Challenges that Continue to Mire Biofuels and Renewable Chemicals in the Valley of Death
“The venture community is poorly positioned to execute on the energy environment opportunity, which is huge, enormous.” That’s Gregory Manuel, formerly of Amyris Biotechnologies and former Special Advisor for Alternative Energy to the US Secretary of State. His view is that in order for the renewable biofuels and chemicals market to thrive, more investors with patience and an appreciation for the longer term required for these projects will be needed. Given the unique challenges faced by an industry that’s constantly running after an elusive breakthrough with only intermittent and marginal success, this could be a deal breaker. The good news, according to Manuel, is that those investors exist; it’s just a matter of them making themselves known.

Manuel is not alone in his thinking. Bob Johnsen, CEO of Primus Green Energy, Inc. has a similar view of the market today. He comments, “VCs are looking for quick exits, but if you consider the market for energy being enormous, it’s a long-game play. That said, absolute payouts are enormous and fluid.”

In recent years, renewable biofuels and advanced chemicals have attracted a lot of investor attention because of the lucrative payout promised. However, the biofuels industry has been struggling against a set of hurdles with little in the way of spectacular successes to show for their efforts. Perhaps most perplexing has been the problems on the process engineering side and scaling up effectively.

According to Manuel, broadly speaking, when you look at the technologies across a variety of sectors, there has been a real lack of understanding of things like the upstream process and feedstock requirements, quality control of feedstocks for different systems, optimization in the middle whether it’s for algae, fermentation, or catalytic production, and other nuts and bolts of the technology platforms required for this kind of development. As a result, the relationship between the upstream and downstream scale up is one that the industry has yet to fully recognize and appreciate.

Furthermore, time continues to be a major sticking point. “The customer adoption phase is very slow and very long,” reflects Manuel. Of course, there are also regulatory hurdles, especially in the high-value chemical space, which slow down the process even further.

As a result, a lot of the advanced chemical plays are having a tough time getting funding. Similar things are happening in the biofuels market according to Vonnie Estes, Managing Director at GranBio. “What’s happening with larger seed companies like Monsanto is that they’re a little bit in a “let’s sit and watch this area” mode. They’re not going to jump into this. Instead, they’ll let the market determine the course and will take over successful ventures when they’ve become real businesses.”

Aside from the scale up difficulties, the regulatory hurdles, and the long timelines experienced in this market, the most perplexing problem yet is the lack of technological breakthroughs needed to create a strong market position for any one renewable fuels or chemicals technology. Given the spectacular results the market expects, it is likely that not until a major breakthrough occurs will biofuels or renewable chemicals really find their stride.

Bob Johnsen put it well when reflecting on the work of Primus Green Energy; “Nothing succeeds like success! While in R&D, we miniaturize the footprint of the process to enable us to build a plant that produces only about 6 million gallons. But if we were to be successful in producing 25 million gallons out of our first commercial plant without hiccups, that then would be the foundation for building something four times bigger, like 100 million gallons.”

Yet virtually no one has been able to make the leap from pilot or demo scale to full commercial scale with any measure of success. One potential reason for this may be the dearth of people that possess the complex skillsets needed to work within this space. As Manuel put it, “You need a very complex skillset for doing things that have never been done before – industrial engineers, chemical engineers, and so on.”

US Market for Biofuels and High Value Renewable Chemicals Slow on a Global Scale
All of these factors – scalability, regulations, timelines, and poor results – have made investors rather skittish. As a result, many companies have gone unsold because buyers haven’t been willing to pay what VCs think their investments are worth. However, given the spectacular failures over the last year, some VCs may be looking to take the lower bids rather than being left with nothing.

