Basing its projections on latest scientific research, the report concludes that if current pledges to cut greenhouse emissions are not met, a warming of 4 deg C could occur as early as the 2060s.

“Such a warming level and associated sea-level rise of 0.5m to 1m, or more, by 2100 would not be the end point: a further warming to levels over 6 deg C, with several metres of sea-level rise, would likely occur over the following centuries.”

With many cities, millions of people and major farming and other economic activities in low- lying coastal areas, Asia could be crippled by such developments.

The World Bank says that India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam all have cities that are “highly vulnerable” to sea-level rise.

The UN climate change negotiators agreed two years ago that the average global temperature should not be allowed to rise by more than 2 deg C. It has already risen by about 0.8 deg C since 1750, mainly as a result of burning coal, oil and natural gas to drive economic growth, and clearing forests to expand agriculture and cities.

In its annual report on global warming, the World Meteorological Organisation, a UN agency, said last week that the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere reached a new record high last year.

It also said that the warming effect of carbon dioxide and other gases had increased by 30 per cent between 1990 and 2011.

Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas. It is responsible for 85 per cent of the warming effect on the earth’s climate over the past decade.

This is where coal burning and Asia comes in. Coal is responsible for about 40 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. But because coal is the cheapest available fuel for many countries in Asia and some other fast-growing parts of the world, it provides about a quarter of global energy needs and generates almost 40 per cent of the electricity.

A recent WRI research report found that of almost 2,000 new coal-fired plants being proposed worldwide, just over three-quarters were in China and India alone.

Of course, not all these plants may actually be built. But the International Energy Agency says that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) for electricity generation, transport and industry hit a record level last year, despite the rapid expansion of renewable energy.

It predicts total energy-related emissions will rise by more than 20 per cent by 2035.

The climate change consequences of a dangerously warmer world would be particularly severe for the tropics with higher rates of disease and crop damage expected, according to the World Bank.

Even though absolute warming would be largest in high latitudes, the heating that would occur in the tropics would be relatively bigger when compared with the historical range of temperature and extremes to which human and natural ecosystems have adapted and coped.

The World Bank report says that sea-level rises are likely to be 15 to 20 per cent higher in the tropics than the global mean, cyclones disproportionately intense, and aridity and drought likely to increase substantially in many developing country regions in tropical and subtropical zones.

Asian policymakers attending the latest UN climate negotiations in Doha can’t say they haven’t been warned.

Michael Richardson is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

Source: www.iseas.edu.sg

Spanish cleantech company Abengoa has completed 80% of a 280MW solar thermal plant in near Phoenix, Arizona in the United States. The Solana facility will be one of the largest in the world to use parabolic trough technology when it is fully-operational in the middle of 2013. It includes a six hour energy storage capacity, allowing the plant can continue to produce power on cloudy days or after the sunset. Read More

Solana, the largest solar power plant in the world

New Energy World Network (29 November 2012):

Solana, the largest solar power plant in the world

Spanish cleantech company Abengoa has completed 80 per cent of a 280MW solar thermal plant in Arizona.

The Solana facility will be one of the largest in the world to use parabolic trough technology when it is fully-operational in the middle of 2013.

It includes a six hour energy storage capacity, meaning the plant can continue to produce power on cloudy days or after the sunset.

Once completed, the array will be comprised of 32,000 collectors, powering 70,000 homes and reducing annual carbon emissions by 470,000 tonnes.

The project is supported by a Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee worth $1.45bn, which facilitated fundraising with the Federal Financing Bank.

Source: www.newenergyworldnetwork.com

Background information from Abengoa Solana:

Solana, one of the largest solar power plants in the world, is a 280 megawatt (MW) parabolic trough plant with six hours of thermal storage. The plant will be located 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona. Construction began at the end of 2010 and Solana will begin operation in 2013.

Abengoa Solar received a federal loan guarantee from the U.S Government in the amount of $1.45 billion, which facilitated the financial closing with the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) and the start of the plant´s construction.

