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While we appear tantalizingly close to having all-electric and extended range electric vehicles (EREVs) on the road very, very soon, thanks to advances in lithium ion batteries, how close are we to having utility scale electrical storage? Since the storage capacity of EV batteries range from 10+ kWh (for EREVs) to 50+ kWh for all electric EVs, clearly there is significant opportunities for EV owners to use their cars as micro-utilities, buying power during off-peak and selling power during peak. In aggregate, along with providing utility scale electrical storage, EVs may eventually eliminate peaks – charging and discharging intelligently and autonomously to smooth demand through daily and weekly cycles – saving their owners money and absorbing all the sudden wind energy the weather has to offer.

A helpful place to get up to speed on utility scale electricity storage is from the website of the Northern California based Electricity Storage Association (ESA) – they have a good survey of electrical storage technologies that deliver solutions at the 1.0+ megawatt-hour scale. From their data and elsewhere, here are some of the technologies that look particularly interesting:

“Pumped storage,” has been used for decades, and consists of two water reservoirs, a lower one and an upper one. When there is excess power on the grid, water is pumped up to the upper reservoir, and when there is demand on the grid, this water is released through hydroelectric turbines to provide electricity. This process is 70-85 percent efficient, meaning that up to 85% of the electricity that is harvested and stored through pumping water uphill can be recovered when the water is later released down through the turbine generators. Probably the most conventional and proven technology for large scale electricity storage, ESA estimates over 90 gigawatts of charge/discharge capacity are in place worldwide. The biggest problem with pumped storage is there are a shortage of useful sites for this technology to work. Ref. ESA’s “Technologies: Pumped Hydro Storage”.

Another very interesting technology is compressed air energy storage (CAES), which has been getting kicked around for years. On a large scale, this technology has been proposed to be used in tandem with a natural gas turbine, greatly improving the efficiency by eliminating the need to compress the air feeding the turbine. According to ESA’s “Technologies: CAES” webpage, the first commercial CAES facility was a 290 MW unit built in Hundorf, Germany in 1978. The second commercial CAES was a 110 MW unit built in McIntosh, Alabama in 1991. But there doesn’t appear to be anything built on a large scale since then.

The third technology that is quite interesting is the “flow battery.” As Wikipedia’s Flow Batteries definition puts it, “A flow battery is a form of rechargable battery in which electrolyte containing one or more dissolved electroactive species flows through a power cell / reactor that converts chemical energy to electricity. Additional electrolyte is stored externally, generally in tanks, and is usually pumped through the cell (or cells) of the reactor, although gravity feed systems are also known. Flow batteries can be rapidly “recharged” by replacing the electrolyte liquid (in a similar way to refilling fuel tanks for internal combustion engines) while simultaneously recovering the spent material for re-energization.”

According to ESA, there are three flow battery technologies, the Polysulfide Bromide Flow Battery, the Vanadium Redox Flow Battery, and the Zinc Bromine Flow Battery. All three of these flow battery technologies are in various stages of development. The apparent leader in Vanadium Redox Flow batteries is VRB Power Systems Technology located in British Colombia. One of their projects (ref. Tapbury / Sorne Hill), a 12 megawatt storage system to buffer a wind farm in Donegal, Ireland. Two leaders in Zinc Bromine Flow technology are Massachusetts based Premium Power, and ZBB Energy Corporation located in Wisconsin. Both of these companies have modular units that deliver up to 100 kilowatt-hours of electricity storage, and are designed to last for decades.

Whether or not our electrical grid shifts to requiring literally gigawatt-hours of electricity storage depends on four interrelated strategic variables that impact all green technology – political, scientific/climate, economic, and technological. For example, the decision to deploy potentially far more expensive electricity storage units on the grid in order to save solar energy harvested during the solar peak to deliver electricity during the demand peak may be a political one, since constructing additional natural gas fired peaking plants would also help meet peak demand for electricity.

Can electricity storage solutions become so inexpensive they can compete with conventional buffering technologies such as quick start natural gas power plants? Probably not. How far electricity storage goes as an industry will depend not just on how storage technology develops, but also to what extent the political decision is made to eliminate dependance on fossil fuel altogether.