As Estes correctly points out, cleantech takes a lot longer to develop than something in the IT sector, for instance, making a 10-year exit impossible. “The model is kind of broken from a VC perspective. Most VCs are upset now because they’ve kept putting money in and have had to make a monthly decision of whether to put in more money or let it fail

In particular, in the US market there is a major capital gap. “Lots of firms are going out to raise money for cleantech and coming back with a fraction of what they wanted to raise or nothing at all,” explains Manuel. As a result, many biofuels and advanced chemical firms are looking to overseas investors to get their projects the funding they need.

Yet visionary investors are still making plays in this sector, and people like Estes are optimistic about the prospects. “There are investors who are looking to stick with this technology. They’re out there. I think the economy is doing well enough that family funds that want to invest in something that is good for the world are going to stick with it. There are also big companies like Monsanto, Unilever, BASF with their venture arms that are willing to make a bet on 8 companies at $3 million each and see what happens. So I think that’s what’s going to happen. It’ll be more strategic

Manuel agrees. In his view, there will be a few folks who actually support cleantech with personal money, as well as companies in oil, energy, and environment patient government funds looking to change infrastructure. “These kinds of investors have a long-term view of the space, that it will take longer than you think, yet they’re in it with you. That kind of strategic partner is exactly the kind of relationship the smaller companies are going to need.”

Fitting the Right Investor Keys to Unlock the Renewable Chemical and Biofuel Opportunities
Clearly the matchmaking process between visionary investors and worthy renewable biofuel and chemical ventures is a difficult one. Certainly the risks are high, but so are the potential rewards, which is why many continue to plug away at their craft.

The fact remains that the first company to achieve that elusive breakthrough – with the help of an investor with a view to the long-term – will see rewards that are on a different scale entirely than anything else currently available. “In energy and environmental plays, the numbers are orders of magnitude larger in terms of opportunities, time, and capital requirements, as well as complexity to achieve when you consider regulations, skillsets, partners needed to go to market, etc. But when you do get it right, you’re coming home with a platinum medal instead of a bronze medal.”

Johnsen heartily agrees; “VCs are looking for quick exits, but if you consider the enormous size of the market for energy, it’s a long-game play.”

Article by Richard Herbert, President of Helix Recruiting, Inc. A boutique executive search and recruiting firm that specializes in: cleantech and renewables; specialty chemicals and alternative fuels; utilities and power generation.

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Since Nissan reduced the price of its electric Leaf by $6,400 to $19,000 earlier this year — a move that tripled sales of the car compared with the same time period last year — competitors such as Chevy, Fiat, Mitsubishi, Honda, and Toyota have responded with similar low-cost deals and buyer incentives, Time magazine reports.

Within days of cutting the lease price for its Fit EV from $389 per month to $259 per month, Honda dealerships in California sold every model of the EV, forcing the automaker to apologize to customers who were then placed on a waiting list.

After seeing no growth in sales for its electric Volt in recent months, Chevy last week offered a $5,000 cash back incentive. But while the price war is driving EV sales and boosting consumer interest in the emerging green technologies, it remains unclear whether it will be good for business in the long term. Chrysler, which owns Fiat, reported earlier this year that the company loses $10,000 for each Fiat 500e EV it sells.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

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Same thing on the benefits side. Do you value the resource as a short term or long term generator? Should you account for time of generation, given that electricity costs more during times of high demand? Do you include other grid benefits, such as the potential to avoid other capital outlays, such as investments in transmission and distribution systems?

How about benefits that go beyond the grid? Should societal benefits such as the value of cleaner air and reduced morbidity be factored into cost-benefit evaluations? How about climate change impacts? Employment and other economic impacts? Impacts on water consumption?

We think so. To this end, we’ve joined a coalition of groups (AmericanLung Association in California, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Brightline Defense Project, California Center for Sustainable Energy, California Environmental Justice Alliance, California Solar Energy Industries Association, Coalition for Clean Air, Distributed Energy Consumer Advocates, Environment California Research & Policy Center, Environmental Defense Fund, Interstate Renewable Energy Council, Inc., Local Energy Aggregation Network, Dr. Luis Pacheco, Presente.org, Sierra Club, Solar Energy Industries Association) to request that the California Energy Commission undertake a study of the societal costs and benefits of California’s net energy metering program.

