Trends I'm Watching

Five reasons for the eco-tech boom

Trend: Clean technology could be a major business opportunity.

GigaOM picks five reasons why the mix of tech, business and green is going to be on massive opportunity for innovators. Excerpts below.

My dream: significant breakthroughs will help us achieve energy independence from OPEC in the near future.

Link: GigaOM » 5 reasons for the eco-tech boom.

1). Bigger business revolution than the Internet: Some analysts and investors are starting to call the business of clean technology a bigger opportunity than the Internet.

2). Web as the green organizer: Green is the latest fodder for social networks, web 2.0 services, blogging (us) and videoblogging. Learning about and collaborating on eco-friendly practices is easier now than its ever been with grass roots web tools, a broadband connection and a passionate community. Today Business Objects and nonprofit Zerofootprint Toronto launched an online footprint calculator and social network. Yahoo launched its green site yesterday. And if you’ve never read Hugg, the green Digg, then seriously, go check it out.

3). IT needs earth-friendly: The costs of powering computing is reaching close to the cost of the data centers themselves. Companies like Google that need massive data centers don’t like the sound of that.

4). Gore’s gang — business leaders join in: Gore used to be the quintessential symbol of the intersection of business (savvy investor), tech (he, uh, invented the Internet right?) and green (need we say An Inconvenient Truth). Now all the big business leaders are joining the eco club.

5). Decentralized: In some ways the distribution of digital content driven by the Internet, is going the same way as the distribution of energy - decentralizing.

EuP: The coming regulation storm

Trend: EuP (energy using product) statistics for manufactured products will be required in the European Union next year. (Is this a preview of new regulations for the US?)

Ephraim Schwartz in his Reality Check column at InfoWorld describes the E.U.’s EuP (energy using product) requirements and the impact. Only companies selling in Europe will be affected immediately. Excerpts below.

Link: EuP: The coming regulation storm, Part 2 | InfoWorld | Column | 2006-11-07 | By Ephraim Schwartz

...the E.U.’s EuP (energy using product) initiative will require manufacturers to track the amount of energy used in the creation of a product from cradle to grave. This includes the energy used to extract raw materials, to push materials through the supply chain, to deliver the product, and finally to dispose of the product at the end of its lifecycle.

Part of the purpose of the EuP regulations ... is to promote recycled materials....

There are supply chain and software issues as well. IT will have to find a data “container” that keeps information in a coherent form for analysis, and to generate reports in a form that’s usable by engineers, marketing departments, and regulators.

EuP will require substantially more information capture and new XML definitions, with the cross-enterprise information transfer posing a big problem....

While current regulations require information collection down to all layers of the supply chain, the adoption of EuP requires adding the uses of energy in the refinement of a product.

Until now, most manufacturers have put in an enormous infrastructure to build and sell products without a thought to environmental attributes. So there is no doubt the cost of doing business will go up in the short term.

But in the future, products meeting EuP minimum standards will receive a CE (Conformité Européenne) approval logo on their packaging. The E.U. will create an ecological profile of the energy used during the lifetime of a product so that green-minded consumers can compare similar products.

And once companies realize that they can’t actively ignore environmental attributes, they will develop standards and it will become part of how they operate. In time, it will reduce waste and the need for new raw materials and ultimately reduce cost.

Clean-Tech Investing Rises Sharply

Trend: Higher energy prices and a growing awareness of the impact of pollution continue to increase interest in clean technologies.

GreenBiz News reports that Investments in clean technology by venture capital and private-equity investors has grown considerably. (The Cleantech Venture Network defines "clean technology" as technologies developed by biological, computational, and physical scientists and engineers that enable more valuable use of natural resources and greatly reduce ecological impact, although this may be only one of a technology's benefits. )

Link: GreenBiz News | Clean-Tech Investing Rises Sharply, Say New Studies

Clean-tech venture capital investing in North America realized its eighth consecutive quarter of growth, with a record $843 million invested in clean-tech in the second quarter of 2006, according to research by Cleantech Venture Network. The energy segment led the way with $594 million, a 69% increase over the $352 million invested in the previous quarter.

