Road racing games such Microsoft’s Project Gotham Racing and Forza bring realism to the digital driving experience by duplicating the sound of squealing tires and the roar of engines.

But what about an electric car? How does it sound? Isn’t the whir of the motor completely different?

Screeching to a halt from 119 miles an hour was a fun way to use electrons, says Tesla owner Tom Burt

These question brought Microsoft game engineers together with Tesla owner Tom Burt for an on-the-track day of recording Burt’s Roadster screeching to a halt from 119 miles an hour.

In a blog entry, Burt says he heavy braking was a fun way to use electrons.

“The brakes got quite hot after three of the 119 mph runs, which ended with hard/threshold braking to slow the car before running out of pavement. The sound they recorded as we blew by at these speeds was fantastic.”

The day began at 7:30 a.m. when sound engineers from Microsoft Game Studios wired the $98,000 car with three large boom microphones suction-cupped to the sides and rear. Two other mics were attached up front over the sway bars near the front tires, and another was placed in the trunk. A final mic went inside the cabin.

Burt said that in addition to the abrupt braking, he performed hard sweeping turns, which generated “good tire chirps at the edge of adhesion (and) then more aggressive skids.”

Finally, “the team asked for ‘longer’ squeal segments, (and) we did tight circles just fast enough to keep the tires howling continuously for 30 seconds or so.”

The motor overheated after several full speed accelerations and the car under-steered, given its stock suspension settings and tire sizes, Burt said. But when it was all over, he was relieved to find he had enough juice in the battery to drive home.

Biofuels companies are likely to face a wave of consolidation over the next 2 years as they try to limbo under the price of gasoline and fossil fuels.

ZeaChem is using a novel approach to biofuels fermentation by employing bacteria found in termites

This necessary marrying of small firms should enable a number of larger biofuels companies to match or beat the cost of petroleum-based fuels. The parity should happen in the next two to five years, says Lux Research’s Mark Bunger.

Bunger, a research director at the firm, said he sees companies “vertically” consolidating. Partnerships struck today will turn into acquisitions when companies that can complement one another.

For instance, a company turning biomass into glucose might merge with a enterprise turning glucose into ethanol, he said.

Today’s “partnerships will turn into mergers and unified companies that can really work together to lower costs over the next 18 to 24 months,” Bunger said on a Lux Webcast. “We expect to see quite a bit of that.”

The mergers should give a boost to the industry. Within two to five years, numerous biofuels will match or beat the cost of petroleum-based fuels, he said.

One biofuels company worth watching, though not necessarily for acquisitions, is ZeaChem, which has begun building a Colorado biofuels plant designed to turn poplar trees into fuels, chemicals and even plastics.

ZeaChem uses a novel approach to fermentation that employs bacteria found in termites. The process is nicely described in a MIT Technology Review article published Friday:

“The company employs a hybrid approach that uses a combination of thermo-chemical and biological processes. It first uses acid to break the cellulose into sugars. Then, instead of fermenting the sugars into ethanol with yeast, as is typically done, the company feeds the sugars to an acetogen bacteria found in the guts of termites and other insects. The bacteria convert the sugar into acetic acid, which is then combined with hydrogen to form ethanol.”

Network market leader Cisco Systems has made smart grid a priority.

The company believes it is in a unique position to deliver a secure IP-based communications infrastructure from the point of electrical generation all the way to homes and businesses. It is running pilot projects with Florida Power and Light and Yello Strom, and promises a raft of new products early next year.

Cisco will be at every point where the company can enhance the smart grid, says SVP{ Laura Ipsen

“I think you’ll see us at every point where we can enhance the grid,” Senior Vice President Laura Ipsen said Thursday.

Ipsen declined to detail next year’s product releases. But she said at the GreenBeat 2009 conference Cisco’s strategy includes not only internal development and partnerships, but acquisitions.

The company has already run across interesting opportunities, she said – but has not yet pulled the trigger on a smart grid buy.

Cisco, which vows to spend whatever is necessary to strengthen its smart grid standing, is no stranger to acquisitions. It has over the years steadily acquired companies to expand its position in switching and routing and branch into consumer and other markets.

Now that strategy is being turned on the next big network – the electrical one. “I don’t think any one is going to own the smart grid space,” Ipsen said. But Cisco is afraid to use acquisitions to try.

