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		San Jose Mercury News Profiles Fat Spaniel Technologies "Plugging into your solar system's vital signs" Mercury News By Matt Nauman 04/26/2008 Today, Beekhuis' Fat Spaniel makes software that lets customers know every detail about their solar systems. The technology from this 40-person company allows users of 1,200 solar roofs and solar water heaters to monitor and report their efficiency and operation. Besides getting very specific generation and use data, companies profit from Fat Spaniel's services because they know where and when their systems start to falter, said Beekhuis, the company's president and chief technology officer.   Reuters: Suniva Gets $50M from NEA and Goldman Sachs "U.S. solar company Suniva gets $50 mln in funding" Reuters By Nichola Groom February 5, 2008 U.S. solar cell maker Suniva on Tuesday said it received $50 million in funding from venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates, Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and others. The funds will be used for a manufacturing facility that will open in the second half of this year, Chief Executive John Baumstark said in an interview. ... Suniva licenses solar cell technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology's University Center of Excellence in Photovoltaics. The company's aim is to reduce cell manufacturing costs to help bring the price of solar power closer to that of electricity from the grid.   New York Times features TyraTech¹s Collaboration with Kraft "New Food Formula: Tastes Fine, Kills Worms" New York Times Donald McNeil Jr. February 5, 2008 The food is in the early development stage . . . but it will incorporate deworming chemicals developed by TyraTech, a company in Melbourne, Fla., that makes safe pesticides. The pesticides, explained R. Douglas Armstrong, chief executive of TyraTech, are derived from plant oils . . . The oils attach to three olfactory and central nervous system receptors found only in invertebrates. When overstimulated, Dr. Armstrong said, those receptors produce unstoppable cascades of impulses in the nervous systems of insects or worms, repelling or killing them . . . Because vertebrates, including humans, lack these receptors, the oils are harmless to them. Plant oils’ killing power was discovered by accident, he added. Essam Enan, a biochemist who is now the chief scientific officer for TyraTech, was formerly a cancer researcher studying the oils at the University of California, Davis, which is in the hot Sacramento Valley, when there was a power failure. “Pretty soon, the other labs in the building began to close down for the day,” Dr. Armstrong said. “They had opened their windows. But there were too many flies and bugs, and it was too hot to close them.” “But there were no bugs in Essam’s lab,” he continued. “Then he found some dead flies. That’s when he began to appreciate the potency.”   Purfresh delivers "The Ozone Solution" "The Ozone Solution" Forbes.com Kerry Dolan 1.7.2008 Purfresh aims to capitalize on E. coli scare stories by cleaning up fruits and vegetables. David Cope, Chief Executive of Purfresh, strides past two dozen packers plucking Anjou pears off a conveyor belt at Diamond Fruit Growers in Hood River, Ore. Last year the company introduced an ozone generator to be attached to refrigerated shipping containers. It is supposed to reduce decay in fruit that is transported long distances--it takes 40 days, for instance, to ship apples and grapes from Chile to Hong Kong. Using sensors and global-positioning satellites, customers can check temperature and humidity in the containers. If the power goes off, the shipper gets an e-mail alert. "After renewable energy, this is the second leg of clean technology: food and water safety."   How To Celebrate--Silicon Valley Style How To Celebrate--Silicon Valley Style Forbes.com by Wendy Tanaka December 18, 2007 The all-night raves and black-tie affairs that symbolized the tech bubble of the late '90s are out, but that doesn't mean Silicon Valley has forgotten how to party. The same evening, cleantech companies and investors enjoyed an upscale soirée at a luxury hotel just across the street from the Yelp party. Smartly attired executives from start-ups such as SolFocus, Solaicx and Ice Energy sipped wine and munched on gourmet appetizers, including mini crab tacos and Guinness ginger cake, while they talked shop. A bottle of organic Merlot was handed out to each guest. The event "reminds me of the happy hours back in the boom," said Sue Sweet, co-founder of BuildFast, a San Carlos, Calif., bootstrapped start-up that sells build-it-yourself house kits for use in developing countries or areas that have been ravaged by a natural disaster. Sweet and BuildFast co-founder Patrick Freeburger, however, looked like the new kids on the block, dressed casually in blue oxford shirts and khaki pants amid a sea of business suits and cocktail dresses. "We didn't read the [dress] instructions on the invitation," Sweet joked. The two got an invite to the soirée--hosted by PR firm Antenna Group and investment house ThinkEquity--because BuildFast won the Google 2007 Green Building prize in the California Cleantech Open, a competition that rewards promising start-ups.   Businessweek: World Econ Forum Calls SiGNa "Next Google" Meet This Year's Tech Pioneers The World Economic Forum has bestowed the coveted honor on 39 companies, which could become the Googles, a previous winner, of tomorrow BusinessWeek November 30, 2007 Future Leaders of Tech Safe Chemical Transport SiGNa Chemistry New York Sector: Pharmaceuticals Michael Lefenfeld, President Age: 27 What's the best way to transport alkali metals that become highly flammable when they come into contact with water? SiGNa Chemistry has the solution: a nanostructure that ionizes the dangerous chemicals into powder form. It may sound simple, but the company has stumbled on a solution to a problem that has plagued pharmaceutical companies for years. Not bad for a startup that has only been around since 2003.   Fortune Small Biz: HelioVolt Leads Cleantech Investing Green energy makes money Venture investments in American clean technology firms reach a new high Fortune Small Business By Malika Worrall November 29 2007 Venture investment in energy technology firms reached new highs this year, more than tripling the investment recorded for 2005, according to data released Wednesday by Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association. *** "The U.S. Department of Energy is coming round to the idea that small entrepreneurial companies have an important say in how our energy needs are going to be met in the next twenty years," says Heesen. "A couple of years ago, most people believed that the big utility companies could solve this problem on their own." HelioVolt, an Austin, Texas-based producer of solar-absorbing film, raised $9 million in its first round of financing in April 2005. Two years later, its second round generated a total of $101 million -- the second largest investment in a domestic company by domestic firms in 2007. HelioVolt will use this financing to build the company's first full-scale production factory in the U.S. and to start co-manufacturing abroad.   Businessweek: MMA is "Solar's Newest Resource" MSolar's Newest Resource Businessweek By Adam Aston December 3, 2007 Matt Cheney is trying to make it easy and cheap to go green. His firm, MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA ), helps companies build solar energy systems, cut their electricity bills, and lock in rates for decades--all with no money down. The San Francisco company has erected some $300 million worth of solar panels for clients ranging from Denver International Airport to Gap (GPS). *** Amid the credit crunch that's killed investors' appetite for more complex structured finance vehicles, this one continues to attract big companies like Allstate (ALL ), Citigroup (C ), John Hancock, and Wells Fargo (WFC ). "MMA is driving cost out of an industry that's fragmented," says Barry Neal, director of environmental finance at Wells. MMA traces its roots back to 1999, but this model started to get traction in 2006 when Cheney sold his first set of solar deals to big investors. Now others are following his lead. And given the runup in power prices and growing incentives for renewables, the market has potential: Commercial sales of solar installations should expand by 50%, to $1 billion, in 2008, based on data from the Solar Energy Industries Assn.   HelioVolt Investment Featured in the Washington Post 'Cleantech' Investing Gets Its Day in the Sun Washington Post By Zachary A. Goldfarb November 26, 2007 Everybody seems to be looking for ways to make money on technologies that are said to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, wean the country from foreign oil and, generally, save the world. Venture capitalists have invested $3.64 billion nationally this year in search of promising ideas in what they call "greentech" or "cleantech." *** Paladin is one of the Washington area's largest investors in greentech with four companies in its portfolio. Last month, it led a group of investors putting $77 million in HelioVolt, an Austin firm. HelioVolt builds thin solar panels made of a material known as copper indium gallium selenide that is said to produce the same amount of energy for almost half the cost of electricity, at 50 cents per watt, possibly enabling the widespread expansion of solar technology to buildings and homes. Silicon solar panels, which can cost $2 per watt, have been the target of investments for three decades.   