According to data, the $843 million in venture capital invested in clean technology during Q2 2006 represented a 64% increase over the $514 million invested in Q1 2006 and a 129% increase over Q2 2005. Clean-tech investments reached 13.4% of all venture capital invested in all categories for the quarter. In the first half 2006, energy investment tripled to $946 million, from same time last year.

Another study, by New Energy Finance, found that global venture capital and private equity investment in clean energy companies rebounded strongly in the second quarter of 2006 after a slow start to the year. More than $2 billion is estimated to have flooded into the sector, three times the amount invested the previous quarter and more than double the figure for the same quarter in 2005.

Particularly noteworthy, said New Energy Finance, was the surge in Private Investment in Public Equity, or PIPEs, and the rush of enthusiasm for California's solar sector.

PIPEs have been around for a decade, but Q2 2006 saw them take centre stage in the clean energy industry. The quarter saw $556m in PIPE investments, compared with just $21m the previous quarter and $28m in the same period in 2005. Traditionally, PIPEs were a fund-raising last resort for public companies, but small- and micro-cap companies increasingly use them to fund expansion without going to the effort of a full secondary offering.

According to the Cleantech Venture Network, clean tech surged ahead of the two previously dominant venture investment categories, telecommunications and medical, during the most recently reported quarter. It now ranks third behind biotech and software, indicating its shift into the mainstream, said the group.

Product Stewardship

Trend: Companies that design products to minimize waste and environmental damage may have a competitive advantage, both in economics and visibility.

BusinessWeek magazine describes the movement to design complex products with the disposal in mind.

Source: HP Wants Your Old PCs Back

Proponents argue that a company's responsibility for what it sells should include collection and disassembly at the end of the product's life cycle. As a slogan, product stewardship has been around since the Earth Days of the 1970s, but it is now a serious force in the auto and electronics sectors of Japan and Europe. The movement is likely to broaden in the U.S. as well. Several states are strong-arming auto makers into using less toxic parts, persuading thermostat manufacturers to fund bounties for the return of old mercury-laden devices, and pushing pharmaceutical giants to redesign packaging to reduce waste and accept unused medications for disposal.

A few years ago, when environmentalists in Washington State began agitating to rid local dumps of toxic old computers and televisions, they found an unexpected ally: Hewlett-Packard Co. Teaming up with greens and retailers, HP took on IBM, Apple Computer, and several major TV manufacturers, which were resisting recycling programs because of the costs.

Aided by HP's energetic lobbying, the greens persuaded state lawmakers to adopt a landmark program that forces electronics companies to foot the bill for recycling their old equipment. "This bill puts our market-based economy to work for the environment," said Washington Governor Christine O. Gregoire as she signed the plan into law on Mar. 24.

The movement to recycle electronic refuse, or "e-waste," is spreading across the nation, and so is HP's clout. The company helped the greens win a big battle in Maine in 2004 when the state passed the nation's first e-waste "take-back" law. Washington followed suit. Now, Minnesota and New Jersey are preparing to act, and 19 other states are weighing legislation. Activists hope to banish high-tech junk from landfills and scrub the nation's air and water of lead, chromium, mercury, and other toxins prevalent in digital debris.

HP's efforts have made it the darling of environmentalists. They say take-back laws are more effective at getting digital junk recycled than point-of-sale fees, which tax consumer electronics products to fund state-run recycling programs. They're also pleased because effective programs in the U.S. reduce the likelihood that the products will be shipped to less developed countries and disassembled under unsafe conditions.

But HP's agenda isn't entirely altruistic. Take-back laws play to the company's strategic strengths. For decades the computer maker has invested in recycling infrastructure, a move that has lowered its production costs, given it a leg up in the secondary market for equipment, and allowed it to build a customer service out of "asset management," which includes protection of data that might remain on discarded gear.

In 2005, HP recycled more than 70,000 tons of product, the equivalent of about 10% of company sales and a 15% increase from the year before. And it collected more than 2.5 million units (in excess of 25,000 tons) of hardware to be refurbished for resale or donation.