Nobody likes to admit it, but there is one thing everyone has in common: Urination. It is just one of the many “benefits” associated with being alive, in addition to sweating, sneezing, coughing and shedding dead skin cells. The body excretes an array of substances, whether we like it or not. Excusing one’s self to relieve the bladder from part of the 800-1000ml of fluid that pass through the organ every day may be embarrassing, but the water wasted flushing away the urine is an even more controversial topic.

Toilettes and urinals use an average of 25% of a building’s water supply, while a leaky toilet adds to the problem; wasting up to 200 liters of water a day. Water free urinals are the next step in the world of resource management. Falcon Waterfree Technology, developed environmentally friendly urinal stations with the knowledge that a typical urinal wastes about 151,000 liters of water a year.

The idea of a water free urinal may sound unhygienic, but learning about the design will put any concerns to rest: Urine flows through a funnel shaped cartridge placed at the urinal’s base. Once past the funnel, the urine is separated from the environment by a ‘sealant’ that floats on top of the urine (like oil on water) and proceeds to flow downwards, to the drain. The air tight ring and sealant within the cartridge prevent any odors from escaping while uric waste is collected by this patented device. This ensures clean pipes and a clean smelling environment.

It is also important to note that settled water is a prime breeding ground for bacteria. Without this water there, there is no spot for the bacteria to multiply.

Falcon explains that the process “saves 100% of the water going through urinals, and therefore, 100% of the water and sewer charges. There is very little maintenance cost on a Falcon urinal as there are no moving parts and no flushometer. Drain lines remain free of calcification as no hard water is running through them. The only maintenance is an easy change of the cartridge, performed approximately three to four times per year.”

At around $300-600 per urinal, the technology pays for itself. Users of water free urinals claim to save anywhere from $100-200 per year with regards to water and maintinence costs.

It also helps to know that after using one of these hands-free and flush-free devices, no harm has come to the environment. It definitely feels good to “pee green” (catchy term used by a Falcon representative).

Brazil’s Cerrado (translated to mean “inaccessible”) is thought to be the most biodiverse savannah in the world. Giant anteaters, armadillos, pampas deer, cougars, macaws and howler monkeys are just a few of the animals that make their homes here.

The maned wolf is one of the more unique species living in the region. This animal has a striking appearance, often compared to a fox on stilts with a bushy mane. As these solitary animals stalk their prey in this hot and relatively humid area, stepping on ancient soil and brushing past tall grasses, termites and leaf cutter ants diligently toil away around them.

Cerrado’s woodlands, now making up 21% of Brazil, are shrinking as the area is being converted to farmland. In an attempt to study the area in detail, scientist from Conservation International (CI) and various Brazilian Universities found 14 undocumented species in the Serra Geral do Tocantins Ecological Station and 440 species of vertebrates as a whole.

The most notable animals discovered last month, during this 29 day expedition, included a legless lizard, dwarf woodpecker and rough skinned horned toad. The snake-like lizard uses its pointed snout to make its way through the sandy soil of the Serra Geral. Legs would make this a less efficient process.

Excellent photos of these animals can be found on the National Geographic website.

It is always exciting to discover new species, especially ones that have evolved unique adaptations to adjust to their environment. It is also a reminder of how important it is to conserve sufficient portions of these areas before we lose more animals we never even knew existed.

There are several reasons to question the inordinate emphasis on anthropogenic CO2 that continues to grip media, political and corporate elites. Initially we were concerned because the pronouncements we were hearing in the media were almost always gross overstatements of reality.

Such observations lead us to publish debunking posts such as:

• Antarctic Ice
• Greenland’s Ice Cap
• Greenland’s Ice Melting Slowly
• Dams & Greenhouse Gas
• Inconvenient Questions
• Hottest Year, 1934
• Arctic Cooling on Schedule
• Global Warming Questions
• Antarctica’s Ice Mass

Another concern we had early on was regarding the way “deniers” were being treated. Apparently something as complex and chaotic as the global climate system is now operating in a predictive manner according to recently constructed and constantly updated computer models, and believing this is now a “moral issue.” This virulent anti-skeptic mentality undermines fundamental values of science and journalism, and bodes ill for freedom of expression and democracy. Even if skeptics are dead wrong, they don’t deserve to be demonized for questioning a scientific theory.

