CleanTech Archives - Serious Startups

Jessica Alba To Headline SXSWEco 2012 October 3-5 In Austin Texas

The producers of South By Southwest are preparing for their next SXSWEco event. The three day event will be held from October 3rd through October 5th in Downtown Austin. While it’s a bit smaller than the huge music, film and interactive festival held in March, it’s by no means a small event. In fact there are over 130 different talks, panels, work groups and special events during SXSWEco. Oh, and don’t forget the parties.

One of the headline keynote speakers will be actress Jessica Alba. Back in March, Alba, a Golden Globe nominated actress, launched her baby safe startup company called “The Honest Company”. The startup seeks to replace baby products laiden with harsh and untested chemicals, with natural products that are baby safe like diapers, household cleaners, soap, sunscreen, laundry detergent and even dishwasher gels.

The Honest Company went to town with a $27 million dollar venture round which included some of the heaviest of hitters. Investors in Netflix, Twitter, Living Social and Zynga all participated in Alba’s first round.

The folks at SXSW Eco have put together “An Honest Conversation With Jessica Alba and Christopher Gavigan”. Gavigan is Alba’s co-founder in The Honest Company.

Other highlighted speakers this year include: Lance Hosey (“The Shape of Green”), Annie Leonard (“The Story of Stuff”), and Senator Byron Dorgan with Jigar Shah. Distinguished Speakers include: Professor Michael Mann (Earth System Science Center), Tamar Adler (“An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace”), Juliet Eilperin (The Washington Post) and Bill McKibben (350.org).

Some of the other panels include: “Energy Challenges on the U.S.- Mexico Border,” “The Intersection of Art + Sustainability,” “New Urbanism: Why Reshaping Cities is Green,” “Rust Belt to Fresh Coast: Milwaukee’s Quiet Revolt,” “Behind E-Waste: The Good, Green & Shocking Truths,” “The End of the Golden Age of Automobiles?” and “Risks and Rewards of More Texas Wind and Solar.”

Linkage:

For more information on SXSWEco click here

Politico Hosts Energy & The Presidency Panel At DNC2012

Politico hosted a great panel for lunch today. The panel was called “Energy & The Presidency” and talked about clean energy, solar energy and wind energy which are cornerstones to President Obama’s energy plan for the next four years. The panel included: Kevin Book, the Managing Director at Clearview; Carol Browner, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Congressman Ed Markley; Former New Mexico Governor and Former Secretary of Energy, Bill Richardson; and the Former Governor of Colorado Bill Ritter Jr.

As you can see Politico provided a powerful line up of speakers who carrier Obama’s message of finding other forms of cleaner, sustainable energy going forward. Conversely, as Congressman Markley pointed out, Mitt Romney’s campaign has just received $6 million dollars from big oil and his energy plan includes oil above all else.

The Republicans have taken to the airwaves to confuse the people when it comes to energy, the costs and the savings. Kevin Book mentioned that “It’s hard for people to see the monetary effects of these energy changes through ads”.

While education is always a big part of bringing home any initiative and the statistics under the current president include a 50% drop in the price of solar energy. Also, before the end of the year 15,000 more megawatts of power will be added to the grid this year and that will come from solar and wind energy exclusively.

If you’re a frequent reader to nibletz or our former site you may be very familiar with Congressman Markley. While Markley sits on the energy committee, and has since 1976, he is very active in the world of privacy and data and also a strong advocate for startups. In fact the entire state of Massachusetts is as well.

Former Secretary Of Energy Richardson pointed out that global energy demand is going to increase 47% over the next five years, so regardless of previous election cycles, energy is very important this year.

Not only is energy an important issue because we need it, it will also fuel jobs for many years to come. From the corporate world, cleaner energy companies will need to hire workers to build infrastructure, wind mills, solar panels etc. On the startup front, even the government is watching the great ideas that are coming from the CleanTech and green space.