The petition can be found here (pdf).

If you think this is a good idea, the CEC is requesting public comment. Instructions for adding your voice, here (pdf).

All public comment on the matter here.

Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.

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This, of course, is only a part of the puzzle, as it omits a host of other things that are in the process of becoming extremely important to us, like vehicle to grid. Here, we mean the management of many millions of batteries in electric vehicles at various levels of charge, each of which has the potential to play a role in the health and viability of the overall grid.

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Gridtest Systems Inc. of Westlake Village, CA makes an “EV in a box” test system that is says can determine if an EV and an EVSE will work smoothly together. It has versions that are designed to work in the lab and in the field. The yellow box, also known as the EVE-100, which runs about $3,900, serves a dual purpose, testing both compatibility and safety, says Gridtest CEO Neal Roche. “We run about 20 tests on the interface and make sure it is compliant to standard and that it de-energizes when it is supposed to,” he says.

The company, which was founded two and a half years ago, has sold around 400 units to its 50-odd customers. Google, which has aggressively promoted workplace charging, is his biggest customer, says Roche. Others include electrical contractors, utilities, the insurance industry, and test labs, he says.

“Part of our business is helping people get the vehicle and charger correct by design,” says Roche. “The other is make sure it is reliable.” Consumers don’t always use the recommended brand of EVSE, he says. And automakers have also run into problem, for example Nissan Leaf users ran into problems with the General Electric Level 2 chargers in 2012, he says. It was a software glitch with the Leaf.

Roche says would like to expand the Gridtest customer base, which would help drive production costs down. But the market has thus far been slow. One problem in North America is that federal funding for charging station installation has ended, he says. Another problem: A workable business model for public charging hasn’t been found yet, says Roche.

What about China? Isn’t it supposed to be installing lots of chargers to handle the hundreds of thousands of PEVs it has planned? Well, chargers are being installed, though not in the hundreds of thousands. The problem is, China as yet has no national EV standards for chargers or plugs.

So though Gridtest has talked to a couple of Chinese auto companies, and sold a few Gridtest test boxes to some charging station companies, the Gridtest boxes test to J1772 and IEC65851 standards, which are prevalent in the U.S. and Europe, says Roche. “We would have to buy and import some of the Chinese charging stations to test our product,” he says.

Harder than it looks

As the PEV market grows, Gridtest may run into Interoperability testing problems that it hasn’t anticipated, says Ted Bohn at Argonne National Laboratory’s Advanced Powertrain Research Facility. Argonne and the SAE are working on a standard – J2953 – to establish best practices for plug-in electric vehicle and EVSE interoperability. Bohn is on the committee working on it. He clearly feels frustrated that many – including the folks at Gridtest – don’t get how many variables go into testing interoperability. There is a “big state department meeting” about the issue on July 18, says Bohn. “There are a whole bunch of resources behind it; everybody has it on their minds,” he says. Except even some of his colleagues at Argonne don’t grasp its significance, adds Bohn.

Bohn says that testing interoperability is about testing functionality between two definitive devices, a vehicle and an EVSE. “You can’t plug in a tester and say this is an inoperable charger. You can only say it about a vehicle and a charger,” he says. “You can’t universalize because there are too many differences.”

Gridtest’s “EV in a box” might measure what the vehicle does, but “what you really need is a precise measure of what happens on each side,” insists Bohn. There are three areas that need to be measured, he says: Plugging and unplugging; what happens when unexpected things occur on the grid such as a lightning strike; and timing issues specific to each vehicle, such as does the ignition turn all the way off before charging begins.

Okay, then what good is J2953? At least it will minimize the differences, says Bohn. So there are a lot of variables that Gridtest will have to consider. At least when J2953 come out later this year it will have something to start with….