The promise of the smart grid has been hyped to the moon and back. Millions of venture capital dollars have poured into companies and the first IPO – Silver Springs – may launch next year.

"There will be surprising things we haven't thought of today," says investor Vinod Khosla

But it is important not to get caught up in unfounded enthusiasm, says legendary investor Vinod Khosla. Smart grid companies need to ground their business plans in hard and fast calculations: do they save consumers money, do they bring better stability to the energy grid.

“They have to be based in reality,” Khosla said at the GreenBeat 2009 conference. He quarreled with the notion that he is a skeptic of the space.

But he said that smart meter provider Silver Springs’ success won’t necessarily be contagious.

“There will be surprising things we haven’t thought of today,” products brought about by the networking on the utility grid, he said. But for every 100 start-ups, five will be successful. The key is finding which they are.

If the construction of the nation’s electrical system was one of the significant achievements of the 20th Century, then its transformation into an intelligent two-way infrastructure will be a top accomplishment of the 21st, climate crusader Al Gore said Thursday.

An intelligent energy grid will give the U.S. economy a competitive advantage, says Al Gore

The transformation of the electrical grid to handle the intermittent, unsteady output of renewable energy and to give consumers more control over energy use will be a milestone in the fight against global warming, the former vice president said.

It also will give the nation’s economy a competitive edge at a time when other countries are rapidly building smart grids of their own, Gore said at a Silicon Valley conference.

“Our current infrastructure is obsolete, outmoded,” he said. “Having a highly developed smart grid is going to be a competitive advantage.”

Gore’s comments come as the world prepares for the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen next month, and as a small bipartisan group of senators make a last ditch effort to reach an agreement on a cap-and-trade bill before the talks begin. Gore, who said he supports Congress’ cap-and-trade legislation, noted that the necessity of global action on greenhouse gases is increasing.

Every day the world spews 90 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, leading to the further melting of polar ice and warming the world.

But he said at the GreenBeat 2009 conference there is reason for hope. A consensus is growing that fixing global warming will help  the economy and enhance national security.

But that consensus is arriving none too soon. In China, the nation has embarked on building a new super 800 kV grid that will connect the entire country. Western Europe also has efforts underway to link its grid with the potential solar-producing regions of the Sahara and to northwest Africa where the winds lend themselves to energy production.

Australia and India, too, are considering links to potential solar-producing regions within their borders.

Putting America on the path to a smart grid will be “one of the most significant achievements of the 21st Century,” Gore said.

Google will not try to make money out of the Chrome OS operating system, its co-founder said

Is Google becoming more and more altruistic?

At the Google Chrome OS launch this morning, the search engine co-founder tried to convince the press corps attending the small gathering (just under 50 journalists and bloggers!) that Google is not trying to make money out of its upcoming operating system.

“Call us dumb businessmen. We really focus on user needs rather to strategies relative to other companies and things like that. And I think there is a real user need to be able to use computers easily. These netbooks are now $300-400… You can buy 5 to put around your house. But if you do it today there’s no way you can manage them. The overhead to manage the software will be way too high. We believe that the Web platform is a much simpler way, where the machines are essentially stateless or cache-like and still be performant. And still more easier for users to use,” explains Sergey Brin.

Chrome OS promises to be faster, more secure and easier to use than traditional operating systems like Linux (which the software is based on), Windows and even Mac OS!

However, the Google software which is readily available for download on the Chromium OS site, will not host any other “native” applications than Google’s own Chrome Web browser.

So for those, like me, with heavy photos and videos needs, Chrome OS will simply not fit the bill.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin explains it all in this video excerpt:

Despite gaining momentum, Google Chrome adoption is still far behind Firefox's 330 million users!

At the Googleplex this morning, Google vice-president of product management Sundar Pichai started the Google Chrome OS press conference with an update on the search engine Web browser:

1. Since launch, 14 months ago, 40 million people are now using Google Chrome as their main Web browser. Although this sounds like a big number, it’s not. To put it in perspective, Firefox added 30 million users in 8 weeks last month!
2. Google Chrome has been updated more than 20 times through seamless auto updates;
3. Javascript is 38 times faster than Internet Explorer. An important benchmark for Web 2.0 applications that make heavily use of AJAX;
4. HTML 5 support.