Linkage:

More coverage of the DNC

Startup Interview With Chicago Startup: The Plastic Bag Solution

The Plastic Bag Solution is a green startup located in Chicago IL where the issue of plastic bags is actually becoming a hot button topic among residents, environmentalists and government officials. In fact 1st Ward Alderman Proco Joe Moreno introduced a ban in 2011 of single use plastic bags. The legislation is still waiting to be heard in the Health and Environment Committee. If the legislation is passed Chicago will be the largest city in the country to enact such legislation.

Plastic bags clog sewers,drains,cause animals to suffocate, and take hundreds of years to decompose. The Plastic Bag Solution provides an alternative to the plastic bag that is 100% compostable and great for the environment.

The Plastic Bag solution provides their compostable bags at a fraction of the cost as traditional plastic bags and also educates consumers, business owners and government officials on the use and benefits of their solution to plastic bags.

We got a chance to talk with Coleman Franklin, Co-Founder and Vice President of The Plastic Bag Solution about what their startup is all about and what they’re doing in Chicago.

Check out the interview below:

Utah CleanTech Startup: EcoScraps Announces Product Availability In Southern California

Back in April we reported on an exciting startup in Utah that was founded by former Brigham Young students. They came up with the idea after eating at an all you can eat breakfast buffet and asking themselves where all the wasted food goes. Naturally we can’t really box up that uneaten food off people’s plates and send it to starving kids in third world countries. I’m sure we would if we could. However the team behind EcoScraps found something clean, green and good for the environment to do with that scrap food.

EcoScraps now takes food waste from grocery stores, and farms and has it hauled to their compost facilities for a discounted tipping fee compared to the dump. EcoScraps then takes the food waste and turns it into compost and potting soil. They sell their compost and potting soil in Utah, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico and now Southern California.

Today the startup announced that their soil and compost products will be available in 40 big box home improvement stores in Southern California.

The company redirects 100 tons of produce waste each day from local grocery stores and restaurants. The waste is diverted away from landfills and turned into compost products, which can now be found in over 40 big box home improvement stores across Southern California.

“Every three days in America, enough food is thrown away to fill the Rose Bowl,” said EcoScraps CEO and co-founder Dan Blake. “By repurposing leftover fruit and vegetables, we are doing our part to take that valuable organic material and return it to good use. Our expansion into Southern California affords us the opportunity to put more food scraps to use, protecting the environment and enhancing gardens in America.”

EcoScraps is a no-chemical, no-poop alternative to typical manure- and chemical-based soil products on the market. The company’s products not only contain twice the amount of essential soil nutrients, but are safe for kids and pets too. By establishing a new infrastructure model for creating organic compost, EcoScraps has been able to quickly expand and reach a wide variety of consumers.

In June 2012, the World Bank released What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management, which reported that 810 million tons of organic waste will be generated this year alone. “America’s food waste accounts for 30 million tons, which is equivalent to 25 percent of all landfill waste in the U.S.,” Blake said. “This number is expected to almost double by 2025. EcoScraps takes the nutrients found in our fruits and vegetables and returns them back to the soil instead of letting them waste away in landfills. This creates healthier plants and a healthier planet.”

Linkage:

Learn more about EcoScraps here at their website

Here’s a story we ran in April about EcoScraps

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Denver Startups: Castrol 20/20 innoVentures Crops In Denver To Hear Pitches.

20/20 innoVentures a venture capital arm of Castrol Oil/BP stopped in Denver Colorao this week to hear pitches from up and coming mobile/mobility technology startups.

Crashboxx a Fort Collins based startup was one of four companies that made their pitches. David Byrne, Crashbox’s CEO said that this was his first time pitching to a vc firm.

Crashboxx is a technology geared towards fleet. The Crashboxx functions much like the black box on an airplane and records data that can be recalled in the event of a crash.

“This is really the future of fleet management and something every parent of a teenage driver would want,” said Byrne to the

Denver Post

Lightning Hybrids out of Loveland pitched as well. Their technology uses a hydraulic system to store the force from braking and re-applies it to accelerating.

According to Lightning Hybrid’s Founder Dan Johnson, their technology boosts mileage efficiency up to 30%

Fort Collins startup VanDyne SuperTurbo has made over 300 pitches according tp founder Ed VanDyne. They’ve raised over $14 million dollars so far.