Ice Energy Cools Global Warming on the History Channel Modern Marvels - The History Channel Modern Marvels - The History Channel Environmental Tech II: ³Take a look at the innovations designed to hold off a global warming meltdown.² November 12, 2007 Chilling out in this heat pushes the city power grid to the max, threatening blackouts, and prompting calls to build new power plants. But city officials have found ways to relieve the pressure, like using energy at night to cool their library during the day. Sound tricky, well it¹s all in the ice, the Ice Bear cooling system. Inside those coils is where the Ice Bear performs its first trick. At night, a pump sends cool refrigerant through the coils in the water. The water freezes into a block around the coils. During the day when the air conditioning unit is turned on, the pump sends warm refrigerant back through the coils, and through the ice. That refrigerant is chilled, and then pumped through pipes into the existing air conditioning system to provide cooling. At the end of the day, the Ice Bear goes into hibernation until later that night when the process begins again. By getting its energy at night instead of mauling the power grid during the day, the Ice Bear can put the deep freeze on greenhouse gases, by using cheaper, cleaner nighttime energy. ³A lot of places are now generating renewable energy at night with wind, so by moving some of that demand to the nighttime, you are also moving some of that demand to cleaner sources of energy that help the environment.² Terry Tamminen, Cullman Sr. Fellow, New America Foundation   Ice Energy: Pop Sci's Best of What's New Ice Energy Ice Bear: FREEZING YOUR AC TO SAVE ENERGY Popular Science Magazine December 2007 Connect the Ice Bear to your air conditioner, and instantly cut your AC¹s energy consumption by up to 20 percent. The machine freezes water in its 300-gallon storage tank at night when temperatures are low and the electricity supply is plentiful. When the AC kicks in, the Ice Bear circulates refrigerant through coils in last night¹s ice (which will last well into the evening, even on a 90°F day), chilling it before it flows to the AC. This spares your AC from having to use daytime electricity to cool the refrigerant through the standard energy-intensive process. From $7,000; ice-energy.com   Jay Leno Touts Fat Spaniel in the LA Times The green room Los Angeles Times By Susan Carpenter November 7, 2007 LENO attributes at least part of his awakening to fellow comedian and TV star Ed Begley Jr. ³I give people like Ed a tremendous amount of credit. When he started it was like, 'That's interesting.' But then, as more and more proof comes along, you go, 'Hey, this guy was right,' " said Leno, who began investigating alternative power sources for his garage in mid-2006. Eighteen months later, he's a frequent visitor to the Fat Spaniel computer system that monitors his homemade power. At various points during our interview, he wandered into his office -- yes, his garage has an office, as well as a gourmet kitchen -- to see how many kilowatts were being generated. "We're up to 33," Leno said, running his finger along the monitor. "The energy to power 40 homes. And it's not even peak."   Something News Under the Sun, Something New Under the Sun The Wall Street Journal By Jim Carlton October 4, 2007; Page D1 A San Francisco startup called Sun Run Generation LLC launched a program in January under which a homeowner can prepay as much as $8,000 for solar power, a fraction of the cost of a full $40,000 photovoltaic system. The company then installs its own photovoltaic system on the property for the life of a 20-year lease contract. Consumers who can't afford a full photovoltaic system may also be able to get solar for parts of their home. A San Diego firm called Envision Solar Inc., for instance, says it plans to start selling carports covered with photovoltaic cells to generate power for the home and hybrid cars late next year. The carports are expected to sell for between $5,000 and $8,000.   BusinessWeek Covers LiveFuels' Algae Approach to Biofuels Energy from Unusual Sources BusinessWeek By Olga Kharif Sept 10, 2007 One company with a quirky idea that got funded is LiveFuels, which is trying to generate biofuel from algae grown in pools. Because algae grows superfast, it can produce many times more oil per acre than corn or other crops seen as potential fuels. In May, LiveFuels received $10 million in funding from individuals including David Gelbaum, who has backed environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club.   Cleantech.com Profile's TyraTech's Natural Insecticides Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Cleantech.com By David Ehrlich August 27, 2007 Florida's TyraTech is building a better pesticide with one part Mother Nature and one part biotech. TyraTech, a four-year old company in Melbourne, Fla., is working on a method to clean up the need for pesticides, and bring Mother Nature into the bug killing industry. The company's products, with the first due to hit the market later this year, are a mix of natural oils that target sensitive receptors found on invertebrates.   MMA Renewable Ventures: A Businessweek Top 10 Green Innovation 10 Green Technologies That Could Change Your Life Businessweek 10 Green Technologies That Could Change Your Life By Adam Aston Sept 10, 2007 Green Finance Early this year, Estée Lauder (EL) struck a deal to install 600 kilowatts of solar power at a manufacturing plant in Oakland, N.J., putting no money down. The financial sleight of hand was performed by MMA Renewable Ventures, which, together with SunEdison (backed by BP Solar), has pioneered new financial methods to help companies pay for green energy installations. This green breed of energy service providers (ESPs) helps their clients by taking care of all the technical, financial, and approval headaches, offering customers a simplified 10- or 20-year purchase agreement for energy. The price‹which factors in rebates, production tax credits, and net metering payments‹is typically set at a spot below the client's current cost of power but somewhere above ESP's costs to build and run the setup. Others companies that have opted for this sort of green deal are Fetzer, Staples (SPLS), and Whole Foods (WFMI).   MIT Tech Review Covers HelioVolt's Solar Manufacturing Method Startup Heliovolt could help bring high-performance thin-film solar cells to market. MIT Technology Review Making Cheaper Solar Cells By Kevin Bullis Sept 12, 2007 Powered by $77 million in new investment, startup Heliovolt, based in Austin, TX, will build a factory next year for mass-producing a new type of solar cell that could, in much of the United States, make solar electricity as cheap as electricity from the grid. The company will be scaling up a new manufacturing technique that could produce high-performance thin-film solar cells more reliably than other methods.   Earth2Tech's Policy Q&A with Solar Alliance President 5 Questions For Solar Alliance President Schneider Earth2Tech By Adena DeMonte Sept 12, 2007 Former Rhode Island Congresswoman Claudine Schneider says that when it comes to the potential of solar energy, the U.S. government has failed to take the lead. That¹s why she¹s charging ahead as the president of a newly launched organization called The Solar Alliance, whose aim is to support and influence solar policies and programs on the state level. As we¹ve pointed out, the state level is proving to be imperative when it comes to getting clean energy technologies to the market. More than 20 solar companies, including SunPower (SPWR), Conergy (CEYHF.PK), and First Solar (FSLR), have joined the alliance.   Red Herring Covers HelioVolt's Series B PHelioVolt Gets a $77M Jolt Red Herring by Andrea Quong August 15, 2007 In a major boost for thin-film solar technologies, HelioVolt Corporation said Wednesday it had secured a $77 million second round of funding. The company said it would use the money to build a factory to manufacture thin-film panels using the company¹s copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) technology. The first factory, to be built at a yet undetermined location in the United States, will be capable of producing 20 megawatts worth of solar panels annually. ³This is to build our first factory and really to get into significant revenue and scale up the technology to conventional-size modules,² said HelioVolt founder and CEO B.J. Stanbery. ³That¹s where we need to go in order to drive costs down.