So as a matter of principle, we published:

• Global Warming Skeptics
• Let Skeptics be Skeptics
• Vaclav Klaus & the U.N.
• Carbon Fundamentalism
• Greens & James Inhofe

A little later it became clear – in many ways – that negative unintended consequences accompany this emphasis on reducing CO2 emissions at all costs. Most ominous is how “the alarm industry” utterly dwarfs the voices of moderation and restraint.

Trying to get our arms around this, we published:

• Eating the Planet
• Filthy Air With Less CO2
• Biofuel Monocultures (soon to become genetically engineered carbon absorption monocultures)
• Global Warming Litigation
• Biofueled Global Warming
• Incandescent Power Grab
• Biofuel or Biohazard
• Emission Trading Tyranny
• Why Homes Aren’t Affordable
• California’s Deficit
• Unions Aren’t Green
• Liberal Fascism
• Unions, Ideals vs. Reality

So global warming, in our view, is being overhyped, skeptics are being demonized, and there are huge unintended negative consequences to pursuing anti-global warming policies. But is global warming even happening? Is it really an existential crisis? Here is where the noise coming from the alarm industry really becomes frightening – because there is possibly no basis whatsoever for global warming alarm. Recent findings continue to belie the claims of the alarmists; read CO2 & Global Warming and Aquabirds & Aquabuoys for some of the most recent observational data.

There are a growing number of climate scientists and meteorologists who are stepping forward and challenging the global warming alarm, but you wouldn’t know it if all you did was watch network news. Check these recent examples:

Physicist F. James Cripwell, a former scientist with UK’s Cavendish Laboratory:
“Now we have two papers, Smith et al in Science and Keenlyside in Nature saying that there will be a pause in this rise for a number of years, but then the accumulated effects of AGW will come back with a vengence, and temperatures will reach the levels predicted by the IPCC. The idea of AGW seems to be that a number of joules of heat fail to be radiated into space, and accumulate on earth; I call these “AGW joules”. They are said to heat the earth’s surface. However, if the earth is not heating up, and the AGW joules are accumulating, then they must be heating up something else; they have to “hide” somewhere. The only place that I can see that they can hide is in the deep oceans. For the warmaholics this seems to be enough; there is another hypothesis. But is this good enough for serious scientists?” (Source)

Meteorologist Karl Bohnak of WLUC TV6 in Michigan:
“My views are counter to the consensus view that “mainstream” media repeatedly bombards us with. That does NOT mean I do not care about the environment. For many years I kept silent on this issue; no more. The misinformation, exaggeration and alarmist tone to network news stories about GW has, in my opinion, gone over the line from objective journalism to advocacy. The derogatory labels and downright libelous characterization of scientists with views counter to the “consensus” is appalling.” (Source)

Geologist David Archibald of Summa Development Limited in Australia:
“Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, but the effect is strongly logarithmic. The first 20 ppm achieves 1.5 degrees of heating, but it takes more than another 400 ppm to equal that. By the time we get to the current level of 384 ppm, carbon dioxide is tuckered out as a greenhouse gas. From here, every 100 ppm extra may be worth 0.1 of a degree. So how does the IPCC achieve 5 degrees of heating from a doubling of the pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide to 560 ppm? They do it by cheating. Their computer models are written so that a little bit of carbon dioxide-caused heating puts more water vapour in the air. Water vapour is the major greenhouse gas, so they have the heating compounding away until they get a number that will melt icecaps, kill polar bears and all the other effects of their apocalyptic visions. Their view of the Earth’s climate is that it is tremendously unstable, prone to thermal runaway at the slightest provocation. In fact it is the opposite, a buffered system that dampens disturbances.” (Source)

These are just a few examples from what has become a growing chorus, one that will not be silenced much longer. It has never been our charter to be a forum on global warming, but perhaps it should be, since so much is at stake. Not only are environmentalist priorities hopelessly skewed thanks to global warming alarm, but our rights and freedoms are being systematically obliterated.