They need to raise more capital for their technology that uses exhaust waste heat and torque from an engine’s drive train to increase an engine’s energy efficiency up to 30%.

GreenGold of Colorado Springs also pitched their manufacturing technology that according to their website “unlocks the full potential and benefits of biobased ingredients to create machining lubricants”

Source: Denver Post

Ohio Startup: Former Navy Seal Starts Earl Energy, CleanTech Generator Company

Doug Moorehead is a retired Navy Seal from Cambridge Ohio. He also happens to hold a materials science degree from MIT and an MBA from Harvard. Wired reports that his military service spanned South America, the Persian Gulf and the South China Sea.

As the President of CleanTech startup Earl Energy he is drawing from his experiences in desolate areas, military training, and education to create solar diesel generators. During his military duty he would see enormous generators powering very little. Also as part of his military duty he would guard “countless” fuel convoys in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those convoys would be transporting fuel at $35 a barrel or more. They also had a casualty rate of one soldier for every 24 convoys.

Keep in mind in the desert the fuel isn’t just powering vehicles, it’s powering everything.

The biggest load on the traditional fuel based generators employed by the armed forces is the constant running of the engines. Moorehead has created generators with solar panels on top. In addition to the solar panels the battery mechanism he has created only require the engine to run in short bursts. While traditional generators run for 24 hours at a time, Moorehead’s generator engines run for 4 to 5 hours a day, drastically reducing the amount of fuel needed to power them.

More after the break
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Utah Startup: EcoScraps Turns Trashed Food Into Compost & Soil

Former Brigham Young University Student Dan Blake had a revolutionary new idea one morning when he couldn’t finish his french toast at an all you can eat buffet breakfast. This simple act of bringing too much food to the table at an all you can eat buffet is one that happens to many of us. For Blake it inspired him to ask the question “what happens to this wasted food”.

Well Blake found out the facts. Americans produced 250 million tons of trash in 2010, with about 34% of that recycled or composted according to the EPA. The EPA estimates that of those 250 million tons, 33 million tons of that was food trash. That’s a lot of french toast. Blake took all of this new found knowledge and began dumpster diving.

While most dumpster divers toss the food aside or ignore it all together in hopes of finding that one buried treasure, Blake took as much food waste as he could back to the parking lot of his apartment and composted it himself. He was able to get a university lab to do a soil analysis to find the best combination of nutrients to compost. From there he and his partners dropped out of college and EcoScraps was born.

The company launched in 2010 and became profitable earlier this year. They currently have 25 employees. Right now Blake is finding that, as with regular trash companies, transportation is his biggest expense.

“Transportation is a killer,” Blake told Reuters . “We spend a ton of our time figuring out how to cut down on those costs.”

Linkage:

For more about EcoScraps check out their website here

Nibletz is the voice of startups everywhere else, see what else is going on here

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Source: Reuters

Portland Clean Tech Startup LucidEnergy Has Found A Way To Create Green Power In A Water Pipe

A CleanTech startup in Portland Oregon called LucidEnergy has announced that they’ve found a way to create clean energy in a segment of water pipe. Lucid’s method involves pipes that have been fitted with a simple 5 turbine system. These special pipes could be installed when a utility replaces a segment of pipe.

How effective is it?

Gregg Semler, LucidEnergy’s President and CEO says that a stretch of pipe carrying water downhill might be able to produce enough electricity to power 100 homes. Impressive. Not only that but all around it’s cheaper. Semler says that without any government subsidies the cost of installing his pipe method is three to four times better than solar or wind systems.

LucidEnergy’s first public test of this technology will start next week on April 26th. That’s when the project opens at Riverside Public Utilities in Southern California. Riverside has tested four generations of the system over the last two years. This last test has gone flawlessly according to cities assistant general manager for water Kevin Milligan.

“I think it’s great technology,” Milligan told the Portland Tribune. “It could be widely adopted by water utilities and result in some significant cost savings. And it’s green.” The power generated from the Riverside test site is said to be enough to power 14 miles of street lights. Milligan says that after labor and capital construction, energy is his third highest expense. At his water fields in San Bernadino, CA he pays $.13 to $.25 per kilowatt hour. The Lucid system produces energy at a cost of $.05 to $.09 per kilowatt hour which is a significant savings.