²   Forbes Shines Light on MMA Renewable Ventures' PPA Model Paying For Panels Forbes By Kerry Dolan August 16, 2007 Thanks to some clever innovation by a variety of financial players, a growing number of companies are getting solar electricity without paying the big upfront installation cost. Using a mechanism known as a power purchase agreement (PPA), such companies as Wal-Mart Stores and Whole Foods Market have contracted with third parties that install, own and maintain solar power systems that typically sit on the roof of a corporate outlet. The corporation then signs a long-term contract to buy the solar electric power from the third party at rates that are almost always less than what it would pay its traditional utility. SunEdison of Baltimore and MMA Renewable Ventures of San Francisco are two companies that have pushed the PPA further into the mainstream. +++ MMA Renewable Ventures, a subsidiary of Municipal Mortgage & Equity, has arranged the financing and PPAs for a 600-kilowatt solar installation at AC Transit, a San Francisco Bay-Area public transit agency, and a 600-kilowatt system for Estée Lauder in New Jersey. It's currently working on the largest single solar installation in the U.S., a 15-megawatt project at Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas.   WSJ: SolFocus acquires Inspira Spain Sees Gold on U.S. Rooftops Wall Street Journal By Keith Johnson July 31, 2007 Privately-held solar technology company SolFocus Inc., Mountain View, Ca., has reached an agreement to acquire a Spanish company specializing in a key technology that makes solar power more efficient. The terms of the deal weren’t be disclosed. “The U.S. is a sleeping giant for solar power,” Mr. Conley says. He hopes to make his concentrating photovoltaic machines cost-competitive with electricity generated from natural-gas fired turbines by 2010 by using one-one thousandth the amount of silicon in traditional solar cells and boosting their efficiency with the new trackers. “You’ve got to nail down the economics first and foremost. You can’t rely on subsidies forever,” he says.   WSJ: Silicon supply, funding position Solaria for success Solaria Panels Win Backing Of Germany's Q-Cells Wall Street Journal By LEILA ABBOUD July 23, 2007; Page A10 Germany's Q-Cells AG, the world's second-largest manufacturer of solar cells by volume, is throwing funding as well as manufacturing muscle behind a California start-up's new technology to lower the cost of generating electricity from the sun's rays. Solaria Corp., a closely held company based in Fremont, Calif., is developing a solar panel that uses plastic lenses to concentrate sunlight on a cell that is specially treated to use far less of the silicon that drives up solar-panel costs. Solaria says its approach allows its solar panels to be just as efficient as traditional ones but for a much lower cost.   New York Times: Ice Energy Stores Sunshine Storing Sunshine New York Times By Matthew Wald July 16, 2007 The idea, said Frank R. Ramirez, the chief executive of a company called Ice Energy, is that all air conditioners gather heat from within a building and dump it outside, but that moving it outside gets progressively harder as the outdoor temperature rises. His company installs the ice storage system and runs it at night, when electricity is cheap and when making ice is easy, because the outdoor temperature is lower. Then during the day, the compressor in the building air conditioning system rejects its heat to the cold block, instead of to hot air, sharply lowering the electric demand on hot afternoons. Unlike the battery, ice storage can break even, or better, Mr. Ramirez said. For every kilowatt-hour put in at night, the system will return a kilowatt-hour of savings the next day, assuming the nighttime temperature is at least 17 degrees cooler than the daytime. In many places, though, the daily temperature swing is larger; if the swing is 35 degrees, which is common in some climates, then three-quarters of a kilowatt-hour deposited will yield a full kilowatt-hour the next day. Ice Energy markets the system in California, where electricity generated at night creates fewer smog-forming pollutants than electricity made during the day. But if the system saves electricity, it also saves greenhouse gases, he said, and it reduces peak-hour load on transmission and distribution systems.   Solar Power at Half the Cost Solar Power at Half the Cost "A new roof-mounted system that concentrates sunlight could cut the price of photovoltaics." MIT Technology Review Kevin Bullis May 11, 2007 But the ease of installation could help convince solar installers to use the technology, says Craig Cornelius, the technology manager for the Department of Energy's (DOE) solar-energy technology program. DOE recently announced $168 million in funding for 13 solar projects, under which Soliant will receive up to $4 million. Cornelius says that the lower installation costs will help reduce the overall costs of solar power from the modules. "In some ways, what's interesting about [Soliant's] approach is [that] the engineering issues they have to solve are relatively mundane," Cornelius says. "This is one of the projects that I'm most excited about in our whole portfolio.   Netvibes Stars on CW’s CyberGuy TV Show From Myspace To One Space KTLA By Kurt the CyberGuy May 2, 2007 Netvibes was recently featured on the CW Network’s CyberGuy TV Show (syndicated to nearly 50M viewers worldwide). Consumers got a look at how Netvibes can help organize their digital lives, as CEO and Founder, Tariq Krim, gives them a personal tour of the site.   Solaicx's Bright Prospects in the Economist Bright prospects The Economist By Anne Schukat March 10, 2007 LAST year Microsoft outfitted its campus in Silicon Valley with a solar system from SunPower, a local company that makes high-efficiency (and, some say, the world's best-looking) solar panels. A few months later Microsoft's arch-rival, Google, began building something on an even grander scale‹one of the largest corporate solar installations to date. But all of this may yet be topped by Wal-Mart. In December the retail giant solicited bids for placing solar systems on the roofs of many of its supermarkets. Besides producing favourable publicity, the appeal of using solar power is obvious. Unlike fossil fuels, which produce significant amounts of pollution and enormous amounts of greenhouse gases, the sun's energy is clean and its supply virtually limitless. In just one hour the Earth receives more energy from the sun than human beings consume during an entire year. According to America's Department of Energy, solar panels could, if placed on about 0.5% of the country's mainland landmass, provide for all of its current electricity needs. Besides efficiency, durability and reliability, the most important requirement for solar cells was how much power they could generate per unit of weight. Cost considerations, at that time, were far less important. Solar cells back then were made much like jewel;ery, recalls Bill Yerkes, an industry veteran who is now the chief technologist at Solaicx, a start-up dedicated to reducing the price of silicon wafers for the solar industry.   LiveFuels' Algae Opportunity in the New York Times Venture Capitalists Want to Put Some Algae in Your Tank By Clifford Krauss March 7, 2007 The idea of replacing crude oil with algae may seem like a harebrained way to clean up the planet and bolster national security. But Lissa Morgenthaler-Jones and her husband, David Jones, are betting their careers and personal fortunes that they can grow masses of the slimy organism and use its natural photosynthesis process to produce a plentiful supply of biofuel. *** During her research, Ms. Morgenthaler-Jones found a decade-old government study on algae that lost funding during the Clinton administration. It was a moment that led her to more conversations with algae specialists. The slime, she concluded, showed real potential. And since Ms. Morgenthaler-Jones and Mr. Jones both had prior business experience in biotechnology, they founded LiveFuels as an algae business last February. She became chief executive, and he, chief financial officer.   Cnet Profiles Ecosphere's Ship-Cleaning Robots Eco-friendly toxic cleanup is a blast CNET News.com By Michael Kanellos March 5, 2007 Eliminating the grit--chock full of arsenic, toxins, paint solids and heavy metals--is a primary goal at the facility. BAE Systems is using a robot from Ecosphere Technologies that blasts ship hulls with water coming out at 42,000 pounds or more of pressure per square inch. *** Environmental hazards may not be the most glamorous focus of the clean-tech market, but it's a big opportunity, asserts Dennis McGuire, CEO of Stuart, Fla.-based Ecosphere, which both creates high-pressure water machines and licenses patents. "There are 90,000 ships in the world, and every year they come out of the water to get cleaned," he said. On average, each ship has approximately 200,000 square feet of hull surface that needs to be scrubbed and/or repainted, he added.   