No other electronics maker has a resale business on this scale. But the others may soon wish to emulate HP.

For television makers, on the other hand, take-back laws are terrifying. Following the lead of PC makers, they're pushing consumers to replace their bulky television sets with flat-screen models, many of them primed for high- definition viewing. As a result, in the next three years, Americans are expected to throw out more than 550 million analog TV sets and computer monitors that contain thousands of tons of lead. The last thing these companies want are coast-to-coast take-back laws.

More than a dozen consumer electronics companies, including Panasonic, Sony, and Philips, have formed a group called the Manufacturers Coalition for Responsible Recycling. Backed by IBM, Canon and Apple, they have dispatched lobbyists to statehouses across the nation, pushing bills that mirror California's somewhat weak recycling program. Instead of forcing manufacturers to take back waste, they would impose a levy of up to $10 on sales of products to help states cover recycling costs without burdening equipment makers.

Environmentalists' biggest disappointment has been Apple Computer Inc. The company's progressive image, loyal customers, and retail network make it a natural for a take-back program. Yet Apple has fought such programs, and it lags behind HP and Dell Inc. in voluntary recycling.

TI's Green Dream in Texas

Trend: In a high-energy cost era, green factories can cost less to build and maintain than traditional factories.

In a column titled A Green Dream in Texas, Thomas L. Friedman describes how Texas Instruments built a factory to be very efficient by applying green principles (excerpts below).

Link: The NY Times

The most impressive project I’ve seen is by Texas Instruments, which is building a “green” chip factory here in Richardson, near Dallas. T.I. is keeping 1,000 high-tech jobs in Texas by building its newest facility – to make wafers used in semiconductors – in a cost-saving, hyper-efficient green manner.

T.I. always wanted to keep its newest wafer factory near Dallas so it would be near its design center and ideas could flow back and forth. But China, Taiwan and Singapore were all tempting alternatives, offering low wages, subsidies and tax breaks. So the T.I. leadership laid down a challenge: T.I. could locate its new wafer factory in Richardson, if the T.I. design team and community leaders could find a way to build it for $180 million less than its last Dallas factory, erected in the late 1990’s. That would make its cost-per-wafer competitive with any overseas plant’s.

Although the T.I. engineers initially thought it impossible, they pulled it off. Previous chip factories had three floors because of the complicated cooling and manufacturing process involved in making wafers. The T.I. design team came up with a way to build the Richardson factory with just two floors – a huge savings in mass and energy. T.I. also contacted Amory Lovins, the green designer who heads the Rocky Mountain Institute, and asked him to help it design other parts of the plant in a way that would lower its resource consumption, which, over the life of a plant, can exceed construction outlays.

Together, T.I. engineers and Mr. Lovins’s team designed big water pipes with fewer elbows, which reduced friction loss and let them use smaller pumps that save energy. Various passive solar innovations were built in, including roofs that use a white reflective coating to reduce heat. These, together with innovations in how air is circulated, cooled and recovered naturally, reduced total heat so much that T.I. was able to get rid of one huge industrial air-conditioner. Almost all of the waste from the building construction is being recycled. The urinals are all waterless.

Newsweek highlights Ten Eco-Friendly Companies

Trend: Consumers of energy and investors are getting Green.

Source: Newsweek - Nov. 21, 2005 issue

Newsweek reports on Ten Eco-Friendly Companies with new technologies that are winning over investors and customers, and saving the environment.

Seattle Biodiesel: It makes an alternative fuel derived from vegetable oil that burns clean

Miasole: Developing new ways, besides silicon, to capture the sun's rays and create energy

Hydrogenics: Building markets for fuel-cell tech. A big bonus: byproducts can quench a thirst.

Panda Development: Burning bovine 'biomass' to fuel plants that convert corn to ethanol

Inverse Manufacturing

Treehugger points out a very positive trend in a world where everything appears disposable.

Source: Treehugger: Recycling is cool but Inverse Manufacturing is Hot!.