Pichai also mentioned about 3 more announcements that Google will be making by the end of this year regarding Chrome:

1. Release of the Mac version
2. and the Linux version;
3. Release of Extensions, which are similar to plug-ins.

Suntech Power Holdings, China’s largest crystalline solar cell maker, says demand for solar panels is soaring.

Price declines of 40 percent this year led to rapid buying during the third quarter in Europe, China and the United States, said CEO Zhengrong Shi. Customers demonstrated pent up demand after several quarters of recession-induced restraint.

China has stimulated rooftop development and approved 294 solar farms totaling 642 MW, says Suntech CEO Zhengrong Shi

“We are finally starting to see elasticity in the market,” Shi said Thursday on a conference call with analysts.

In Germany, the company’s largest market, growth occurred from buyers fearing a reduction in the nation’s feed-in tariff. Spain, France and the Czeck Republic also turned in solid demand. Shipments to North America were up 100 percent.

In China, government programs supporting rooftop solar and utility scale farms are kicking in. The nation’s rooftop efforts target 91 MW while officials have approved 294 solar farms totaling 642 MW to be installed over two to three years.

Shi said the market’s growth should continue in 2010, when Suntech anticipates shipment growth of 75 percent and stable pricing.

One problem is production capacity. The company says it hasn’t been able to manufacture as much as customers want since August. Also of concern is the cutthroat nature of the Chinese market. Shi said he may have to sell solar panel at cost, maintaining only a “break even” gross margin.

If you need more proof the smart grid is a powerful weapon in the battle against global warming, consider a recent pilot project by Duke Energy.

The company installed sensing devices and software in a bevy of homes near its headquarters in Charlotte and remotely managed the use of appliances. Turn on a dishwasher, and Duke might delay its operation to a time when energy demand is less.

Customers didn't see any difference in the quality of their services, says Duek CEO James Rogers

Run an air conditioner, and Duke might cycle down the refrigerator to reduce its electrical consumption.

The result was a 20 percent reduction in home energy use without “customers seeing any difference in the quality of their service,” CEO James Rogers said Wednesday evening.

Rogers held up the test as evidence that technology will drive new efficiencies in energy use. There is little doubt “energy efficiency gains will come with the deployment of technology,” he said at the GreenBeat 2009 conference in San Mateo.

The company’s strategy, he explained, is to use its financial muscle and customer reach to put the latest devices in the hands of ratepayers.

Duke expects to roll out smart meters to its 4 million customers within five years. It then sees itself as a distributor of technology – paying to put software and hardware in homes and reaping a return from ratepayers on its investment.

The smart meter is a communications device, Rogers said, and open standards will allow third parties to develop products that plug into the grid. “We can’t even envision the products that are coming,” he says.

The company has strengthened its capital reserves for the task – raising $6 billion recently at interest rates under 4 percent. “I want to step in and make that investment in the home,” he says, perhaps even leavings rooftops to install solar panels.

The smart grid is coming and Duke is figuring out how to make it pay.

Green tech investing is not for the faint of heart. Competing takes money (lots of it), patience and technical know-how (lots of it, too).

In its formative pre-public years, Google required only $25 million of venture capital. Secretive fuel-cell start-up Bloom Energy has already raised $250 million. And after seven years it is still in stealth development. Another two years may be needed.

Green tech investing takes more money and its take more time, says venture capitalist John Doerr

Green tech investing “takes more money (and) it takes more time,” says legendary venture capitalists John Doerr. “You’re messing with atoms and molecules.”

Nevertheless, Doerr says he’s got patience – and the expectation of handsome returns.

At the GreenBeat 2009 conference, Doerr laid out his favorite investment themes and dropped the news that smart grid start-up Silver Spring Networks could go public next year.

“I hope it does,” he said of the company he funded at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

When it comes to his favorite investment ideas, Doerr highlighted:

*Low cost ways to make biofuels;
*Innovations in large-scale grid energy storage;
*Solar cell development to achieve price parity with fossil fuels;
*And technology to lower the cost of wind turbines.

In the area of next-generation lighting, Doerr says he has found nothing of interest yet. But then, there is always tomorrow.