HelioVolt's Thin-Film Cells: Solar Cells on Every Surface THE BEST OF GREEN DESIGN Popular Mechanics Jim Gorman March 2007 The rising cost of solar-grade silicon sparked a race to find alternative photo-voltaic materials; HelioVolt responded with a thin-film solar cell composed of copper, indium, gallium and selenium. The company's proprietary printing process can rapidly coat solar cells onto glass (above), metal and other construction materials, eventually making it cost-effective for even windows and exterior cladding to become power sources.   Algae-Based Fuels Set to Bloom Oil from microorganisms could help ease the nation's energy woes. MIT Technology Review Kevin Bullis Feb. 5, 2007 Clearly, [producing fuel from algae] can be done," says Lissa Morgenthaler Jones, LiveFuels's CEO. "The only question is whether we can do it cheaply. And the only way we're going to find that out is if we do it--if we actually go out, crank it through, spend some millions on it, and make it happen.   Has Tariq Krim created a French Internet blockbuster? Web deux point zéro: Has Tariq Krim created a French Internet blockbuster? The Economist By Jeanette Borzo February 1, 2007 IF FRANCE was more like Netvibes, things might be a lot better here,” says Tariq Krim, with disarming frankness. The website, which he runs out of Paris, is the most popular of a new class that lets users snap together individual components such as blog feeds, e-mail accounts, news headlines and videos to create a “dashboard”, or home page, that displays all their online information....Having snapped together journalism, business ventures and politics in his own career, Mr Krim is now cast as a paragon of Europe's new generation of internet entrepreneurs.   Desktop Modules Help to Personalize Data Desktop Modules Help To Personalize Data, Cut Through Clutter Wall Street Journal By Walt Mossberg February 1, 2007 Now, there's a new free Web site that combines some of the best features of My Yahoo and Dashboard. It's called Netvibes, it's available at Netvibes.com, and it's unusual because it's from Paris, France -- not Silicon Valley or Seattle.   REAccess: MMA Renewable Ventures Pioneers Third-Party Finance Powered by Solar, Financed by Third-Party How one California winery & a San Francisco-based investment company are setting a precedent in the renewable energy industry. Renewable Energy Access By Sara Parker, January 4, 2007 Installed atop a bottling plant at Fetzer Vineyards in California is a shiny new 901-kilowatt photovoltaic solar array. The entire cost of the recent solar project to the Mendocino County-based winery? $0. MMA Renewable Ventures, a subsidiary of Municipal Mortgage & Equity, LLC, coordinated the financial backing to own, operate and maintain the Fetzer Vineyard system, and sell the clean energy to Fetzer under a long-term Solar Services Agreement (SSA) contract that sets the electricity costs at a fixed rate. "We get clean power from new solar at a cost that is 10% less than conventional power from the utility. It will stay below the cost of grid power for the length of the contract. It also reduces our peak demand power charges by 70%. All this at no capital expense and no increasing in the asset base," said Susanne Zechiel, Fetzer's manager of facility resources for its California wine group.   MMA Renewable Ventures Talks Carbon with the NY Times U.S. Companies Explore Ways to Profit From Trading Credits to Emit Carbon New York Times By Claudia Deutsch December 28, 2006 The Chicago exchange is being watched for early signs of glitches in its trading systems so those glitches can be ironed out before mandatory emissions rules make trading more a matter of profit and loss than of choice. ³If you shut down an obsolete plant, should you automatically get carbon credits?² asked Matt Cheney, chief executive of MMA Renewable Ventures, which invests in clean energy projects and is a member of the exchange. ³And if I put up a wind-powered plant, should you get the carbon credit for buying my clean electricity, or should I for providing it? It is all still very complicated, because we just don¹t know what the final U.S. law will say.² In particular, companies are already worrying about how Congress will establish baselines, the emission levels from which mandated reductions will be calculated.   Wired: HelioVolt leads the CIGS thin film pack The Building Is the Solar Cell Wired News By Courtney Barry, December 21, 2006 Building materials such as steel, glass and roofing may soon have embedded solar cells thanks to a thin-film technology that uses copper indium gallium selenide, or CIGS, instead of silicon. Several companies, including Nanosolar, Miasolé, Global Solar and HelioVolt are developing CIGS systems. Several investors and industry experts say HelioVolt leads the pack. "What sets HelioVolt apart is that its technology allows them to deposit thin-film materials more quickly, efficiently and at a potentially lower cost than conventional process technologies," said Joel Serface, director of the Clean Energy Incubator in Austin, Texas. HelioVolt's manufacturing process is between 80 percent and 98 percent faster than other thin-film manufacturing processes, according to Serface. The company's efficient system has recently translated into venture capital, as well as accolades from Time magazine and The Wall Street Journal.   Forbes: MMA Renewable Ventures Mines Solar Gold Rush Mining The Solar Gold Rush Forbes By Kerry A. Dolan, November 15, 2006 Earlier this month, Fetzer Winery flipped the switch on a new installation of solar panels that cover 75,000 square feet atop its bottling plant and barrel room in sunny Hopland, Calif.--the largest solar energy project at a U.S. winery. The 430 panels will produce 80% of the electricity needed for its bottling operations on the site. But Fetzer didn't pay to install the panels, and it isn't responsible for maintaining them. The capital cost and operational details of the solar project are being handled by MMA Renewable Ventures, one of a small crop of firms that has sprung up to provide financing in the super-hot solar and renewable energy markets. Today, MMA Renewable Ventures announced it had syndicated its investment in the Fetzer solar project to a publicly traded insurance company whose name it will not disclose. This is the first investment in renewable energy for the insurance company, which was interested in the tax advantages that came with the deal.   Cnet: Ecology Coatings Plans to go Public "Ecology Coatings Plans to go Public" Waterproof-paper company to go public: To enter public market, Ecology Coatings will undergo reverse merger--a process gaining popularity in the industry. By Michael Kanellos Cnet News.com November 7, 2006 A nanotechnology company that invented a form of waterproof paper said on Tuesday that it will go public through a reverse merger, a process that is gaining popularity in the industry. Ecology Coatings, based in Akron, Ohio, recently acquired OCIS, a "shell" company that is traded over-the-counter and does not have any current operations. By subsuming OCIS, Ecology Coatings can essentially go public and raise capital through the public markets, said Rich Stromback, the former CEO who is now chairman. *** Unlike Web 2.0 companies, nanotech companies need large capital budgets to build factories and laboratories. The payoff can take several years rather than just a few months. Venture capitalists once enthused about the possibility of nanotech have thus migrated to Internet companies and energy start-ups. Only a few nanotech companies have held initial public offerings, and none have caused much of a ripple in the public markets. "This is where the old (venture) financing models broke down," Stromback said. Nanotech is "great, new technology, but it is addressing old markets."   HelioVolt's Solar Skin one of TIME's Best Inventions "Best Inventions 2006: BRIGHT IDEAS - Solar Skin" Time Magazine Best Inventions 2006: BRIGHT IDEAS - Solar Skin November 7, 2006 Imagine a solar panel so thin it can't exist apart from the building material it's printed on. HelioVolt didn't invent copper indium gallium selenide, a thin film used to generate electricity from sunlight, but it did develop a faster, more cost-effective way to manufacture it for use in large commercial spaces. The new process involves printing a fine layer of semiconductor directly onto glass, metal and other building materials so that new skyscrapers can go up solar power-ready from day one. Inventor: HelioVolt   Practical Instruments Announces Series A Funding "Practical Instruments joins solar gold rush, raises $8M" VentureBeat "Practical Instruments joins solar gold rush, raises $8M" By Matt Marshall Oct. 16, 2006 Practical Instruments chief executive Brad Hines said he is taking a different tack than the other solar competitors. Two years ago, Hines left competitor Energy Innovations, which users a similar tracking technology. But that technology was early and the panels required “tower” and other support structures that created panels different to those the industry was familiar with, Hines said. As a result, the company struggled to create what is effectively its own distribution channel. While Energy Innovations boasted a good concentration technology, installers didn’t know what to do with it, he said. *** So Hines, who was also a “chief architect” at NASA, founded Practical Instruments with the goal of making panels that are the same shape as regular solar panels. He also pledges they will cost less and produce more power. The company’s panels can produce 30 percent more power for a given area than the current leaders, he says.   