Riverside will be the first city to publicly test the service however there has already been interst from San Antonio and New York as well as Israel and Zambia.

source: PortlandTribune

Seattle: Google Backed CleanTech Startup AltaRock To Start Drilling In Oregon

In 2008 Google invested in a new CleanTech startup called AltaRock. AltaRock plans on building engineered geothermal systems in places where natural resources aren’t already available for such systems. AltaRock will create geothermal reservoirs in areas without natural flowing streams.

AltaRock had embarked on a demonstration project of this technology in California in 2007 however the project ran into technical difficulties and ended in 2009. AltaRock applied to work on a similar project in Oregon in May of 2010 which was just recently approved. Oregon’s Bureau of Land Management said they find no big environmental impact to the project.

For this project to work AltaRock needs to use special tools to drill wells that are a few miles deep. They will then inject cold water to fracture hot rocks. Electricity is produced by pumping water into the well where it will “flow along fissures of hot rocks and extend them” reports GigaOm. AltraRock needs to predict the paths of the expanded fissures to insure the production wells will intercept them. Each well typically costs a few million dollars. For the Oregon site AltaRock needs to build two new wells which they will use in conjunction with a well that’s 10,060 feet deep and already in place. The existing well will be used for injecting the water while the two new wells will be used to pump out the hot water.

AltaRock raised $26 million dollars earlier on in a round led by Google Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla Ventures and Vulcan Capital. They have also received a $21.4 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

An MIT study has said that the enhanced geothermal system could create 100gw of electricity by 2050.

Source: GigaOM

Little Rock’s Verve Solutions, Offering Complete Energy Assesments, Wins Gone In 60 Pitch Contest

Over 200 entrepreneurs, startup founders and technorati turned out for a Gone in 60 seconds pitch contest Monday night in Little Rock. The contest was part of a tour that was created by Innovate Arkansas. Innovate Arkansas is a partnership that works with new technology based entrepreneurs to turn inventions and startups into viable businesses.

The Gone in 60 pitch contest, or G60 as it’s affectionately known in Arkansas, is a 60 second elevator pitch contest. The Little Rock event was held at Vino’s and saw about 20 pitches compete for prizes. The top prize was $1,000.00 and won by Verve Solutions.

Verve Solutions is an energy assessment, and efficiency solution provider based in Little Rock. The company was founded by Lolisa Crowe and Brian Broussard both twenty something entrepreneurs who both happen to be RESNET certified energy auditors. Also, both have a long history of energy conscious environmental leadership. Crowe was a volunteer with Americorps through the Clinton Foundation. Boussard has worked on earth day projects as well as on the campaign of environmentally conscious and landscape architect turned State Representative Mark Robertson.

The winning pitch was focused on how the current residential building was inefficient in terms of both environment and energy consumption. Home owners will have the ability to pursue energy efficiency improvement in a more affordable way thanks to Verve solutions.

So far the G60 has been to Fayetteville, Fort Smith and Rogers. The next stops are in El Dorado, Texarkana, Jonesboro and Conway.

For more information on G60 visit Innovate Arkansas

For more info on the winner of the Little Rock competition visit Verve Solutions

source: Arkansasbusiness.com

Ford & Yahoo Team Up For Reality Show About Electric Cars

Being on the road in a Prius makes you really appreciate both the hybrid and the full on electric car. While traveling to cover startups in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Cameron and I saw charging stations out in front of local government office buildings, which was a breath of fresh air. We also brought you this story earlier this month about a NC startup that is re-inventing the charging station.

With all this talk about electric cars it’s no wonder that Ford has teamed up with Yahoo to release a web-based reality show about electric cars.

The new show called “Plugged In” will chronicle the lives of three two person teams driving the new Ford Focus electric. The teams will compete in scavenger hunt like challenges in 10 major cities including Los Angeles in New York, mostly on the east and west coast where electric cars are gaining popularity and where gas is over $4.00 per gallon and quickly approaching $5.00.

More after the break
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