April 21, 2008, 12:43 pm EST
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and RockPort Capital Partners have formed a joint venture with Norwegian electric car maker Think Global to bring their highway-speed, crash-tested car to the U.S. market in 2009. Kleiner Perkins managing partner Ray Lane, who is chairman of the new Think North America, called the creation of the joint venture and plans to mass-manufacture an electric car in the United States a “seminal event” along the way to zero-emission transportation. “The transportation industry is undergoing its largest transformation since Henry Ford built the Model T,” said Lane.
The Think City model is 95 per cent recyclable and reaches a top speed of 65 miles (100 kilometres) an hour. It can also drive up to 110 miles (180 kilometres) on a single charge, though I’m guessing that varies depending on the battery technology used. Think Global is working with two battery technologies: On the lithium-ion side, the car can use a nanophosphateTM system produced by A123, or a lithium manganese system from Enerdel; another option is a nickel-sodium chloride “Zebra” battery from MES DEA SA.
This announcement merely adds momentum to an exciting trend. The fact that Kleiners and RockPort are getting behind this and directly steering the new Think company is yet another sign that EVs aren’t just a passing fad. A number of startups and some of the big automakers are in a race to get the first mass-market electric vehicle to market over the next year or two. This competition is healthy, and will continue to drive the kind of battery innovation we need to truly see EV vehicles reach mass appeal.
Me, I drive a little 1997 Honda Civic hatchback. My next car will be electric — either all or plug-in. I can’t wait until that purchase day comes.
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April 17, 2008, 12:26 pm EST
Greentech Media has a series of excellent articles today profiling a few companies trying to tap wind energy in a different way than what we see from conventional wind farms. Companies mentioned in the pieces included Magenn Power (read here), Mariah Power (read here) and Southwest Windpower (read here). Another I’ve written about the in past is WhalePower.
A big open question is to what degree any of these approaches have a chance anytime soon? The wind industry is dominated by big turbine makers who can’t keep up with demand. Wind-energy developers will buy up anything they can get, so there’s little incentive for the Vestas and GEs of the world to invest in cutting edge technologies that improve or complement their existing wind businesses. This concerns observers such as Robert Thresher, a researcher at the National Wind Technology Center, which is a part of the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Lab. “It’s such a sellers market right now,” says Thresher. “The market has grown, there’s high demand, and (manufacturers) are taking their money and investing in plants and factories.” Likewise, Joshua Magee, an analyst with Emerging Energy Research, says the focus for the wind industry right now is on implementation rather than innovation. He calls any improvements to existing technologies “incremental” among the main manufacturers, which are more focused on the potential for energy storage that can give their product a more baseload profile.
That said, the big manufacturers ignore these new technologies at their own peril. Both Magee and Thresher say new approaches could prove an effective way for smaller companies to break into the big boys club or for one of the big boys, through an acquisition, to distinquish themselves in a market where the products are increasingly becoming different flavors of vanilla.
Time will tell, but it’s good to see innovation taking place — let’s just hope investors can appreciate the potential.
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April 14, 2008, 4:32 pm EST
We often get so focused on conventional solar PV or solar thermal heating that we forget about some of the other approaches out there, including one that claims to be “the fastest solar payback on the planet.”Conserval Engineering, based in Toronto, has for nearly 30 years been providing an air-based solar heating system, called SolarWall, to industrial- and commercial-scale building projects. The company’s most recent installation is in upstate New York, where 50 SolarWall systems have been installed across 27 buildings at the Fort Drum military base. The company says the systems, perhaps one of the earliest examples of build-integrated solar design, will collectively produce 4 megawatts of peak thermal energy. “The technology heats ventilation and makeup air required in vehicle mainteance garages, warehouses, hangars, etc… displacing the traditional heating load,” the company said. Conserval recently expanded its manufacturing capacity in Toronto. It’s not widely known that the Canadian government, NASA, Ford, Federal Express, and Wal-Mart are among the company’s major customers.
In addition to solar air heating, the company has branched out into providing combined solar PV and air heating. It also sells its air system for agricultural and industrial process drying, which could prove tremendously useful in markets looking to exploit wet biomass.