Solana, using parabolic trough technology, will have six hours of molten salt thermal energy storage, which will allow energy to be dispatched as needed during cloudy periods and after sunset. Solana, therefore, will be able to generate electricity well into the evening to help meet the summer peak demand for air conditioning.

Environmental – social – economic benefits

Solana´s production will be the equivalent of energy needed to serve 70,000 households and will prevent 475,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year, as compared to a natural gas plant.

The construction of Solana will create 1,600 – 1,700 new jobs and over 85 permanent jobs. Also, the construction and operation of the plant will generate thousands of indirect jobs.

From an environmental perspective, Solana will provide Arizona citizens with clean, pollution and greenhouse gas free energy. At the same time, Solana will reduce Arizona’s need for fossil-fuel based energy generation, eliminating nearly 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere each year. These reductions will contribute to Arizona state goals for renewable energy deployment as well as national targets to reduce the negative impact of climate change.

Source: www.abengoasolar.com

Here’s the 2010 pre Christmas story from The Arizona Republic:

Arizonans don’t need to wait for New Year’s to toast the future. We can raise a glass now to a giant solar plant that will finally go into construction.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Energy finalized a $1.45 billion loan guarantee for Abengoa Solar’s Solana project near Gila Bend.

The plant, which will sell all its power to Arizona Public Service, had been stalled for lack of financing when credit dried up during the recession. The loan guarantee unlocked the gears and won’t cost taxpayers a dime if the loan is repaid as planned.

And what benefits it can bring.

Solana offers the clean energy, jobs and economic vitality that Arizona needs right now. Getting some good publicity for a change is an added bonus.

This will be the world’s largest concentrating solar-power plant, using the sun’s heat to generate electricity for up to 70,000 households. It will be able to produce energy for up to six hours when the sun isn’t shining, thanks to an innovative molten-salt system for storing heat.

Solana will create up to 1,700 construction jobs and 85 permanent ones.

A mirror-manufacturing factory, with nearly 180 workers, will be built in Surprise. That positions Arizona to become a supplier for future solar plants.

The Arizona Corporation Commission set the stage for this pace-setting project by adopting a renewable-energy standard, which lays out targets and provides support with a small surcharge on electric bills.

Source:  www.azcentral.com

Despite an uptick in business activity, some of the world’s top-earning companies are managing to reduce their carbon footprints. Five of the six highest-ranked companies — Unilever, UPS, Nike, Levi Strauss and L’Oreal — showed year-over-year revenue growth while reducing their total emissions across some or all of their business units, according to the Climate Counts 2012-2013 Annual Company Scorecard.

Unilever, UPS, Nike lead efforts to address climate change

By Kristine A. Wong Green Biz.com (5 December 2012):

Despite an uptick in business activity — which might be expected to result in higher emissions — some of the world’s top-earning companies are managing to reduce their carbon footprints, according to a new report.

Five of the six highest-ranked companies — Unilever, UPS, Nike, Levi Strauss and L’Oreal — showed year-over-year revenue growth from 2010 to 2011 while reducing their total emissions across some or all of their business units, according to the Climate Counts 2012-2013 Annual Company Scorecard report, released Wednesday. It ranks major consumer brands on their efforts to address climate change. (GreenBiz Executive Editor Joel Makower sits on Climate Counts’ board of directors).

The Durham, N.H.-based organization analyzed public data from 145 companies for its sixth annual report. AB Electrolux, IBM, Bank of America, Stonyfield Farm, Hewlett-Packard, Coca-Cola Company, Groupe Danone, Sony, Siemens and Reckitt-Benckiser rounded out the top-ranked companies. Alongside the toys, children’s products and fast food industries, Amazon, Viacom and Wendy’s were among the worst performers.