CNET: Fat Spaniel Technologies is spying on the sun "Keeping track of sun's power" CNET Keeping track of sun's power Michael Kanellos October 13, 2006 Fat Spaniel Technologies is spying on the sun. The San Jose, Calif.-based start-up, which plans to announce that it has raised $7 million in its first round of funding on Monday, has come up with a system for monitoring how much energy is being collected by solar panels on a roof. Fat Spaniel says the technology could change some of the economics around solar power. The system consists of a small device that links up to existing solar equipment and monitors energy collection. The data it gathers is then fed into servers at Fat Spaniel, where it's digested and distributed via PC or cell phone to the consumer, the utility company, the solar installer and/or others who need to know the information. "Right now, you know how much you use, but not what percentage comes off the grid," said Chris Beekhuis, chief technology officer at Fat Spaniel...   CNET: Figure out your electical bill with Fat Spaniel "How much electricity does sun provide?" CNET How much electricity does sun provide? Michael Kanellos October 13, 2006 Have you ever read your electrical bill and tried to figure it out? Few have managed to decipher it. A company called Fat Spaniel is trying to capitalize on that confusion. Its system measures how much solar energy panels are generating (the green bar in the top set of graphics), how much a consumer is gobbling up, and the net savings.   Red Herring: Fat Spaniel a part of three huge solar trends "Three Huge Solar Trends" Red Herring Three Huge Solar Trends Jennifer Kho October 13, 2006 Fat Spaniel provides software and web-site integration services to remotely monitor and manage distributed energy systems, and says its software transforms energy data into easy-to-understand presentations and makes them accessible from any Internet-enabled device (see CalCEF Invests In 10 Startups, Energy Startup Gets $3.5M). The money brings Fat Spaniel’s round to $7 million. President Chris Beekhuis said Fat Spaniel will use the money to expand further into wind power, fuel cells, and variable speed drives, and also to expand into Europe and other regions. It will also expand further in the solar market, he said.   eMagazine: Dinner with Cleantech CEOs "Dinner at ‘21’ with Cleantech’s Creative CEOs" Dinner at ‘21’ with Cleantech’s Creative CEOs By Shannon Huecker eMagazine October 12, 2006 Shannon Huecker shares his experience and insight on dinner with Antenna's Melody Haller, various CEOs from our Cleantech portfolio and other fellow journalists.   Forbes: MyBizHomepage - your free online accountant "Your Free Online Accountant" Your Free Online Accountant Emily Lambert Forbes October 4, 2006 MyBizHomepage launches on Forbes.com: Launching formally on Oct. 10, MyBizHomepage.com aims to give busy entrepreneurs an easy-to-grasp financial snapshot, rendered in bite-sized charts and graphs.   Internet Archive on WSJ's Q&A "Internet Archive on WSJ's Q&A" As Online Libraries Are Formed, Issues of Control, Privacy Are Posed By Lee Gomes Wall Street Journal September 12, 2006 Internet Archive on WSJ's Q&A: Brewster Kahle talks to Lee Gomes about digital content and universal access.   SiGNa Chem's Clean Up Job in MIT's Technology Review "SiGNa Chemistry's Clean Up Job in MIT's Technology Review" Dismantling Dioxins By Duncan Graham-Rowe Technology Review September 26, 2006 A New York City-based company believes it has found a way to safely and cheaply dispose of polychlorinated pollutants such as dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Its trick is to encapsulate highly reactive compounds that are already known to breakdown the pollutants, but have hitherto been too unstable for practical use. Dioxins and PCBs are particularly persistent chemicals, which makes them very difficult to break down and dispose of. "Controlled incineration has been the most effective means of getting rid of them," says Greg Merrill, managing director of the Chlorine Chemistry Council, an industry association representing chlorine makers and a division of the American Chemistry Council in Arlington, VA. But while incineration is the treatment of choice for high concentrations of contaminated waste, lower concentrations tend to be placed in hazardous-waste landfills, he says. Burying it in the ground is less than ideal, says Paul Johnston, head of Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter, U.K. And few incinerators in the world are capable of incinerating dioxins and PCBs without the secondary formation of dioxins. So, SiGNa Chemistry, the New York-based startup, has developed a remediation method that uses alkali metals, a group of elemental metals that include sodium and lithium, to react with and destroy the polychlorinated pollutants. While such alkali metals are usually too unstable to use for such applications--for one thing, they're explosive when mixed with water--SiGNa Chemistry's trick is to encapsulate them in a porous silica gel, explains Michael Lefenfeld, the company's founder and a chemist at Columbia University in New York City. What makes the technology effective is that the resulting powder preserves the reactivity of the alkali metal but not its volatility. "They associate to [the alkali metals], they don't chemically bond to it," says Lefenfeld.   Businessweek: SiGNa Chemistry's Partnering Success "Growth: Hand In Glove" Growth: Hand In Glove A partnership with a larger company can take your business places it couldn't go on its own Businessweek Small Business By Anne Field Sept 18,2006 Want to get into a new market quickly? Try a distribution agreement. If you want to jack up revenues but don't need to build brand awareness, a licensing deal could do the trick. Michael Lefenfeld, CEO of $500,000, 10-person SiGNa Chemistry in New York, aimed to expand his two-year-old company's customer base when he made a deal with Sigma-Aldrich (SIAL ), a much larger St. Louis chemicals distributor. Sigma-Aldrich would include in its own offerings small quantities of Lefenfeld's product, a chemical compound that prevents certain metals from catching fire. *** Once you've found a potential partner, you'll need someone inside to champion your cause. That can be trickier than finding the company in the first place. "It can be six months before you figure out who is most likely to take your flag and run with it," says Gerdes. Most likely, that person will be in new-business development or, if you have a new technology, in research and development. After SiGNa's Lefenfeld targeted Sigma-Aldrich, he researched the company's previous deals by reading press releases and news stories. "The same name kept coming up," says Lefenfeld. In May, 2005, he sent an introductory e-mail to the president of the chemical division, who passed his name to the director of business development. Lefenfeld was soon called in for a meeting.   Wall Street Journal: Taking on YouTube "New sites take on YouTube, promising higher-quality films" Taking on YouTube, promising higher-quality films By Jamin Warren, Wall Street Journal Saturday, September 16, 2006 Dovetail is trying to set itself apart from other video-sharing sites by featuring high-resolution films (often with enormous file sizes) that can be accessed through a peer-to-peer software platform. It hosts selections from the San Francisco International Festival of Short Films, like "Krispies," a brief exposition on one's man love of Rice Krispies treats. User-submitted films include "Monkeying Around," a stop-motion short about a sock monkey wandering the streets of San Francisco.   HelioVolt Wins Wall Street Journal Tech Innovation Award "HelioVolt Wins Wall Street Journal Tech Innovation Award" THE JOURNAL REPORT: TECHNOLOGY Innovation Awards: The Winners Are... By MICHAEL TOTTY September 11, 2006 The Silver award went to HelioVolt Corp., of Austin, Texas, which has come up with a way to make lightweight solar-energy panels that are powered by an alternative to the more common silicon solar material and that can be applied to glass or other building materials. HelioVolt President and Chief Executive B.J. Stanbery developed the method for manufacturing thin-film solar material based on a compound called CIGS, for copper indium gallium selenide, which is more efficient at producing energy than silicon-based solar cells. Dr. Stanbery's advance uses the same kind of printing process used in making integrated circuits to apply a power-producing coating to just about any building material. With $8 million in venture funding, he is developing prototype equipment to begin manufacturing CIGS film and hopes to have products available for testing by the end of next year.   