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April 12, 2008, 10:01 am EST
Waterloo, Ontario-based Arise Technologies Corp. announced this week that it plans to build a high-purity silicon production plant by 2011 that will supply up to 10,000 tonnes a year to the solar industry, including its own PV cell production facility in Germany. The company also said it will expand the 2012 production target for its German plant by 56 per cent to 560 megawatts.
The German facility is expected to start manufacturing a 35 MW-capacity production line later this month, making cells that are at least 15 per cent efficient. Line 2, in production in the first quarter of 2009, will increase plant capacity to 80 MW annually and produce cells that are up to 18 per cent efficient. The original plan was to work up to eight production lines, but the announcement of increased capacity will bring the number of lines to 12 by 2012, with each line becoming progressively more efficient — “more than 20 per cent cell efficiency,” the company said.
As for the Canadian silicon plant, Arise CEO Bart Tichelman said a location for the plant has not been determined. “We’re in the midst of site selection with several provinces as candidates,” he said, listing off B.C., Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland as possible candidates — largely because they have a lot of cheap renewable power. But he didn’t exclude Ontario, Arise’s home province. “Ontario has got some attractiveness to it,” he said. “Obviously we’re delighted with the support we’ve received from the federal and provincial governments, and it will clearly have an impact on where we go.”
Arise will be competing, in Canada at least, against Mississauga, Ontario-based 6N Silicon, which plans to manufacture solar-grade silicon in Ontario. Toronto-based Timminco Ltd. is also a big player in this space, having signed several long-term supply contracts over the past year or so, most recently a large contract with solar-cell leader Q-Cells of Germany. Arise, however, says it will focus on higher-grade silicon that achieves better efficiencies for solar cells.
If Arise can deliver, this is great news. But it makes you wonder why the company has made an announcement for something planned for 2011 and 2012, when clearly it didn’t have to. Arise has a history of making big promises or announcements promising deals a few years out, only to underdeliver or have such promises fade into distant memory. Contrast that to Vancouver-based Day4 Energy, which has laid out a more realistic plan backed by solid contracts and significant revenue growth.
Still, it’s encouraging to see the momentum building for Arise and I hope the company proves its skeptics wrong.
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April 7, 2008, 3:30 pm EST
My Clean Break column today is based on an interview with Robert Zubrin, the author of Energy Victory and the engineer that has been most vocal about sending humans to Mars. Zubrin’s main thesis is that the Organization for the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has been manipulating and benefitting from high oil prices and that this monopoly grip on the fossil-fuel market must be broken. He wants legislators to mandate that every new vehicle manufactured have flex-fuel capability, a move that would boost investment in and availability of biofuels and essentially water down OPEC’s influence.
Now, this is quite the contentious argument given it seems more focused on energy security than on sustainability. There’s no shortage of headlines trashing the environmental benefits of ethanol and emphasizing the impact on food prices and, in some cases, the negative environmental effects of growing corn for fuel. Mandating flex-fuel in all new vehicles would merely amplify the problems being discussed today, critics say.
I have to admit, I’m torn on this one. I see the value of biofuels, assuming our increased production of the fuel can be done sustainably, guided by regulation, and assuming we can transition quickly to cellulosic ethanol. The question is, would a flex-fuel mandate create such a huge, instant demand that all rules go out the window in order to meet this demand? Would it require we import ethanol from other countries where environmental track records are poor and beyond the oversight of North American governments?
Zubrin, I point out in the column, isn’t opposed to electric cars or plug-in hybrids — he’s actually a fan. But he also points out the reality that these vehicles are at least a few years away and that they will come with a hefty premium. Flex-fuel cars, on the other hand, could be manufactured tomorrow and would cost about $100 per vehicle. Zubrin eventually sees us driving flex-fuel plug-in hybrid vehicles — the ultimate vehicle configuration, many say.
I should point out that WWF came out this month with an excellent report titled “Plugged In: The End of the Oil Age,” which argues that the electrification of transportation is necessary to break oil’s monopoly and effectively tackle climate change. You’ll notice from my column that I cite the report, which doesn’t dispute the need for biofuels, but sees biofuels as a complement to electric cars — again, that whole concept of the flex-fuel plug-in hybrid. The report is well worth the read.