The African Hyena

In California, public employees make 2-4 times what globalized private sector workers earn for similar work. Through their associations, they exercise nearly absolute control over elections and legislation, and global warming alarm is the pretext for new taxes and fees that will help the state and local public entities avoid a long overdue reckoning with bankruptcy. Because of this tyranny, which enables taxpayer-funded brainwashing campaigns, Californians will be the last people on earth to realize that global warming alarmism is a fraud, perpetuated by powerful special interests – a tool, a way to preserve a status quo where monopolies flourish, and the only good jobs left for ordinary workers are in the government sector.

California, my native state, the land that I love, is a magical, wonderful place, with abundant natural beauty and a culture of innovation that rivals anything the world has ever seen. But California’s private sector innovation exists not because, but in spite of California’s ever expanding government sector, where self-serving and unexamined lies benefit not the earth, not the people, but only inequitable privilege.

Innovalight is getting a lot of attention: Time Magazine, The Economist, and Red Herring have all profiled this Santa Clara based company, while the department of energy has awarded them a fortune to assist with Innovalight’s unique solar panel development process.

Numerous photovoltaic companies have been covered by EcoWorld and solar power has raised the eyebrows of many: It is a great concept and is environmentally friendly, but can have incredibly expensive start up costs. Innovalight takes all this into consideration and has plans to market a new version of the solar panel concept: a nanocrystal solvent made from silicon. These silicon nanoparticles (also called quantum-dots) are extremely efficient; capable of absorbing various forms of light-infrared, ultraviolet and light from the visible spectrum – and able to produce multiple electrons from a single photon of light!

Silicon is the second most common element on the planet and is used in most solar panel products in today’s market. Unfortunately, with suppliers constantly raising the price of silicon due to soaring demand, the less material used, the better.

The unique technology developed by Innovalight uses a silicon powder that has been converted to an ink rather than a solid. The silicon is suspended in a fluid which, in turn, can be printed directly onto polymer sheets to product flexible solar panels. This method is efficient and requires less silicon, which helps cut down on production costs. Plans for the future involve printing this versatile ink onto other products, such as glass or batteries.

Conrad Burke, President and CEO, is more than qualified to guide Innovalight towards a successful future with almost 20 years of experience preparing semiconducter and optical technologies for the market with such companies as Bookham Inc. and OMM Inc-while also being the first executive hire of the latter (a MEMS based optical switching systems company).

As stated on their website, Innovalight “is harnessing a proprietary silicon-ink process, developed by the company to print thin-film solar power modules. Leveraging the advantages of solvent-based processing, Innovalight will help accelerate the promise of more affordable solar power solutions for residential and commercial applications.”

Innovalight plans to market their product in 2009.

Back in April 2005 we published the feature “Mangroves Stop Tsunami,” which explained that much of the devastation from the tsunami that struck South East Asia in December 2004 could have been avoided if the mangrove forests hadn’t been ripped out to make room for aquaculture and timber. After the devastating cyclone hit Myanmar earlier this month, there was plenty of talk regarding the possible causes, but not much recognition of the role mangrove forests could have played in preventing much of the destruction.

One exception to this was the Hong Kong edition of the Wall Street Journal, where in a May 9th report entitled “Forest Clearing May Have Worsened Toll,” author Jane Spencer provided some facts regarding just how bad the deforestation has been along that Mayanmar’s Irrawaddy Delta. Apparently “vast swaths of mangroves have been cleared over the decades to make way for rice fields and shrimp ponds and to provide wood for fuel.” Spencer went on to report “researchers in Myanmar estimate that 83% of the mangroves in the Irrawaddy were destroyewd between 1924 and 1999.”

This is true elsewhere in the tropics. Thailand, Indonesia and India have developed a shrimp aquaculture industry that engages in completely unsustainable methods – flooding the shrimp ponds with chemicals and antibiotics that in sum will degrade the ponds to the point where every seven years or so they need to abandon the area and move on – each time destroying new mangrove reserves to make room. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. estimates that 1% of the world’s mangrove forests are being destroyed each year.

