The Bee issues a call to arms to attract green businesses!

The Sacramento Bee issues a strong call to action for area businesses and governments to step up efforts to make the area more attractive to green businesses.

Why is this here? We worked with the Bee editorial board to help them understand the issue and help raise awareness of the Sacramento Region Clean Energy Showcase on October 11 at UC Davis. Not registered yet? Go to the event and register onsite!

Editorial: Is our region ready to be a clean-tech mecca?

Local actions will determine whether companies want to make their home here

Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Story appeared in EDITORIALS section, Page B6

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Unless you are awakening from a Rip Van Winkle nap, you've probably noticed that the hottest field of California business is the so-called "clean-tech" sector.

Clean tech is a catchall term for small and large businesses devoted to alternative power, energy efficiency, green building products and environmental technologies. In the first quarter of this year, U.S. venture capitalists invested $264 million in 23 clean-tech deals, with much of that capital flowing to and from California businesses -- for obvious reasons.

More than any other state, California has passed laws to encourage sustainable energy and development practices. The state's global warming law, its renewable energy standard and its solar initiatives are just some of the measures driving entrepreneurs to innovate and market new practices and products.

Full article here.

Sacramento Region Clean Energy Showcase - 10/11/07

Great event in Davis on October 11. Information below. Click here to register or here for more information.

Bay Area using Solar for Public Transit

Follow up to a recent article on public transportation going green. This is from Earth2Tech, Om's 'green blog':

Bay Area Transit Agency Lights Up Solar

Written by Katie Fehrenbacher

Posted August 3rd, 2007 at 7:55 am in Energy

The Bay Area bus agency AC Transit showed off a brand new 621-kilowatt solar power system at its Oakland and Hayward facilities yesterday. Nice. The solar photovoltaic system is expected to generate roughly 767,000 kilowatt hours of power each year and save the company $5 million in utility costs over the 30 year life of the system.

The deal is the latest move by an organization to save money through solar, but without the company providing a large upfront capital investment. That’s because the solar system is actually financed and owned by MMA Renewable Ventures, which provides funding for energy projects and is being built and installed by San Jose, Calif-based SunPower.

AC Transit will pay MMA Renewable Ventures for the solar electricity generated over a multi-year power purchase agreement (PPA). After several years AC Transit can either renew the agreement, or purchase the system from MMA.

This deal structure is increasingly common in the solar world where the upfront cost of building and owning a solar system has been a barrier to companies adopting one. In the release MMA CEO Matt Cheney called the deal proof that:

“solar power is an affordable option for public agencies concerned with reducing carbon emissions.” — MMA CEO Matt Cheney

A few weeks ago Arno Harris, the CEO of another company specializing in solar PPA’s, Recurrent Energy, told us that:

“this is the year of the emergence of the solar purchase power agreement. After 50 years of innovation, solar has a competitive offer. — Arno Harris, CEO Recurrent Energy”

There are several startups that sell into the solar PPA market, like SunEdison, Recurrent Energy, MMA and newcomer Tioga Energy.

There’s significant money to be made with PPA’s and PG&E is actually providing a $1.9 million solar rebate, under California’s Self Generation Incentive Program. Through that program PG&E will also provide $950 million in incentives over the next 10 years to help customers build solar systems.

We couldn’t make it to the official event yesterday afternoon where Oakland’s mayor Ron Dellums praised the companies involved. But we’ll go check it out soon enough.

Siemens Identifies Business Opportunity When Going Green - SacBee

"Ask any superhero: It's not easy to stop a speeding train."

How can you not love an article that starts with that! Follow it up with some great quotes from Matt Mahood of the Sacramento Metro Chamber, Bill Boyce of SMUD, and Oliver Hauck of Siemens and you have some good reading.

Light rail on green track

Energy system up for test could save money and cut pollution.

By Merek Siu - Bee Staff Writer

Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, July 23, 2007
Story appeared in BUSINESS section, Page D2

Ask any superhero: It's not easy to stop a speeding train.

But when it does grind to a halt, energy resulting from normal braking is lost as heat, dispersed into the air around the city.

Regional Transit and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District plan to put this energy to use. They are planning to test soon a regenerative braking system for light rail's Folsom line.

Similar to the system in popular gas-electric hybrid vehicles, braking energy from the electric-powered trains will be captured and sent back into power lines to boost the acceleration of trains as they leave the station. The technology was developed by Sacramento-based Siemens Transportation Systems.

While modest savings of $25,000 a year are expected, this move toward green technology is in line with a vision for the region held by some politicians and businesses.

That vision was highlighted at a clean-energy forum in Sacramento last week.

"Our region can use clean energy technology to become what Silicon Valley became during the dot-com explosion but with a more sustainable outcome," said Matthew Mahood, president and CEO of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

At the forum, Mahood announced the goal of creating 20,000 jobs directly or indirectly associated with clean-energy technologies by 2015. With more than 60 such companies in the region, the chamber of commerce has set its sights on turning the state capital into the world capital for clean energy technology.

Efforts to date have been noticed. The current issue of Fast Company magazine highlighted Sacramento as a "city on the verge" of becoming a green leader.

With clean energy gaining momentum, Bill Boyce, supervisor of the electric transportation group at SMUD foresees a big increase in the number of vehicles on U.S. roads running on biofuels or powered by a combination of gasoline, ethanol and electricity.

Hybrid cars like Toyota's Prius use regenerative braking technology. But where the Prius channels energy to batteries, the system to be tested at RT uses special capacitors.