I’m curious to get your views on this issue. Should we take dramatic action now by mandating flex-fuel technology, and then go down the path of making these flex-fuel vehicles plug-in hybrids? Or, should we go directly to the plug-in hybrids and all-electrics and forget biofuels altogether?
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April 5, 2008, 10:08 am EST
Ontario has a number of demand-response programs in place to meet its aggressive targets for what could loosely be called peak conservation. The latest is called DR3, and it’s what you could call the highest quality demand response — contractual obligations for aggregators to reduce load demand when asked to by the province’s electricity system operator.
About 10 aggregators have applied to participate in the program, and last week Enernoc and ConsumerPowerline were the first to tout contracts with the Ontario Power Authority. Both companies, and any other DR3 participant, basically sign a five-year contract that requires them to deliver up to 25 megawatts during critical peaks to reduce stress on the grid. From what I understand, aggregators (and the individual companies they’ve signed up) stand to make some decent money from the guaranteed negawatts.
“The larger story is that there’s now a large group of very excited and interested aggregators willing to sign up and build this new demand-response industry in Ontario. That growth of a new industry I think is really an exciting story,” said Sean Brady, director of demand response and industrial programs for the Ontario Power Authority.
Companies or organizations that use 50 kilowatts or more of electricity are permitted to sign up with aggregators. “What’s interesting is that it’s a new opportunity (for organizations) to look at using energy consumption as a strategic asset, and demand-response gives you the opportunity of monetizing your assets,” said Brady, adding that this will spur development, investment and deployment in new technologies such as controls system and energy management systems. “The other opportunity is that you have a set of fresh eyes from these aggregators who are looking at your electricity consumption.”
The Ontario Power Authority plans to have 566 megawatts of demand-response in place by 2010, part of the province’s commitment to reaching 1,350 megawatts of conservation by the same year. Aggregators participating in DR3 have nine months to ramp up to their 25 megawatt limit. Brady said he expects that many will be set up by this summer.
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March 31, 2008, 9:46 pm EST
A Toronto-based company called Woodland Biofuels Inc. has attracted its first institutional investor, Investeco Capital Corp., which has funded $1.25 million (Canadian) of what is expected to be a $3.25 million investment. Like others in the market, including Montreal-based Enerkem, the company uses a gasification process to break down wood biomass and agricultural residue. It can also process human and animal sewage “sludge” and municipal solid organic waste. The gas is then processed through a series of catalytic reactors to produce ethanol, distillation water and steam. Investeco determined the process was “extremely efficient” and sufficiently scaleable to support Woodland’s march toward commercialization. Woodland, it should be pointed out, was recently granted $9.8 million from Sustainable Development Technology Canada toward development of a demonstration plant for its process.
More and more of these cellulosic ethanol plays are coming out of the woodwork, so to speak, suggesting that perhaps the quest for non-corn ethanol is closer — as I’ve said in past posts — than initially thought. At the very least the flurry of activity and funding is a good sign.
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March 31, 2008, 7:25 pm EST
Interesting story in the Boston Globe about Westwood, Mass.-based Acumentrics, a maker of solid-oxide fuel cells. The article states the the company is working with Italian heating products firm Merloni TermoSanitari to develop a commercial household version of its fuel cell, which would hit the European market by 2010 and cost around $5,200.
Solid oxide fuel cells run much hotter than the PEM-based cells that companies such as Ballard Power have developed. This makes SOFCs a poor option for transportation, but great for fixed applications where a relatively clean fuel like natural gas can be used on site — i.e. someone’s basement — to produce electricity, heat and hot water. The company’s CEO is quoted as saying he expects the product to be certified for a 10-year lifespan and that the payback from energy savings in Europe, where energy prices are quite higher, will be about three years. Cracking the North American market will be harder, but the company remains hopeful, citing the fact it has in recent years increased the fuel cell’s output 120-fold, cut costs 90 per cent and reduced the size by 80 per cent.