“The fact that a lot of major corporations are showing the signs of sustainable growth and cutting overall emissions is of huge significance,” Mike Bellamente, Climate Counts director, told GreenBiz. “Companies are getting back on their feet but they’re able to do so with more of what we need to do for climate change.”

Companies were evaluated on 22 criteria, including the extent to which they conducted a greenhouse gas emissions review, whether they developed a plan to reduce their emissions, and whether those reductions were achieved. They were also scored on their stances on climate and energy policy, as well as on public disclosures of their sustainability performance.

Sixty-six percent of the companies had developed public climate and energy strategies, compared to 25 percent in 2007. Bellamente attributed this growth to an increased ability for companies to make the business case for sustainability, especially in light of extreme weather events over the past few years such as Hurricane Sandy, the Midwestern drought and floods in the U.K.

“They say that there’s real risk and that it’s disrupting business from a continuity standpoint,” Bellamente said, “and want to invest in renewable energy for the sake of mitigating risks. … They’re having a conversation with their suppliers and are being more forthright as to why it’s important for them [suppliers] to measure their emissions.”

Only a handful of brands have developed energy and climate change strategies for moral reasons, Bellamente said, citing Unilever and its Ben & Jerry’s brand, Levi Strauss and Timberland in this category.

Top-ranked Unilever achieved a score of 91 out of 100 possible points, the highest score ever awarded since the first Climate Counts report was released in 2007, while an unprecedented number of companies (15) achieved scores of 85 or higher this year.

“Never before has it been so important for business to step up its leadership to address both the causes and the impacts of climate change,” said Paul Polman, CEO of U.K.-based Unilever. “Ordinary people are increasingly suffering the effects of extreme weather events and the associated food and water shortages. They are expecting us to be responsible in helping them to manage these challenges.”

A short list of the most improved and the least improved companies from 2007 to 2012 provided context to the rankings. eBay, Clorox and Levi Strauss were identified as the top three companies demonstrating what the report described as “noticeable progress.” Siemens, Avon and Molson Coors Brewing Company were also included in the “most improved” group.

Amazon, Wendy’s and Viacom have shown the least progress since 2007, the report found. “To the extent that these companies are embracing sustainability, there continues to be little publicly available evidence to suggest that they are measuring, reducing and reporting their GHG emissions,” it read. Scores for the other companies on the “least improved” list — Burger King, apparel company Liz Claiborne and McDonald’s — took a downwards turn by the end of the 2007-2012 period.

The clear loser in the report was the toys and children’s products industry. Out of the eight companies that scored zero points, six of the eight were from this category, making it the lowest-scoring sector. Industry leader Hasbro, however, was given a score of 73.

The fast food industry also performed poorly, with Wendy’s and Burger King scoring in single digits (5 and 2 respectively) and McDonald’s at 14.

And despite Apple’s score of 62, it ranked at the bottom of its 14 peers in the technology sector. IBM led with a score of 86. But in the Internet/software category, Apple landed just two points behind Google, which was the top-ranked company in that sector with a score of 64. At the other end of the spectrum, prominent online professional network LinkedIn received a score of zero in the

Bellamente said that lack of industry and consumer pressure in the worst-performing sectors was responsible for their poor scores.

“[The climate] is just not on their strategic radar,” Bellamente said of the fast food industry. He said consumers are asking these companies to perform with better nutrition levels in their products instead of taking action on climate issues: “It hasn’t affected their industry negatively enough [for them] to report on their emission levels.”

“The same goes for the toys and children’s products industry,” he added. “Their first order of business is to make sure the children are safe. You’ve got a lot of companies that manufacture abroad that don’t have regulations that make sustainability as much of a science as here,” he said.

But Hasbro and Lego have both increased their Climate Count scores by double digits, he said.

Next year, Bellamente expects more companies to look at the consumer end and the downstream effect of how their footprint can be managed through R&D, similar to the way Unilever approaches sustainability.