Wall Street Journal Revisits Past Award Winner Ecology Coatings "Wall Street Journal Revisits Past Award Winner Ecology Coatings" THE JOURNAL REPORT: TECHNOLOGY Where Are They Now? A Fresh Coat. By Ryan Chittum September 11, 2006 Sally Ramsey, Chief Chemist at Ecology Coatings of Akron, Ohio, says the Silver award her company won last year from the Journal spurred much investor interest. Ecology Coatings' innovation is using nanotechnology to make coatings like paint or powder finishing that cure rapidly by exposure to ultraviolet light, without using solvents that are often bad for the environment. The ultraviolet curing process also takes about 80% less energy than typical curing processes, which often involve huge ovens, Ms. Ramsey says. Soaring energy costs have brought more customers to Ecology Coatings, along with many who wonder if the company can develop products that would help them.   MMA Renewable Ventures in Silicon Valley Business Times "MMA Renewable Ventures in Silicon Valley Business Times" Solar outlook brightens By Andrew Hamm September 11, 2006 Because of complicated leasing arrangements, many companies do not own the buildings they occupy, complicating the issue of who owns the solar array and what happens to it should a company move. "It's our No. 1 problem with businesses," Geldner said. "The landlord themselves have no incentive to build a solar facility because the tenant is responsible for the energy costs." MMA Renewable Ventures hopes to allay that fear. It pays all upfront costs for a business's solar array and will even move it should a company leave a facility. In return, MMA Renewable says its customers will pay rates below what Pacific Gas & Electric Co. charges. "The biggest selling point for solar is that the price stays the same," Cheney said. "The free ride of cheap energy is over. We can't count on fossil fuels being stable anymore." But the real selling point is the positive public relations boost obtained from installing a solar array on a roof. "You can't buy that type of PR," Cheney said. "Are companies interested in the energy and environmental issues or the PR? Probably both."   Nature: HelioVolt's Part of Solar Energy's Sunrise "Nature: HelioVolt's Part of Solar Energy's Sunrise" Solar energy: Silicon Valley sunrise By Oliver Morton 6 September 2006 Decades of development have made CIGS cells as efficient as mass-market silicon cells; they can convert about 15% of incoming solar radiation into outgoing electrical current. They are also durable — the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, has been running some since 1988 without any significant degradation. *** In Austin, Texas, B. J. Stanbery has founded a company called Heliovolt. Stanbery, who has been working with CIGS thin films since the early 1980s, when they were first under development at Boeing, has developed techniques for printing such films on a variety of substrates, speeding up their manufacture. The ultimate aim, says Stanbery, is to integrate the cells straight into building materials of all sorts. New houses, he points out, need roofs anyway. Photovoltaic tiles could be wired into the house from the start. "Integrating the photovoltaics as a coating," he says, "is frankly the only practical and cost-effective way to do it." Heliovolt's printing process is meant to help make that integration possible.   Small Times Covers Accelrys' MIT Appt "Small Times Covers Accelrys' MIT Appt" MIT Expert Lends Hand on NanoBio Initiative By John Carroll August 18, 2006 Accelrys is bringing in some high-powered scientific help to lend a hand on a new initiative designed to sharpen its software development expertise to work as a tool in the hands of nanobiology researchers. MIT chemical and biomedical engineering specialist Robert Langer has signed on to the scientific advisory board of Accelrys' NanoBiology Initiative. Accelrys has made a reputation for itself developing software programs that help drug researchers model complex development problems. Rather than undertake expensive studies that test how therapeutics may react under different circumstances or how a drug delivery system might work in practice, these software programs offer a less expensive alternative that helps researchers test their ideas in a virtual world. *** "There are all kinds of drug delivery issues: Getting nanoparticles to cancer cells, oral particles to the intestine, delivering liposomes to circulate longer in the body. All of those things are now done largely empirically. I could direct them to different problems where they could apply the technology." Langer -- who served on an FDA expert advisory panel for seven years -- notes that he published a paper just last April on working with nanoparticles and aptamers -- peptide molecules that bind to target molecules. "It's an optimization problem," he says. You do not want to clog blood vessels. Two hundred nanometers or less is important for that. You also want a targeting molecule that enables them to go to the cell you want. It's a major design issue. I could envision applying this with computers."   News.com Features Oxonica's International Nano Deal "News.com Features Oxonica's International Nano Deal" Nano firm reduces diesel fumes, improves mileage Michael Kanellos August 16, 2006 Petrol Ofisi, one of the leading oil companies in Turkey, has said it will include in its diesel fuel an additive from British nanotechnology specialist Oxonica that helps increase gas mileage by 5 percent to 10 percent and cut down nitrogen-based emissions. The change to fuel consumption also helps reduce carbon dioxide emissions.   Red Herring: Oxonica Finds Nano/Cleantech Market in Turkey "Red Herring: Oxonica Finds Nano/Cleantech Market in Turkey" Nanotech Meets Cleantech in Turkey By Ucilia Wang August 16, 2006 Oxonica said Wednesday it will be supplying a Turkish oil company with a fuel additive that reduces emissions and fuel consumption, reflecting an increasing global appetite for technologies that improve energy efficiency.   Petrol Ofisi A.S., which owns 3,885 service stations across Turkey, will put Oxonica’s Envirox Fuel Borne Catalyst into its diesel supply this year in a deal worth $12.7 million. Envirox enables trucks to run more efficiently by reducing fuel consumption by 5 to 10 percent. It also cuts down on carbon dioxide emissions by up to 15 percent, the company said.   Ecology Coatings featured in USA Today CEO Book Group "Ecology Coatings featured in USA Today CEO Book Group" Connecting you to the Innovations and Ideas Driving Tech Kevin Maney August 10, 2006 Thursday CEO Book Group This week's entry is from Rich Stromback, CEO of nanotech company Ecology Coatings. Old book: The 48 laws of Power by Robert Greene and Joost Elffers. Get the hard copy version of this one, it is the best business book I have ever read.  *** New book: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. The old saying is still true: "Marketing is everything and everything is marketing" -- with a new adage that great marketing spreads like a disease.   Red Herring Covers Ice's Peak Reduction Capabilities "Red Herring Covers Ice's Peak Reduction Capabilities" Energy Efficiency Looks Sexier By Adena DeMonte August 10, 2006 Times of high demand on the grid—like during the heat wave that scorched the country earlier this summer—reveal its weaknesses. *** Another new approach is that of Ice Energy’s Ice Bear, a device that stores off-peak energy by making ice using a standard compressor and releasing the stored energy in the ice during the day to provide cooling. On Tuesday, Anaheim Public Utilities in California passed a program for businesses that shifts their power use to “off-peak” hours, or times when less electricity is being used. The program offers an initial rebate of up to $21,000, plus incentives in the form of cheaper electricity rates for off-peak electricity use.   Ice Bear is the only product approved for this incentive program, and the product is being considered for 11 similar programs throughout California. In addition to the rebate incentive for companies, off-peak energy is cheaper to obtain since it is plentiful, so overall cost-effectiveness entices business owners to purchase the technology.   Tech Review: Accelrys Speeds up Nanomedicine "Tech Review: Accelrys Speeds up Nanomedicine" Speeding Up Nanomedicine Modeling software could lead to more efficient design of nanoparticles. By Kevin Bullis Friday, August 11, 2006 A growing number of researchers are looking to nanotechnology to find ways of delivering drugs directly to cancer cells or creating fast, inexpensive diagnostic tools -- such as over-the-counter tests for avian flu. But the expertise in materials science needed to create such nano devices often doesn't overlap with an in-depth knowledge of biology, which could help guide researchers toward materials likely to be safe and effective. Now Accelrys, a San Diego-based company with experience developing modeling software used for designing drugs and materials, is building software that will bring together life science and materials science expertise into one system. The goal: bridging the gap between these two fields, and thereby saving researchers time and money by quickly identifying designs that will work in the body.   