Acumentrics acquired last year the assets of Fuel Cell Technologies Ltd. in Kingston, Ontario, which became Acumentrics Canada Ltd. and is focused on R&D for the company. That office is working on the use of ammonia and paint fumes as a fuel for the Acumentrics fuel cell.
Of course, Acumentrics isn’t the only player in this game. The secretive Bloom Energy, a well-funded venture backed by Kleiner Perkins, is also pursuing the SOFC market with a technology first developed for the NASA Mars program. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Bloom has 200 employees and is ramping up fast. It claims to be twice as efficient and have 100 per cent less emissions than conventional energy generation technologies. Curious.
Unlike fuel cells for cars, one can clearly see a path of commercialization for SOFC systems and their eventual use in homes.
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March 31, 2008, 9:26 am EST
Mississauga, Ontario-based startup 6N Silicon Inc. has raised up to $20 million in a second round of financing. The company’s goal is to be the lowest-cost provider of solar-grade silicon that doesn’t need to be blended with high-purity silicon. It has come up with a proprietary, low-energy process, which can be inexpensively scaled up, for upgrading standard metallurgical-grade silcon into solar grade silicon. 6N wants to be one of the industry’s leading suppliers of solar-grade silicon within three to five years.
Venture capital group Good Energies led the round, which includes previous investors Yaletown Venture Partners and Ventures West. 6N, founded less than two years ago by current president and chief technology officer Scott Nichol, raised $6 million last July and has been moving quite fast on its plans for commercial-scale production. “This is clearly an important milestone for 6N, and we are looking forward to entering our initial production phase and then ramping up aggressively from there,” said David Dunnison, vice-president of business development.
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March 28, 2008, 9:54 pm EST
We can only hope, right?
ZENN Motor Co. held its annual general meeting today and offered some more insight into when it expects product from Cedar Park, Texas-based EEStor and when it plans to come out with a highway-speed electric vehicle using EEStor’s “game-changing” energy-storage technology.
That date would be fall 2009, the company said — a far cry from orginal talk of 2007 but, if the product delivers on its promises, I’m sure it will be worth the wait. “The cityZENN is planned to be a fully certified, highway capable vehicle with top speed of 125 KPH/80 MPH and a range of 400 kilometres/250 miles. Powered by EEStor, the cityZENN will be rechargeable in less than 5 minutes, feature operating costs 1/10th of a typical internal combustion engine vehicle and be 100 per cent emission-free,” the company said in a statement following the meeting.
One point: I expect the “rechargeable in less than 5 minutes” comment would be true only if there are special charge stations available, since I’m told this wouldn’t be possible from a standard home outlet.
ZENN chief executive Ian Clifford said EEStor’s storage technology is in “advanced stages of commercialization” and that commercial product will first be shipped to ZENN in 2008. Though the company said it has not yet tested the technology in a vehicle application yet. The company also plans new 2009 versions of its low-speed ZENN, including a four-passenger car and a utility vehicle.
Talks are also under way with some of the automotive OEMs, though Clifford wouldn’t mention names. ZENN has the right to enter joint ventures with OEMs to produce vehicles with its EEStor-powered “ZENNergy drivetrain.” The company also plans to develop and market its ZENNergy drive systems for retrofitting and conversion of existing internal combustion vehicles. The initial target, the company said, will be large, high-profile fleets.
Someone at the meeting asked about the cost of the highway-speed cityZENN. Clifford commented that he expects some premium compared to internal-combustion alternatives, but also expects the car to be competitive with comparative gas-guzzlers and well within the range of affordability for prospective car owners.
Dick Weir, founder and CEO of EEStor, told me a few weeks ago that there would be an announcement soon on permittivity of its barium titanite powder, considered a major benchmark that would trigger future payments to EEStor from ZENN, and I can only assume Kleiner Perkins as well. No word yet, though I’m told EEStor is working on various aspects of its technology in parallel with the goal having a production run of commercial product in 2008.
Sometimes this whole story is like one of those dreams in which you’re running toward something but the ground keeps slipping from under you… One thing I will say though: ZENN has done a decent job throughout all this of building its brand.
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