The significance of the degree to which mangroves can protect against storm surges and tsunami cannot easily be overstated. Stretching for miles into the ocean, these trees anchor themselves in the mud and sand, their branches and roots absorbing the waves. Further inland along the coastline, larger variants of the species stand as tall trees. These huge forest buffers absorb waves and winds, protecting the inhabited land further inland. Destruction of mangroves, along with land subsidence due to overutilization of ground aquifers, along with increased settlement along tropical coastlines is the reason for rampant destruction – not alleged global warming.

As for global warming, in an article on May 8th in the reputable Investors Business Daily entitled “Al Gore and Climate Ka-Ching,” the author references recent data on modern temperature buoys:

“The trend in the world’s oceans — as shown by measurements taken by a fleet of 3,000 high-tech ocean buoys first deployed in 2003 — is toward cooling. As Dr. Josh Willis, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, noted in a separate interview with National Public Radio, “there has been a very slight cooling” over the buoys’ five years of observation.”

Al Gore has made a great contribution to building global consciousness regarding environmental challenges. But his approach, with the inordinate focus on reducing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel, is not only failing to keep up with recent observational data (for those who are still paying attention), but misdirects priorities away from where they could really help – such as reforesting the world’s coastal mangrove forests – and creates a potentially dangerous moral outrage in the minds of well-meaning but misinformed multitudes everywhere.

MANGROVE FORESTS OF THE WORLD

Most of the world’s tropical coastlines have a barrier of Mangrove forests, but only about 70% of these forests remain.

Irrigation canals, water wheels driven by oxen, and smooth stones meant to catch dew drops that form during colder nights have all been used to water crops. Irrigation processes are constantly evolving. In today’s world, subsurface drip irrigation is one of the most efficient ways of water dispersal.

This subsurface system wastes little water by allowing it to drip out directly onto the root zone while a miniscule amount of the liquid is lost to drain-off or evaporation. This is an attractive choice, especially when one considers that water is not always an abundant resource.

Drip irrigation doesn’t only benefit those concerned about saving on water, however. This system is also an environmentally friendly alternative to the more wasteful systems (like sprinkler or surface irrigation). Ideally,when it is an option, wastewater (or effluent) is used to grow crops and maintain grasses, in order to preserve the limited freshwater for other uses.

GeoFlow, based in Corte Madera, California and founded in 1990 with the goals of preserving water quality and quantity, specializes in wastewater irrigation systems and explains that “since the effluent is dispersed underground where it is absorbed in the biologically active soil layer, there is no surface contamination, no ponding, no run-off problems, no bad smells.” Another added benefit is that with an underground drip system, pesticides are not washed off plants with every watering, so plants do not need to be treated as often.

With GeoFLow’s WasteFlow system, secondary reclaimed water can be used and is pumped into the drip-field and released under plants on a time-activated cycle. The drip systems provided by GeoFlow are easily installed about eight inches in the soil, where treated effluent is absorbed.

GeoFlow takes things a step further with their patented RootGuard and Ultra-fresh treated emitters. Flexible tubing carries water under the soil where it is released by evenly spaced emitters. The emitters are equipped with self-cleaning filters while the non-toxic active ingredient in RootGuard, Treflan, keeps roots from growing around the emitters. The drip lines are also coated with the anti-bacterial, Ultra-Fresh, which inhibits bacterial growth inside the tubing and the emitters. This prevents slime build up inside the tube.

A subsurface drip system does have a high initial investment cost, however, ranging from $800-1500 per acre. Fortunately, Geoflow stands behind their product, offering a 10-year warranty for root intrusion, workmanship and materials.

The fact that the system is built to last many years, saves an abundance of water and is incredibly simple to operate has enticed many to switch over to drip irrigation.

Solar thermal power is considered an important step towards developing large scale sources of clean electricity, but within this sector there are some very distinct applications of the technology. Bright Source Energy, with offices in Oakland, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel, is building next generation “power tower” solar thermal power plants.

The power tower. (Photo: Bright Source Energy)

The stated advantages of power tower technology seem to make a lot of sense. The solar field of mirrors require no plumbing going to each mirror, containing a thermal transfer fluid, because the two-axis tracking mirrors point to a central boiler. This saves considerable expense to install and maintain plumbing throughout the solar field.