AP: Anaheim's Ice Bear Incentive Program "AP: Anaheim's Ice Bear Incentive Program" Southern California cities look to ice to ease power crunch CHRISTINA ALMEIDA Associated Press August 10, 2006 City and utility officials throughout Southern California are eyeing a new system that relies on ice to store energy for air conditioners as a possible way to cut peak commercial consumption and reduce the threat of crippling blackouts. The system developed by Ice Energy Inc. consists of a large plastic attachment for commercial air conditioning units that is filled with water, frozen overnight then used to cool refrigerant during the day. "It stores energy at night, when energy is cleaner to produce, cheaper to buy and easier to obtain, and it makes it available for use during the day," said Frank Ramirez, CEO of Ice Energy, based in Windsor, Colo. The system has been in place since 2004 at an Anaheim fire station, where an analysis showed a 95 percent drop in peak energy usage and a 5 percent overall reduction, said Mariann Long, assistant general manager of Anaheim Public Utilities. This week, the Anaheim City Council approved a package of incentives hoping to increase commercial use of the system. "By shifting load to off-peak, the power is cheaper, so our costs can be stabilized or go down," Long said.   Cnet: Ice Energy and Peak Shifting Techs "Cnet: Ice Energy and Peak Shifting Techs" Pumping power onto the grid from your basement By Martin LaMonica Staff Writer, CNET News.com August 10, 2006 Another company that is trying to capitalize on "peak shaving" or "peak shifting" is Ice Energy, which makes an air-conditioner add-on that freezes water in the evening to cool the refrigerant, rather than run the AC during heat of the day. Ice Energy sells its units directly to businesses but is also investigating ties with utilities including those in California that are struggling with the costs associated with meeting peak demand. Extremely high summer temperatures that tax the grid, such as those happening this summer in the U.S., are happening more frequently, according to Ice Energy CEO Frank Ramirez. "The occurrence of sustained high temperatures is wreaking havoc on the ability to maintain the integrity of the grid," Ramirez said.   MSNBC and Cnet feature Ice Energy's Cooling Power Ice-powered air conditioner could cut costs August 1, 2006 By Martin LaMonica   MSNBC Interviews Ecology Coatings' Innovator "MSNBC Interviews Ecology Coatings' Innovator" Tech Tour Across America: Waterproof Paper July 23, 2006 Gina Smith MSNBC.com stops in Akron, Ohio to visit with a scientist whose accidental spill led to the invention of waterproof, recyclable paper.   HelioVolt and Clean Edge in Investor's Business Daily "HelioVolt and Clean Edge in Investor's Business Daily" Tuesday, July 11, 2006 By J. Bonasia Companies large and small are racing to develop cost-effective materials for BIPV, says Ron Pernick, co-founder of Clean Edge, a market research firm in Portland, Ore. "The game that's being played today is all about how to mass fabricate solar cells," he said. "We're moving to a world where more and more homes and buildings become energy producers, as well as energy consumers." The global market for solar energy grew 55% last year to $11.2 billion, according to Clean Edge. Many venture capital firms are placing big bets on solar startups this year. More than 100 scientists and entrepreneurs met at a solar industry summit in San Diego last month. *** Most solar cells use silicon as the medium to convert photons from sunlight into electrons for energy. Another technique is to build solar cells from the elements copper, indium, gallium and selenium, or CIGS for short. Firms that use CIGS for BIPV include Nanosolar of Mountain View, Calif.; Heliovolt of Austin, Texas; and Miasole of San Jose. *** Heliovolt can print or emboss its CIGS elements onto glass, metals or plastics. Such panels can be used in exterior walls. Roughly half of a building's energy needs can be met in this way, says J.T. Langdon, Heliovolt's vice president of marketing.   NanoDynamics' nanofactory in Fast Company "NanoDynamics' nanofactory in Fast Company" July/August 2006 By Fara Warner Walk up the marble staircase with its brass railings - a remnant of the plant's glory days 70 years ago - to the second floor. There, the mood shifts. Some 20 white-coated scientists and engineers at startup NanoDynamics are in the final stages of perfecting a fuel cell made from nano-manipulated materials such as nickel powder, an electrolyte sheath made from a ceramic called zirconia, and a perovskite cathode. NanoDynamics wants to make a cell small enough to fit in a backpack but powerful enough to keep the lights on in a house in rural China using commonly found fuels such as methanol. . . It also aims to apply one of the 20th century's most revolutionary ideas - Henry Ford's assembly line - to this very 21st century product.   DuPont's Ecology Coatings License in MSNBC "DuPont's Got One Word for You: Nanocomposites Plastics giant DuPont jumps on the nanotech bandwagon." June 29, 2006 By Jack Uldrich DuPont is also reported to have licensed a new nano-coating technology from Ecology Coatings, a private nanotech company located in Ohio, that dramatically enhances the abrasion-resistance and scratch-resistance of its products by improving surface hardness. Moreover, the coatings, which can be applied with existing equipment, have the added advantage of being able to be cured by ultraviolet light in less than ten seconds. This latter characteristic might not sound like much, but the neat little trick could save DuPont customers big money by reducing by as much as 75 percent the amount of material used in the coating process. It could produce even more savings by eliminating the need for hazardous chemicals, which, in turn, will free up companies from costly regulatory restrictions.   UPI: SiGNa Stabilizes Explosive Elements "Nano World: Stabilizing explosive elements" June 26, 2006 By Charles Choi Capsules only nanometers or billionths of a meter wide that stabilize extremely dangerous compounds normally prone to igniting or exploding can safely generate more than enough hydrogen gas to beat U.S. Department of Energy goals for hydrogen production for 2015 just by dropping them in water. The capsules are finding use in simplifying pharmaceutical manufacture. They could also help clean petroleum of sulfur and destroy ozone-destroying CFCs, dangerous mustard gas and organic pollutants such as PCBs, explained Michael Lefenfeld, New York-based SiGNa Chemistry's president and chief executive officer. Users so far include Pfizer, ExxonMobil, Shell, DuPont, BASF and Motorola. At first "I thought it was too good to be true," said Boris Gorin, director of research and development at pharmaceutical industry process development firm Alphora Research in Mississauga, Canada, who has tried out these materials. "These are a really exciting set of materials. People need to discover the power of this invention just as I did."   CNet covers Brewster Kahle's "Brewster Kahle's modest mission: Archiving everything" June 23, 2006 By Elinor Mills Brewster Kahle is on a mission. He wants the whole planet to have access to human knowledge. All human knowledge. And he's striving to make that possible--one byte at a time.   SiGNa's Michael Lefenfeld wins Inc's 30 Under 30 "Who Are the 30 Under 30?"" Inc.com America's coolest young entrepreneurs are making their mark in a wide range of industries -- and making millions in the process. A chemistry student, New York native Michael Lefenfeld set out to build a better air freshener, but stumbled upon a powerful new tool for stabilizing the explosive alkaline metal reactions that hinder pharmaceutical production, oil refining, and other industrial applications. He's now working with DuPont, Pfizer, and Shell.   eWeek: Azaleos Simplifies Exchange E-Mail " Azaleos BladeMail Appliance Simplifies MS Exchange E-Mail" June 15, 2006 By Chris Preimesberger E-mail storage management company Azaleos and its partners IBM and Microsoft introduced a new specialized appliance June 14 that aims to lower the operation and maintenance costs of the notoriously complex Microsoft Exchange e-mail server. Azaleos BladeMail, announced at Microsoft TechEd in Boston, is a turnkey, stand-alone e-mail appliance based on IBM BladeCenter hardware and diskless blades supported by an IBM System Storage N3700 fabric-attached storage system, Chief Technology Officer Keith McCall told eWEEK. "When it comes to Exchange, IT executives have two primary concerns: ensuring that their e-mail messaging systems are up and running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and that they can easily scale to add users at a fixed cost," Gerdes said. With a cost-effective blade-based architecture and virtualized storage, BladeMail scales to meet the e-mail requirements of all sizes of companies, McCall said. Up to 17,500 Exchange 2003 e-mail users can be supported from a single BladeCenter chassis; an expected 70,000 Exchange 2007 e-mail users will be supported per BladeCenter when Exchange 2007 becomes available, he said. "With BladeMail, we can leverage our existing infrastructure to reduce our costs and keep our system management overhead to a minimum," said Lee Hudson, technology director for Zumiez, headquartered in Everett, Wash. "Fully utilizing the storage virtualization capabilities of our NetApp SAN [storage area network] combined with a blade-centric approach helps us simplify our server environment and enhances our disaster recovery strategy." said.   