“At Unilever, everyone in the company has a sustainability target — from the guy who makes the shampoo to the guy who makes the shampoo packaging,” he said. “You’ll start to see more of that embedded into organizations.”

Top-tier ranked companies (scores in parentheses):

Unilever (91)

UPS (89)

Nike (89)

Levi Strauss (87)

L’Oreal (87)

AB Electrolux (87)

IBM (86)

Bank of America (86)

Stonyfield Farm (86)

Hewlett-Packard (85)

Coca-Cola Company (85)

Groupe Danone (85)

Sony (85)

Siemens (85)

Reckitt-Benckiser (85)

Sector leaders (scores in parentheses):

Airlines: Lufthansa (77)

Apparel/Accessories: Nike (89)

Banks: Bank of America (86)

Beer: Heineken (79)

Consumer Shipping: UPS (89)

Food Products: Unilever (91)

Food Services: Starbucks (69)

Home and Office: Herman Miller (66)

Hotels: Marriott (70)

Household Products: L’Oreal (87)

Internet/Software: Google (64)

Large Appliances: AB Electrolux (87)

Media: News Corporation (67)

Pharmaceuticals: Johnson & Johnson (82)

Technology (formerly Electronics): IBM (86)

Toys & Children’s Equipment: Hasbro (73)

For a full copy of the 2012-2013 report, visit the Climate Counts website.

GreenBiz Associate Editor Kristine A. Wong is a multimedia journalist who became an editor and reporter after working for environmental and public health organizations in the Bay Area and Seattle for over 10 years. She has a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. Follow Kristine on Twitter: @wongkxt

http://www.greenbiz.com and www.climatecounts.org

The Cleantech Open has awarded HEVT of Chicago, Illinois, the Grand Prize “Cleanie” award, which is bestowed on the Top Cleantech Entrepreneur of 2012, for its  game-changing motor technologies that feature smart software and hardware to empower the next generation of electric motors. Biosyntia  of Denmark won the Global Ideas Competition for its high-performance cell factories for fermentation of fine chemicals for manufacturing companies, enabling them to cut production costs by up to 80%, while gaining a greener profile. Read More

Cleantech Open Announces Winners of 2012 National Accelerator and Global Ideas Competition

REDWOOD CITY, California (13 November 2012):

The Cleantech Open, the world’s largest cleantech accelerator, has awarded HEVT of Chicago, Illinois, the Grand Prize “Cleanie” award, which is bestowed on the Top Cleantech Entrepreneur of 2012. HEVT has developed game-changing motor technologies that feature smart software and hardware to empower the next generation of electric motors. Rentricity of New York was runner-up, with its clean, renewable hydrokinetic energy-recovery technology for drinking water, wastewater, and industrial infrastructure.

The announcements were made at the Cleantech Open Global Forum — the “Academy Awards of Clean Technology,” which marked the grand finale of this year’s Cleantech Open Accelerator, as well as the culmination of the 2012 Cleantech Open Global Ideas Competition. More than 1,000 cleantech professionals, including companies from this year’s program and previous years’ Cleantech Open Accelerators, along with mentors, venture capitalists, and large corporate representatives, attended the two-day festival of cleantech innovation and entrepreneurship, which was held in San Jose, California.

Four other finalist teams won a Cleanie in their respective categories:

•Air-Water-Waste — Red Ox Systems, whose Electrochemical Desalination Cell treats wastewater from oil and gas wells where is it produced, obviating the need to truck it around the country.

•Energy Efficiency — SiNode, whose advanced Li-ion battery technology enables a cell phone to charge up in minutes and last for days.

•Green Building — GR Green, which has patented a process to produce roofing tiles from recycled plastic and limestone.

•Renewable Energy — Rentricity, for its clean, renewable hydrokinetic energy-recovery technology for drinking water, wastewater, and industrial infrastructure.