Banks of these devices, each about the size of three "D" batteries stacked on top of each other, store energy. However, they release energy much more quickly than batteries. This surge of energy can be tapped in the 30 seconds it takes a train to get up to its cruising speed of 55 mph. Forty percent of the energy from braking can be recovered and sent back to accelerating trains.

Oliver Hauck, CEO of Siemens Transportation Systems, said the energy storage system allows trains to share power, let current infrastructure support more trains with fewer substations and shave expensive peak power demands. RT expects a 7 percent reduction in energy use and an 8 percent drop in peak demand. This translates into 175 tons of prevented carbon dioxide emissions, Hauck said.

Reliable service, however, is the most important benefit of the technology, according to Mike Wiley, deputy general manager at Regional Transit.

Last summer, long stretches of days with temperatures above 100 degrees led to soaring electricity demands. Huge spikes in power caused RT substations to go off-line, stranding trains without power about a half-dozen times.

Regional Transit hopes this system will help prevent such service disruptions.

Other than increased reliability, riders probably won't notice much after the energy system is installed. The energy storage device will be housed in an inconspicuous 10-foot cubicle close to existing stations.

Besides hooking the system up to overhead wires, no further retrofitting of trains, tracks or stations is expected. Maintenance costs should be low since there are no moving parts.

Similar systems running in Cologne, Germany and Madrid, Spain, gave the California Energy Commission and SMUD confidence to move forward with a $400,000 grant that should make Sacramento the nation's first mass transit system to implement the Siemens' energy storage technology.

"Sacramento, for us, is a perfect test site," said Hauck. "We found a good set of partners, in SMUD, Regional Transit and local political support. Everything came together just perfectly."

About the writer:

• The Bee's Merek Siu can be reached at (916) 321-1041 or msiu@sacbee.com.

Can plastic be 'green?'

GE thinks plastic can be green with their new EarthRewards credit card. The new card falls under GE's huge EcoMagination effort.

Marc Gunther pours cold water on the concept that "consumers will be able to dedicate one percent of their purchases to fund projects that offset carbon dioxide emissions. (They can also opt to get 1/2 of one percent cash back, in which case the other 1/2 of one percent will go to carbon offsets.) GE will then pool those monies and once a year -- on Earth Day, natch -- invest them in verified, transparent carbon offset projects."

As Lorraine Bolsinger, the GE executive who oversees its Ecomagination campaign, put it: "What's good for the environment can be good for business, and what's good for business can be good for the environment."

I personally don't buy Gunther's idea that "It's a small example of a bigger problem: the belief that there are painless solutions to fixing global warming and that it can be a win-win for business, consumers and the planet. In fact, the solutions will be painful for some, they will involve sacrifice for others and they will be developed in Congress and state capitols, not at the mall."

Why can't it start at the mall? Does change have to be legislated? Maybe the best way to make change happen is to make it pay.

I'll take a large coke and portable hydrogen generator to go please!

This is serious green geek cool!

The below is by Michael Kanellos at CNET. He has a very touchy BS meter so it's always a pleasure to read his articles. Here's a link to the original:

Hydrogen power on the go

Trulite develops a portable hydrogen-powered generator. It's not enough to power your house, but it can recharge power tools or run a laptop.

By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: July 27, 2007, 10:18 AM PDT

Think of it as a briefcase for electricity.

Houston-based Trulite is developing a portable hydrogen-powered generator, the KH4. Pour water into the unit, and it will crank out 150 watts of power, and 200 watts at its peak. While that won't run your house, it's enough to recharge power tools or a laptop or run a small appliance, according to company CEO John Goodshall.

A target audience for the device will be contractors, particularly ones who work on downtown skyscrapers. Power tools regularly sap their batteries. (That's why Powergenix and other start-ups are trying to market new types of batteries for them.)

To get around the problem, contractors either carry spare batteries, which can be expensive, or recharge them with gas generators. The fumes and noise of the gas generators, however, are often incompatible with downtown building requirements. Thus, Trulite hopes that contractors will opt to carry its unit instead.

And for those people who bring a generator to a campsite to watch TV? A portable hydrogen generator will eliminate the noise.

The active ingredient in the fuel cell is sodium hydride. The material splits water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen is then pushed through a membrane that extracts electrons. The sodium hydride also stores hydrogen safely. Others are also working on similar solid storage systems for hydrogen.

"We control the flow of hydrogen," Goodshall said.

Once the fuel of the future, hydrogen now gets regularly panned by critics as being expensive and impractical. Advocates, however, say it could become an important green fuel when batteries or solar electricity aren't practical.

Hydrogen may be a niche, but its advocates aren't giving up. Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, for instance, is promoting hydrogen fuel cells as a way to power boats on Swiss lakes.

Others have speculated that offshore platforms--decades from now--could harvest wave and tidal energy, turn it into hydrogen, and then ship it to shore. Offshore hydrogen would be used in those situations where it is impractical to connect a distant ocean platform to the grid. Toyota and Daimler-Chrysler continue to research hydrogen cars.

Trulite will release beta units soon, and the company hopes to start selling the KH4 in the second quarter of next year. The unit will cost about $2,000, which is far more expensive than a gas generator. A more powerful gas generator can be bought for $300.

Trulite's chairman is John Berger, a former Enron executive who is also behind Standard Renewable Energy, which sells energy-efficiency services and biodiesel.

Sacramento Clean Energy Showcase - October 11, 2007

If you care about how to create change in regards to encouraging companies and government to go green, recommend attending this event at UC Davis on October 11th. It's not expensive. It's a chance to hear people talk and find out what you can do.