Also, because each mirror sits atop a single independently placed post, the ground underneath the solar field can be left relatively irregular and uneven. With parabolic trough technology, for example, the ground beneath the troughs must be almost perfectly smoothed, meaning far more site preparation is required.

Less obvious but also significant are the costs saved by utilizing super heated steam coming from one central boiler atop a tower, because this design allows the water to be air cooled instead of water cooled. In order for solar thermal power to require minimal input of water, the water needs to be continuously recirculated – it heats up in the boiler, drives the turbine, then must be cooled and condensed before returning to the boiler for heating. If this isn’t done, in a closed loop the back pressure of the steam after passing through the turbine would largely counteract the pressure of the incoming steam, ruining the efficiency of the device.

Because a power tower concentrates the entire energy of the solar field into one boiler, the steam is superheated to 550 degrees centigrade. In the parabolic trough designs, where the heat transfer fluid flows into dozens of distributed heat exchanging tubes above the focal point of dozens (or hundreds) of separate mirrors, the energy of the solar field is less concentrated, achieving a significantly lower top temperature of 300-350 degrees centigrade.

Because the differential between the super hot 550 C steam is so much greater than the ambient air temperature, even in the desert, air cooling is viable with a power tower design, but is not viable with trough designs. Air cooling systems are less expensive than water cooling systems, and they use less water. Bright Source estimates their process loses about 1/2 an acre foot for every megawatt-year of electricity they generate, compared to about 20x that amount for designs that require water cooling – even though all of these designs recirculate.

Not only is Bright Source Energy using what could emerge as the most cost effective solar thermal design, but they are well on their way to implementing their technology. Their pilot plant in Israel, with a 60 meter tower and 1,600 mirrors, is in testing currently and will go active in mid-June. The plant will generate 5.0 megawatts of thermal energy, which with a boiler efficiency of 74% and a turbine efficiency of 45% will output 1.5 megawatts of electricity. That is just the beginning.

The solar field and power tower. (Photo: Bright Source Energy)

With a management team that includes several of the executives who built the original solar thermal plants at Kramer Junction in California in the early 1990′s – still operating profitably with an output of over 350 megawatts – Bright Source Energy is likely to be the first company to build new large scale solar thermal plants in California for 20 years. Their application, filed with the California Energy Commission in Sept. 2007, was the first one filed since 1989, and proposes a 400 megawatt solar complex to be built in Ivanpah, California, in the Mojave desert near the Nevada border.

The power tower – looking across a reflecting mirror. (Photo: Bright Source Energy)

Back in January 2007 we posted “New Environmentalism,” one of several attempts we’ve made to redefine environmentalism, that particular one inspired by comments from Robert Metcalf, a partner at Polaris Ventures in Boston. Metcalf’s comments were part of a keynote address he delivered at the Massachusetts Energy Summit entitled “Framing the First Massachusetts Energy Summit.” We liked Metcalf’s take on free enterprise and private sector solutions to environmental and energy challenges, his support for creative innovations, and his unwillingness to accept every precept of the traditional environmentalist’s conventional wisdom.

Bob Metcalf “Every day a fusion reactor flies across the sky, taunting scientists who can’t replicate that on earth.”

Metcalf is an example of someone from the high tech community who has jumped into a world that up until a few years ago, was not generally perceived to be part of the high tech pantheon.

Now “clean tech” or “green tech” is recognized as one of the hottest sectors in the venture capital driven high tech industry. More recently, on April 8th at AlwaysOn’s Venture Summit East, Metcalf delivered a keynote on the topic of energy and technology, again highlighting themes that resonate with us, to put it mildly. To view a video of Metcalf’s keynote in its entirety, click here.