“Congratulations to the 2012 winners and finalists, which represent the best in early-stage cleantech innovation and viable solutions to some of the world’s toughest challenges,” said Rex Northen, executive director of the Cleantech Open. “I would also like to express our huge appreciation of our sponsors, who make the Cleantech Open possible, and to thank the army of volunteers who power the world’s largest cleantech accelerator.”

“Our partnership with the Cleantech Open allows complementary assets to be leveraged, accelerating the commercialization of advanced technologies that will benefit our economy, and potentially, our base business,” said David Stone, senior vice president at Chevron Energy Solutions.

2012 Cleantech Open Global Ideas winner

For the fourth year, cleantech innovations from around the world were also featured at the Cleantech Open in a separate competition. The Cleantech Open Global Ideas Competition looks to find ‘big ideas’ by working at a grass-roots level, and supporting and fostering those ideas through Cleantech Open partner organizations worldwide. Orchestrated in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week, startups from around the world competed in their respective countries for national awards, with the national winners facing off at the Global Forum for a prize worth $100,000 in startup services. This year, more than 1,000 applications were submitted in more than 30 countries, with finalist teams from 11 countries traveling to compete at the Global Forum. Six teams were then selected to present to a final jury of investors and technology experts:

•Biosyntia – Denmark (Energy Efficiency). Biosyntia offers high-performance cell factories for fermentation of fine chemicals for manufacturing companies, enabling them to cut production costs by up to 80%, while gaining a greener profile.

•BRD Motorcycles – USA (Transportation). BRD builds better motorcycles – faster, easier, prettier and more economical – that happen to be electric. Our first product, the 2013 RedShift motocrosser, has been called “the first electric to demonstrate a clear superiority over its gas predecessors.”

•enLighten – Australia (Energy Efficiency). enLighten Australia designs and supplies highly efficient LED lighting for commercial, industrial and residential strata applications, reducing energy consumption by up to 93 percent compared with traditional fluorescent lighting.

•Lumos – Israel (Renewable Energy). Lumos brings affordable energy to 1.5B people in the off-grid world by providing a “home power station in a box” — a new type of solar panel that allows users to purchase electricity on demand using their mobile phone.

•Solar Mobility – Dominican Republic (Transportation). Solar Mobility’s vision is to enable the replacement of fossil fuel transportation with solar powered vehicles, by providing disruptive, 8 minutes, low cost charging technology; introducing new trends in the transportation industry and new business models.

•SP3H – France (Transportation). SP3H provides optical analysis through a small device installed in engines for fuel quality and specificity (carbon chain analysis). This enables allows a drastic reduction in consumption and pollution by dynamically adapting the parameters of the motor.

A panel of expert judges determined the winner: Biosyntia of Denmark. Runners-up were SP3H of France and BRD Motorcycles of the USA.

Kevin Braithwaite, chair of the Cleantech Open Global Ideas Competition commented: “It is no coincidence that the winning team came from a country that is very supportive of entrepreneurship, technological innovation and environmental innovation. It was a very close final but for the second time in the competition’s history, entrepreneurial scientists and engineers from Denmark have risen to the top. We are truly excited about the diversity and strength of teams that we saw from around the world this year and look forward to working with many of them over the months and years to come.”

2012 Alumni Award winner

Each year, the 2012 Alumni Award recognizes a Cleantech Open alumnus company that achieved significant momentum during the year. To determine the winner, several factors are assessed, including funding, customer acquisition, and successful customer implementation. This year, the Alumni Award was awarded to Dragonfly Solutions, which won the sustainability award in the 2011 Rocky Mountain competition.

Dragonfly Solutions is helping schools discover new sources of revenue through projects focused on energy efficiency and renewable energy. Dragonfly’s School Energy Efficiency Development (SEED) program provides cash rewards to schools for measured energy savings. It also creates new revenue streams through proven energy-saving technologies and public-finance options that create net revenue generation.