Meanwhile, back in China, Argonne is working with China “as best we can” to have some similar standards as the U.S. and Europe, says Bohn. But China wants to simplify everything, he says with exasperation (sort of the same tone he used when discussing Gridtest). The Chinese “are trying to get at the broad answer without knowing what is the question,” says Bohn.

China’s electric infrastructure might be able to handle a bunch of buses plugging in at night, but not a bunch of individuals plugging in at random times of the day pulling 220 amps (China’s electricity is all 220V; don’t plug in your hairdryer there or it is a goner.), says Bohn. Can you say PEV-induced brownout?

Details, details. Hey, maybe that means it will be easier for Gridtest to enter then Chinese market than Roche thinks. In any case, Gridtest is focusing on the U.S. and Europe right now, says Roche.

Article by Alysha Webb, a freelance automotive journalist and founder of ChinaEV Blog.

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Energy costs affect Granny at least as much – and everyone else too. Yet we rarely devote such time and passion to the issue, except when gasoline prices spike. Even then, the talk is temporary. We become acclimated to the higher costs. Note how little grumbling you hear now that $3-$4 per gallon gasoline is the new normal.

Why do we make a big deal about the economics of health care and not the economics of energy? Because we are not doing the math. That’s what a new report by United Technologies Corp. reveals.

Few realize, for example, that we spend about the same amount each year powering our homes, stores and offices – $432 billion – as businesses spend on health insurance.

“It is on par, which is remarkable because it speaks to where we can go,” said John Mandyck, chief sustainability officer for UTC Climate, Controls and Security, in an interview.

Where UTC sees us going is toward saving money through greater energy efficiency, which opens the way toward deploying the extra capital for other personal or investment purposes.

“Unlocking American Efficiency: The Economic and Commercial Power of Investing in Energy Efficient Buildings,” looks specifically at the economics of making US buildings 30 percent more efficient by 2030. Here are a few eye-catching points the report makes about what that could mean for our finances.

• A 30% investment in building efficiency brings a 28.6 percent internal rate of return over 10 years. That’s about four times better than average corporate bond yield or average equity performance and more than double the returns of high performing venture capital firms.

• Households could save about $466 per year – twice as much as they spend on average for fresh vegetables and nearly as much as they spend on prescription and non-prescription drugs.

• After recouping the cost of upgrading government buildings, the US would save about $8 billion per year on energy costs. How meaningful is this? Over a decade, this is as much savings as we could achieve by raising the Medicare retirement age to 67, increasing taxes one percent for top earners, or taxing foreign earnings by US corporations. It’s also about as much as we would save by eliminating the Environmental Protection Agency.

Here is another way to look at energy savings. Think about lowering energy costs as a way to raise household income, says the report. We hear a lot about the decline in middle class salaries. Had energy costs remained level since 2000, they would have made up for the average drop in household income.

Thinking about energy costs this way converts the issue from being “a problem to an opportunity,” Mandyck said. It offers a chance to consider how we can “redeploy that cash flow in other ways.”

It makes sense for the US to pursue this line of thought with greater vigor. As a share of gross domestic product, energy costs rose from 6.2 percent to 9.2 percent over the last decade, says the report. And we can expect to see energy costs rise another 17% over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency.

Ultimately, the UTC’s energy efficiency story is about us keeping more of our own money and using it in other productive ways. Granny’s wheel chair doesn’t need to be powered by a heartless force beyond her control that sends her over a cliff. Embed more energy efficiency into the economy and Granny can afford her own motorized, self-propelled wheelchair and go wherever she wants.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work appears in many of the industry’s top magazines and newsletters. She is publisher of the Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter.

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Upgrade Office Equipment

Go through the building and do a detailed energy audit to find out where your electricity is going. Machines should always be off when not in use. If the copier is only accessed once a day, there’s no reason to keep it running from 9 to 5. Instruct all employees to turn off computers and other electronics when they leave for the day.

