Green Skeptic Friday Linkfest - 08/27/10

First, some good news from our oceans for a change:

Oceanospirillales are into dining on oil, according to researchers in a new article in Science

Up to 40 New Plant and Animal Species Discovered in Indonesian Waters: Indonesian Bounty
 
and MIT researchers have developed a swimming, oil skimming robot that may be deployed in the Gulf: Seaswarm

But forests are still be hammered by our disposable culture:

China's 45 billion disposable chopsticks require 100 acres of forest every 24 hours (100 acres every day -- that's insane!): Chop Fooey
 
Back on this side of the globe, Philadelphia won the bid for an Energy Innovation Hub at the Philly Navy Yard, which will be led by Penn State: Energy Hub (My Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic was a supporting partner.)

And speaking of Philly, we're looking for a few good cleantech companies to present at IMPACT 2010 in Philly (in early November): Cleantech Applications
 
In what may prove to tarnish another US city's rep as a green leader, Boulder prepares to wash its hands of SmartGridCity, from Greentech Media: Not Such a SmartCity After All?

Meanwhile, Harvard B-School professor Rebecca Henderson has some advice on How to Speed Up Energy Innovation: Henderson on Innovation

And finally, StockTwits made Time's list of 50 Best Websites for 2010: Some Kind of Awesome.

Have a great weekend!

Thermopower Waves: A New Discovery at MIT

Think of electrons as flotsam on a wave as it moves across the surface of the ocean. That's how scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) describe a previously unknown phenomenon, which they are calling "thermopower waves."

A thermal wave is a moving pulse of heat that travels along microscopic wires known as carbon nanotubes to create an electrical current. (See the video below.)



Michael Strano, MIT's Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, described this discovery at the press briefing for last week's MIT Energy Conference in Boston.

Strano was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings that appeared in Nature Materials earlier this week; the lead author was Wonjoon Choi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at MIT.

Carbon nanotubes are submicroscopic hollow tubes made of a "chicken-wire-like" lattice of carbon atoms. Nanotechnology is an emerging scientific research area with wide ranging potential applications in medicine, electronics, and energy.

Because this is such a new discovery, Strano said, it's hard to predict exactly what the practical applications will be.

One potential use may be developing new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices, perhaps the size of grains of rice, with sensors or treatment devices that could be injected into the body or "environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air."

Sounds like "Fantastic Voyage," the 1966 sci-fi film that featured nanoscale humans entering the body to treat a patient. But there's more to their theory than meets the eye, well, at least the naked eye anyway, especially for electricity production.

Strano explained that "by using different kinds of reactive materials for the coating on the nanotubes the wave front could oscillate, thus producing an alternating current."

"That would open up a variety of possibilities," Strano said. "Because alternating current is the basis for radio waves such as cell phone transmissions, but present energy-storage systems all produce direct current."

Time will tell if this new breakthrough revolutionizes energy production or battery technology. Meanwhile, Strano's research is ongoing.

Busy Weeks: Good for Business, Bad for Blogging

This is just to say that this has been a busy couple of weeks.

We launched the Cleantech Alliance Mid-Atlantic website last week, we've been planning our 2nd Annual Mid-Atlantic Cleantech Forum, which will be held at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia on March 25th.

And I attended CleanLinks New York, our sister organization in the City and its environs, hosted by SJF Ventures, where one of the companies I've been working with, BlackGold Biofuels had a presence. (BGB's CEO Emily Landsburg is part of the first cohort of SJF Cleantech Mentorship Fellows.)

Next up: I'm leading a panel for GoodCompany Ventures on "Entrepreneruship and Social Change" this coming Thursday at GreenSpaces NY (see my previous post or Fred Wilson's here) and then heading to Boston for the MIT Energy Conference on Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile, my new consulting and advisory venture, VerdeStrategy, is kicking into gear. I'm lining up some very interesting clients. You can read more about what we're offering at VerdeStrategy.com

A busy couple of weeks, leaving precious little time for blogging. But I'll have so much more to blog about after this week is over.

A123 Systems Electrifies On Its First Trading Day

Image via CrunchBase

I've been watching Lithium-ion car battery maker A123 Systems (NASDAQ:AONE) for a few years now and have been anxiously awaiting their IPO. Thus far, AONE shares have not disappointed, rocketing as much as 45 percent in its NASDAQ debut.

$AONE began the trading day at $17, got as high as $20 before noon, and is hovering around $19.86 as I write this post. The IPO delivered a premium over its $13.50 share price.

The brain-child of MIT scientists, Waltham, Massachusetts-based A123, develops batteries and battery systems for electric vehicles, including plug-ins using a proprietary nanophosphate technology.

A123 has an impressive list of investors among its principal shareholders, including GE, Qualcomm, Motorala, and North Bridge Venture Partners, an equally impressive client list, and a recent vote of confidence from the federal government, receiving $249M as part of the stimulus funds for electric car advancement.

I know there are plenty of naysayers out there. After all, A123 has been losing money since its launch in 2001 ($146M on $168M in revenue). But it has done one thing extremely well: focused on improving its technology and becoming the leading developers of advanced car system batteries and battery systems for the electric grid and consumer markets in the US.

(Disclosure: Long AONE)

Related articles by Zemanta

• A123Systems is ready for its close up - preps for tomorrow's IPO (green.venturebeat.com)
• Lithium-ion new hotness in electric cars - except for Toyota (arstechnica.com)
• When an Electric Car Dies, What Will Happen to the Battery? (scientificamerican.com)
• Entire Mercedes S-Class Could be Hybrids (abcnews.go.com)
• DOE juices battery companies with $2.4B in stimulus funds (green.venturebeat.com)
• Will car battery maker A123 Systems jump start the IPO market? (dailyfinance.com)
• A123 IPO priced to charge car battery market (money.cnn.com)

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]">

Clean Tech: Biomimicry May Unlock the Power of Solar

"In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine."

Read the full story by Anne Trafton from MIT and watch Dan Nocera's video description: http://tinyurl.com/5uu53h

Click To Play

(Composed on BlackBerry; UPDATED with embedded video content.)