This year, Dragonfly signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Ypsilanti School District and has several other contracts pending. The company also established channel partnerships with two national corporations (School Energy Partners and Environmental Certificate Exchange) to market and sell its Environmental Certificates, and has grown its salesforce in every state as well as in Australia.

2012 National Sustainability Award winner

The Cleantech Open’s Sustainability Program strives to highlight the relevance of sustainability and promote sustainable business principles and practices throughout all Cleantech Open activities. The primary goal is to give all the teams in the competition the tools and motivation to embed sustainability into every aspect of their company. Each team receives specific mentoring to ensure triple-bottom-line business practices are considered during business planning, and embedded into all aspects of the organizations’ operations. Teams are judged on how well they describe and quantify the net environmental, economic and social benefits/impacts of their cleantech application, and how well does the team describe and quantify the environmental, economic, and social responsibility and impacts of their operations in manufacturing and providing their technology or service.

This year’s National Sustainability Award goes to Sustainable Systems International for its excellent alignment of business goals with an overall sustainability strategy. Runner-up: RideScout, which scored well for developing and integrating the plans, policies and programs that align its business with the requirements and protocols of a number of global standards and best practices, such as governance, transparency, and alternative transportation.

ABOUT THE CLEANTECH OPEN

The Cleantech Open runs the world’s largest cleantech accelerator. Its mission is to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental and economic challenges. A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, the Cleantech Open provides the infrastructure, expertise and strategic relationships that turn clever ideas into successful global cleantech companies. Since 2006, through its one-of-a-kind annual business competition and mentorship program, the Cleantech Open has enabled 581 clean-technology startups to bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition, helped its alumni companies raise over $660M in external capital, and created thousands of green-collar jobs. Fueled by a global network of more than 1,000 volunteers and sponsors, the Cleantech Open unites the public and private sectors in a shared vision for making America’s and the world’s cleantech sectors a thriving economic engine. For more information, visit www.cleantechopen.org, or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

The Cleantech Open is made possible by the generous support provided by our Global Partner, Chevron; National Education Partner, University of Phoenix; and National Sponsors, PARC and Wells Fargo. Regional competitions are additionally sponsored by the following corporate partners: Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, Deloitte, Google, The Dow Chemical Company, Faegre Baker Daniels, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Walmart, Patton Boggs, Commercial Energy, Mintz Levin, PG&E, Reed Smith, and many others.

Source: www.cleantechopen.com

Sometimes it helps to stop and think about the contribution each of us makes to life on earth and the state of the planet. We are quick to judge others – particularly big companies and industries for their more obvious pollution – that we fail to check our own footprint. A carbon stock take was in order, so Sunday Times (Singapore) journalist Linda Collins thought she would check out whether she was wise to “Ditch the car and save the planet”.  Maybe it will encourage a few more of us to measure and manage our energy use and emissions.

By Linda Collins in Sunday Times Singapore (2 December 2012)

Next year I will mark 20 years of living in Singapore without a car. It will have been 20 years getting around on public transport.

Sure, I have saved money doing this instead of buying a car. But it has also meant years of inconvenience, waiting in wind and rain for buses; years of tousled hair, rumpled clothes and sensible shoes; years of social snubs when I haven’t flaunted that four-wheeled badge of “success”.

Amid this, I have been driven by one thought – at least I am doing my bit to save the planet. Cue smug mission statement: I believe individuals, as consumers and citizens, should take responsibility for contributing to a better environment.

And yet, has going without a car for so long actually done anything to help “save the planet”?

I did some calculations to see if I might have contributed to being part of the solution instead of part of the problem of global warming – the 0.8 deg C rise in the earth’s temperature within the past 100 years.

Many (not all) scientists attribute this to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels. (The others reckon it is just Mother Earth belching it naturally.) By driving cars which use petrol, say the Al Gore camp of boffins, we release heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In my back-of-the-envelope calculations, I worked out how many kilometres I have travelled in Singapore over the past 20 years by bus – in my case, more convenient than the MRT. I then multiplied that by the carbon emissions emitted if I had used a car instead. It helps that Singapore is a small island and I am an unadventurous person with a tragically regular weekly routine.