For even better energy efficiency, plug computers into power strips and turn these off as well. Many appliances leech energy even when they’re off. Invest in Energy Star appliances when possible.

Improve your Facilities
Simple changes that are as small as adding weather-stripping to windows and doors or installing motion sensors on lighting in little-used areas can have a big impact on your energy usage, especially in a large building. Don’t waste energy lighting an entire warehouse if most of it sits unused throughout the day.
Install fans to circulate air and cut the need for heating and air conditioning. The air circulation not only will regulate the temperature, it also helps to manage humidity. Solar films or screens will also help cool down your building in the warmer months.

Change Your Business Practices
The way you do business could result in an unnecessary drain on energy that you aren’t recognizing. Check with your electricity service provider for energy usage and how you may improve efficiency. Take a closer look at every area of the business that uses some form of electricity.
Are you in the habit of printing long reports to go over in meetings, even though most of them go unread? Switch to PDFs instead and give the printer a break. Are your refrigeration units your biggest energy drain? Look for ways to work that allow you to open the door less.

Take Advantage of Tax Credits
If you’re struggling to find the funds for energy improvements, focus on those that come with generous tax credits. Commercial buildings are eligible for tax credits when you make eligible improvements to heating and cooling, lighting, ventilation, and hot water systems.

Manufacturers can receive tax credits for using energy-efficient appliances like refrigeration units, dishwashers, or clothes washers. Many incentives will cover as much as 75 percent of the project costs and you can reduce energy usage by up to 20 percent. Read through the requirements for these credits carefully to make sure your project will qualify.

Improving the energy efficiency of your business is easier than you may have thought. The results of many projects will cut your energy usage significantly, lowering your overall operational costs. Take a closer look at your operations and see how many places you can find to cut energy usage today.

Article by Jake Fisher.

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Adewale Adewuyi, Ph.D., a lecturer at Redeemer’s University in Mowe, Nigeria, notes that rain water, rivers and streams are the most common direct sources of drinking water in many developing countries. Often, this water is polluted with substances from factories and agricultural runoff, which can harm both people and animals. In 2010, for instance, lead poisoning in Nigeria — which was later linked to industrial wastewater — claimed the lives of more than 500 children in less than seven months, he reported.

Absorbents, such as activated carbon, can help absorb these pollutants from water. However, they work slowly, are only effective in a limited pH range and are expensive. To help overcome this problem, Adewuyi turned to the seeds of the Luffa cylindrica plant. This plant, commonly known as sponge gourd, produces sponge-like fruit — loofahs — that are used as bathing brushes by millions of people worldwide. But Adewuyi says the seeds, which are plentiful, are considered environmental waste. As a result, they are underutilized.

In laboratory tests, he isolated oil from L. cylindrica seeds and used it to produce detergent-like substances called surfactants. These surfactants enhanced the seed’s absorption capacity in cleaning wastewater. He found the new product was cheaper and more effective than existing absorbents. Adewuyi is currently exploring whether other underutilized seeds and oils could have the same effect.

“It’s a win-win process,” he says. “It’s cost-effective, green, reproducible and, of course, applicable in developing countries because it is very easy to start up and maintain.”

Article appearing courtesy Celsias.

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For those of you who have not been to Atlanta, traffic can rival that of Los Angeles, so prepare for stop and go traffic on the freeway, especially during rush hour. Determined to find a great place for a Friday happy hour, I headed to the lovely neighborhood of Grant Park and a cool place called Six Feet Under. The vibe is great, the local beer, Sweetwater 420 is perfect for a sunny spring afternoon, and the shrimp and grits is just what the doctor ordered after a long flight from San Diego. After a brief stopover, it was now time to head to the family residence in trendy and upscale Buckhead.