Using ‘inverse manufacturing’, designers engineer components to maximize their potential. Then factories can dismantle old machines and, rather than melting them down to make new parts, just reassemble them in new machines.

Here’s how it works. If you have a little lever that is only used in one model of copy machine, it can be designed for a short life, made of cheap plastic, and recycled. But if you have a gear that is used in a copier, two different printers and a fax machine, then you design the part to not wear out, to have a long life. The principle is simple. Spend the big bucks, build it to last, and re-use it several times.

If Canon and HP want to get serious about reducing waste, they should take a look at Fuji Xerox’s inverse manufacturing system.

I first heard about it in a forwarded email from Britain’s Resource Recovery Forum. Highlights from a more recent article on Via3.net are:

-More than just toner cartridges, Fuji Xerox is making entire machines with 70% reused parts. This eliminates 75% of the CO2 emissions associated with manufacturing.

-Parts are designed to last for multiple generations and be usable in other models, not just the model they were built for. In 2003, 60% of reused parts were being put into their third generation of use.

-In 2003, Fuji Xerox had a surplus of US$570 000, which means “the income from reusing components exceeds expenditures for the purpose of product recycling.” This makes very clear that a national parts reclamation and re-use system can be profitable.

-To complement the lower-impact copy systems, Fuji Xerox has started producing paper, using newspaper pulp and FSC certified wood from the companies’ own plantations.

-After Japan, the company built a collection and recycling plant in Thailand, and has plans for China. Let’s hope they bring inverse manufacturing West.

Petroleum dependence is a Crutch

Source: ENN: Environmental News Network [[ Commentary ]].

Oil won’t last forever – for that we are lucky. Petroleum dependence is a risky, unreliable crutch that drives global insecurity, depletion, and pollution. If America’s future depended on it, our nation would have a life expectancy of 20, 30, or 40 years.

Fortunately, our success doesn’t come from fossil fuels. It comes from innovation, and there is plenty of that left. The technologies to free us from petroleum are at hand. Many are affordable today.

It is time we shifted our dollars away from the technologies of the past, and toward technologies with a future. By using our buying power, global companies can drive demand for more secure, sustainable technologies beyond their tipping point, the threshold where they take hold in the marketplace – where price, performance, and penetration secure their growth.

Microbial Fuel Cells: Clean wastewater and generate electricity

This sounds almost too good to be true.

Source: Jamais Cascio

Microbial fuel cells (MFCs) are something of a worldchanging icon: biological systems that clean wastewater and generate electricity in the process. One system with two useful results. With so many different research teams on the job, MFCs are moving rapidly towards the "predetermined element" category of near-future scenarios.

Researchers at Washington University at St. Louis have developed -- and patented -- a new MFC design that has improved overall energy density and a structure better suited for real-world use. The "Upflow MFC" has stacked chambers, and the test model they built is described as the size of a "thermos bottle".

Moreover, the researchers claim that, when the efficiency is scaled up to closer to theoretical maximum, a single (presumably bigger-than-a-thermos) unit at a food-processing plant could power as many as "900 American single-family households" (and again -- you now have a sense of scale).

Designed for Breakdown and Recycling

Link: IDFuel, the Industrial Design Weblog.

Major consumer electronics companies -- from Panasonic to Phillips -- are re-vamping their lines to make disassembly for recycling, and the remaining disposal as easy, cheap, and safe as possible. Features like low or no-lead solder, modular electronics boards, snap-fit rather than glued joints, and included instructions for disassembly make it easier for the dead product to have a new life. Whether as a repaired item with an easily replaced piece, a consumer disassembled and recycled piece, or one that can easily be scrapped out by more professional disassemblers, either locally, or in Asia. Design for disassembly is hot, and definitely needed.

And it's not just electronics companies who are in on the action; Steelcases's new Think chair is a paragon of fixability and re-recyclability, with nearly 100 percent of the chair composed of easy to recycle or replace single-material pieces. There are all kinds of opportunities for this preemptive strike on waste, and not just in the assembly of the products. Steelcase set up three different factories around the world so that each of its markets could be served locally in order to cut transport costs, and support local economies.