For about eight years, my main travel was by bus between Holland Village and Kim Seng Road, and once a week to Orchard Road and back. For the rest, it has been from home in Clementi to work in Toa Payoh, and once a week to local shops by bus.

Allowing for one month a year away overseas on holiday (here I allow myself some excitement), over 20 years, my bus travel amounts to 79,720km. That is a huge distance not undertaken by a gas-guzzling car.

A large passenger car emits an average of 258g of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilometre, going by the US’ Environmental Protection Agency figures. So if I had used a car during those 20 years, I would have pumped out a massive 20.5 tonnes of hot air in and around Singapore.

Just think, 20 tonnes of that nasty colourless CO2 stuff that could have been wafting around the PIE and gradually rising above HDB blocks, above the Singapore Flyer, above Marina Bay Sands and then higher, above the planes descending into Changi, above Singapore, Asia even, to wherever bad gas goes when it won’t die.

Important but boring scientific note: Many gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, are involved in creating global warming but scientists say that carbon dioxide is one of the main baddies (except they use some other term). So surely, in my small way, I have done my fair share, haven’t I?

Not so fast. What about all that air travel I have made over the years, visiting relatives in New Zealand? I entered some figures in the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s carbon footprint calculator, and a round trip direct flight from Singapore to Christchurch generates about 1.3 tonnes of CO2. One trip a year for 20 years equals 26 tonnes.

Oh dear. The inconvenient truth – I have saved the planet from 20 tonnes of CO2 by going carless, but I have contributed 26 tonnes by flying. It was almost enough to make me want to go out and buy a car (well, a hybrid one at least). Do they give out carbon credits retrospectively? If so, perhaps I could put that towards the deposit.

On the other hand, perhaps I am being too hard on myself. The air travel was for the essential reason of seeing family, and even in the more recent days of Skype, there is only so much screen-to-screen contact a relationship can handle.

And what is a wannabe tree-hugger to do? After all, those climate-change scientists seem to be forever jetting off to conferences here and there without a qualm, generating hot air on many levels, I might point out.

Meanwhile, there was still one figure I had to account for – the carbon emissions from the buses I travelled on. I had been reluctant to do this, wanting to cling to the moral high ground of not being one of those car users who often travel in solitary but “un-eco-friendly” splendour. But the fact is, buses do use fuel and the residue of that stuff goes somewhere.

Happily, the result was a greenie victory for me. Bus company SMRT, on a website for its Go Green campaign in 2010, says that when travelling by bus, your carbon footprint is 73g per passenger kilometre. So my 25km bus journey to work in Toa Payoh from Clementi results in 1.825kg of CO2 emitted, against a choking 6.4kg by car.

Bottom line: Over 20 years, using a car to get around in Singapore would have resulted in 20 tonnes of carbon emitted. Using a bus emitted 5.8 tonnes. I’ll be keeping my ez-link card for a while yet, then.

Helping my numbers look good is the fact that Singapore’s buses appear to be very energy-efficient, probably due to things like frequent fleet upgrades, diesel use, adopting engines that comply with high eco-standards, and those go-faster stripes down the side. (I made that last one up). Most Internet carbon footprint sites attribute buses with higher CO2 output than Singapore’s. Carbon Independent, for example, puts London buses at a dirty 90g a kilometre, on just fuel alone.

Kudos, then, to Singapore’s public transport planners, for being smart and doing the numbers. Targeting fuel efficiency in buses in high- population cities is very sensible. I am a living example of how this can work.

Just think, thanks to me, you are breathing a little easier. Well, perhaps that is a slight exaggeration. But I am doing my bit for the planet, one bus trip at a time. Now, if only we all could do something about that non-greenie globe-trotting.

Source: www.sph.com.sg