More about the Kia Soul! Mine was a fully optioned model. The engine was a 2.0 liter, in line 4 cylinder good for 164 hp and 148 ft. lbs. of torque. Fuel economy is respectable and rated at 23 city/28 freeway. This was not a hybrid or plug-in but your standard internal combustion engine powering the Kia Soul! The base model comes with a smaller engine, less features, higher fuel economy ratings and a very reasonable price of $15,200 including destination charges. The Kia Soul! model with the premium package which includes navigation with SiriusXM Traffic, push button start w/Smart Key, leather seats, heated front seats, and automatic climate control can push the MSRP over $23,000. Bluetooth integration is standard. The tester that I had came in a bright color that Kia calls Alien. It is a bright green color that really stands out, especially in Atlanta (Blame me for a camera malfunction – the pictures you see here are stock images). Kia calls the Soul! an urban crossover and it truly fits the bill.

Driving around town, the Kia Soul! does the job. While the ride can be a bit harsh over bumps, that may have something to do with the 18” tires. Handling was adequate and the Soul! handled the torrential rainstorm that occurred on my trip with ease. Interior space is reasonable. With a baby seat in back, the Soul! accommodates 3 adults comfortably. Trunk space felt a bit tight. I wondered how tight it might be if I had a stroller, groceries, bags from Target and other things back there. Most of my driving was confined to local roads and a few trips on the freeway, but stop and go traffic derailed my desire to open the car up and truly test combined city/freeway fuel efficiency marks. Again, traffic in Atlanta can be oppressive, just like the summertime heat.

The Kia Soul! is an easy to live with vehicle. It generally does what you need it to do. I made countless trips to the Four Seasons Atlanta to pick up my relatives, learned how to install a baby seat in the process, a couple trips to Home Depot, Target, Staples, and of course Whole Foods. What trip to the South would be complete without BBQ? Fat Matt’s – check. Fox Brothers – check. Picking up my sister from her office and then picking up my cousin after her conference and heading over to JCT Kitchen and Bar, the Kia Soul! felt comfortable and was a great vehicle for driving around, catching up and reminiscing. At no point did I feel like I wanted more. Of course I can say more power or more this and that, but honestly on a day to day basis, the Kia Soul! gets the job done. I am curious what a hybrid version of the Kia Soul! would be like though.

Walter Wang is Managing Editor of CleanTechies. Follow Walter on Twitter: @energytaxprof

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Net metering empowers New Yorkers to use rooftop solar and other small-scale renewables to meet their own electricity needs. Like rollover minutes on a cell phone bill, net metering gives renewable energy customers fair credit on their utility bills for power they put back on the grid for others to use. Vote Solar has worked hard to encourage the state to expand this fundamental customer right (our comments here), and we’re happy to see this decision supporting more clean, safe, reliable energy for a state that desperately needs it.

Today’s ruling raises the cap on net metering participation in NY from 1% of system peak load to 3%. That means that the state’s utilities are required to offer net metering benefits for three times as much clean, local, reliable solar power produced by their customers.

So a big pat on the back to the NY Public Service Commission, and then it’s back to the main event: making sure lawmakers approve a 10-year extension of the NY-Sun program before they go home next week. This net metering decision will clear the road for solar adoption, but we need the 10 year NY-Sun extension to provide an engine for that growth. We need every bit of help we can get – if you live in NY, help us make sure Governor Cuomo and the legislature know they need to finish the job ASAP!

Momentum is high for the bill. The Senate unanimously passed a version of the bill on Earth Day, and the Assembly is poised to pass a different version of the bill. Now we just need them all to work out the differences and agree on a single solar policy that can become law.

The state can’t afford another year of inaction from lawmakers. Hurricane Sandy exposed New York’s business-as-usual energy approach for what it is: fragile and outdated. This solar bill will help New York build a more resilient power grid and tackle climate change head-on.

Go New York Go!

Vote Solar is a non-profit grassroots organization working to fight climate change and foster economic opportunity by bringing solar energy into the mainstream.

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