Initially Metcalf explored the term to describe cleantech, rejecting “green” because of its association with a political agenda that includes anti-trade, anti-business, anti-technology, and anti-development sentiments, among others (Metcalf’s delivery probably included some overstatements to spice things up, but only to a point). He also considered “clean” to only tell half the story, because the objective of successful solutions must be clean, of course, but also cheap. Metcalf went on to suggest that rather than green as a color to describe cheap and clean technology for environmental and energy challenges, he would choose black – the color of silicon, coal, and outer space, and blue – the color of the ocean, where (along with outer space) many of our technology-driven solutions may lie. Ultimately, Metcalf appears to prefer the term “Enertech” to characterize high-tech innovations that will solve our challenge to develop cheap and clean energy.

Metcalf spent a fair amount of time extrapolating lessons we learned from the the high tech industry in general, and the internet in particular, to the burgeoning cheap and clean tech – or enertech – industry. “Did we conserve our way into the internet,” he asked, noting how we are clearly using far more bandwidth today than we were at any point in the past, despite massive improvements in efficiency. He also noted that we have learned about bubbles – not that bubbles are bad – stating “bubbles are an accelerator to technological innovation.”

Other lessons from the high tech experience that might be applied to the enertech phenomenon included the need for research to be directed more at competing research universities, and not into the monopolistic environments of government and very large corporations. As he put it “monopolies can rip off their customers,” and “monopolies are slow to bring innovations to market.” Metcalf also pointed out the parallel between high tech and enertech with respect to the promise of distributed solutions.

Some of Metcalf’s most interesting comments concerned global warming. Without delving into the debate as to what may cause global warming or whether or not it constitutes an existential crisis, Metcalf noted that from an economic standpoint, “there is going to be a crash associated with global warming investments.” Of course he’s right, there’s been so much money thrown into so many businesses in such a short time, that just like with the internet bubble, with the global warming bubble we will see great forward progress in the industry but we will also see a lot of misdirection and failed investments.

Also provocative were Metcalf’s ideas not to cool the earth or warm the earth, but simply to manage the global climate ala “geo-engineering.” He suggested “climate control research” become the emphasis, and wondered why there isn’t more work going into “blasting benign nano-particles into space to increase the earth’s albedo,” or “sticking a giant reflecting membrane at orbital point L-1 between the earth and the sun, to cool the earth and harvest energy to beam back to earth.”

Faith in free enterprise, competitive free markets, private sector innovation, distributed solutions, technological solutions, and thinking big – Metcalf’s philosophy epitomizes the best that the high tech world has to offer as it merges with and influences the environmental community and the energy sector.

Numerous companies are coming up with techniques to use alternatives to fossil fuels. This is no surprise with fossil fuel prices sky-rocketing, oil supplies running out and concerns about the product’s effect on the environment becoming more abundant.

Unfortunately, demand for fossil fuels is still immense: According to the Energy Information Administration, almost 90% of the world’s primary energy production was reliant on fossil fuels in 2005.

Ethanol production is becoming more popular, but it is still unrealistic to think that it will replace the more efficient fossil fuels. It is good to have options, though: BioFuelBox makes the process of biofuel production a more attractive one by providing a unique product that is capable of manufacturing biodiesel from waste products ranging from algae and cooking oil to chicken fat and waste fish oil.

In addition to being so versatile, the BioFuelBox is designed to be portable: “Not only can our system be moved to where the feedstocks are, cutting down on the expense of trucking feedstocks to the refinery, but also, our unique patent-pending biodiesel process technology enables you to directly process wet feedstock such as algae or high FFA by product material such as animal tallow, chicken fat, or grease into ASTM quality biodiesel.“

Steven Perricone, President and CEO, has over a decade of experience in start up technological companies such as SonicWALL where Perricone played a major part in helping the company evolve from a small business of 20 employees to a company of almost 500. Another major name at BioFuelBox is Greg Anderson. As Chief Scientist at BioFuelBox, Anderson brings 24 years of biomedical, chemical, separation and fermentation science to the business and is the proud founder of McBain Laboratories.

BioFuelBox’s main goals are highlighted on their website which include:
• Ensuring that producers are able to take advantage of the widest range of feedstock including feedstock from waste streams.
• Providing opportunities to turn problem waste streams into revenue opportunities.
• Minimizing cost to make biofuel production accessible to more producers.
• Eliminating the technical challenges associated with conventional production methods.

The company is successfully eliminating almost every reason NOT to become a part of the biodiesel revolution.