Silicon Beat Calls MMA Renewable Ventures "Local group builds largest winery solar system at Fetzer Vineyards" Silicon Beat June 9, 2006 Fetzer Vineyards will announce today it will become the largest solar energy vineyard in the nation. The move by Fetzer's winery, located in Hopland, Calif. (just north of the SF Bay Area, in Mendocino County) is significant because it is the first of about major 30 solar projects to be financed by SF-based MMA Renewable Ventures, a group that recently announced a $100 million fund for such deals. +++ This is slightly off-topic for SiliconBeat, because there is no earth-shattering technology here. We mention it rather as an example of the good stuff that can happen here iwhen you mix best intentions with smart regional financing and pragmatic business sense.   Red Herring Highlights Oxonica's Success Story "Payoff Time for Nanotech" Red Herring May 22, 2006 Print Issue When Kevin Matthews took the reins of Oxonica in 2001, the then two-year-old nanotechnology company was gunning for a highly competitive electronic display market but still had no products. It was also running on near empty, with only 12 weeks of cash left in the bank. Four years later, the Oxford spin-off—now with £10.8 million ($20.2 million) in cash from investors such as German chemicals giant BASF—was turning out a fuel-efficient additive and performance-enhancing sunscreen compounds. Then, going public last July on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), Oxonica raised another £8.3 million. And then, last December, it acquired Mountain View, California-based Nanoplex Technologies, which it hopes will lead Oxonica’s drive into the medical diagnostics market. After a shaky start, Oxonica had transformed itself into a success story, a rare commodity in the nanotech world.   Red Herring Covers Renewable Ventures Acquisition "Renewable Ventures is Sold" Red Herring May 16, 2006 Real estate financial services firm MuniMae said Tuesday it bought renewable energy investment company Renewable Ventures. The companies said the acquisition will give MuniMae’s investor clients access to renewable energy investments, and will give Renewable Ventures more capital, as well as the benefit of MuniMae’s financing experience. Joel Makower, a co-founder and principal at clean-energy research firm Clean Edge, said the deal is good news. “Until now, the developers and finance people haven’t really talked to each other except on a project level,” he said. “This is a great strategic alliance that has the potential to move the market, mostly by giving an example of what’s possible.” While banks and project finance companies have been involved in clean energy, “we haven’t seen much appetite on the part of financial institutions to really go out with an integrated project offering, and that’s why this is really exciting,” he said.   InfoWorld: High-availability Exchange Made Easy "Maximum uptime with minimal pain" Infoworld By Jamie Bernstein, Oliver Rist May 12, 2006 Boil the Azaleos OneServer down to its essence and you’ll find a full-featured Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 cluster slickly prepackaged into a ready-made solution, although not exactly an appliance. The company shipped us a configuration consisting of three Dell PowerEdge 1850 servers and a Dell PowerConnect 5324 switch ready to be installed. The customer is responsible for providing a network storage appliance (usually obtained through an Azaleos partner) as well as an Active Directory domain controller. For our test, Azaleos loaned us a NetApp FAS270 filer to serve as the SAN resource. If the OneServer deserves the appliance name, the reason is the Azaleos front-end for e-mail administrators to manage the device. The functionality is all Microsoft Exchange clustering, but the Azaleos interface is much easier to use. The initial configuration is shipped with the system on a USB key, based on information provided by the customer, including an IP address range for the servers and an Active Directory domain name. To keep this simple, Azaleos provided a questionnaire prior to delivery with an easy-to-follow matrix. If there is an existing Exchange environment, mailboxes and public folders can be migrated to the Azaleos appliance for high availability. Less critical mailboxes or public folders can be left on the existing, nonclustered server, or that server can be removed entirely. According to Azaleos, the setup can be performed by the customer with an installation script or by an Azaleos engineer on-site depending on customer preference. Setup of the NetApp storage and Azaleos OneServer took us approximately four hours with on-site assistance. One glitch came up where the USB key could not be read by two of the servers. This problem was fixed quickly by our visiting Azaleos engineer but would have required a call to technical support for customers attempting the install on their own. Azaleos recommends working with a systems integrator who will validate the customer’s initial configuration and assist with the setup. Although it’s a hefty solution, considering that the ‘appliance’ is actually a mini-rack of five separate devices, we very much liked the ease of use as well as the flexibility when it came to integrating the OneServer into an existing environment — even relatively large ones. Because moving Exchange objects is accomplished using the standard Microsoft Exchange System Manager or other Active Directory management tools, things such as public folders and directory integration are readily available to Azaleos users.   Wall Street Journal Reports on Jigsaw " End of the Cold Call?" Wall Street Journal By Jeanette Borzo May 8, 2006 Small firms turn to innovative technology to make their search for clients a lot more effective.   SF Business Times: Jigsaw Intends to Profit "Piecing together an idea from the land of the free: Jigsaw intends to profit" San Francisco Business Times By Steve Brown May 5, 2006 Though it takes a lot of $25 payments to add up to a big profit, Jim Fowler, Jigsaw's CEO and co-founder, said his business is booming. "We've been doing well on all the measures we use," said Fowler. "We grew yesterday by 21,000 contacts." Fowler wouldn't disclose exact revenue figures, saying only that revenue fell between $1 million and $10 million a year. Even revenue of $10 million suggests at least half of Jigsaw's members aren't paying full freight. But will the company's revenue flag after it has grown to a certain size? "One way or another, growth will slow down," said Fowler. "(But) more and more of our members pay now (with money rather than by posting contacts). The percentage of our members who pay has been going up because the amount of data that can be put in is declining."   Red Herring Commends MyNewPlace's Usability Features "New Rental Unit Site Moves In" Red Herring By Alex Gronke May 1, 2006 MyNewPlace hopes its 6 million listings, mapping features, and a clean, banner-ad-free home page that mimics Google’s spartan interface will lure users. *** MyNewPlace also allows property management companies to “turn off” the service within 24 hours if leases start flowing from other sources, Mr. Thompson said. It’s a feature competitors don’t allow. John Helm, MyNewPlace’s CEO and founder, who also founded AllApartments/Spring Street in 1997, said he predicts similar growth for his company. “By the time they are at $100 million, we will be at $45 million.”   CNET Calls MyNewPlace Apartment Hunting Made Easy " MyNewPlace promises easier apartment hunting" CNET By Daniel Terdiman May 1, 2006 MyNewPlace is launching with a database of more than 6 million currently available apartments throughout the United States, said CEO John Helm. *** The site differentiates itself from competitors by giving would-be renters the opportunity to post blog entries talking about their experiences and asking for tips, and by also providing Google maps showing apartments' locations with even the simplest searches, Helm said. Further, MyNewPlace gives renters specific information about potential apartments, even without asking for registration. *** "We have the most robust way for them to take a 6 million (apartment) database," said Helm, "and sift it down to the five or six they want to go visit on a Saturday afternoon."   NY Times: MyNewPlace Stiff Competition in Online Real Estate " Providing Free Real Estate Listings From a Broader Market" New York Times Bob Tedeschi May 1, 2006 Move.com could also face stiff competition, at least in apartments, from another company, MyNewPlace.com, which is also scheduled to go online today. The business is led by John Helm, who founded SpringStreet.com, an apartment-rental site that Move.com bought for an undisclosed amount in 1999. Mr. Helm said MyNewPlace, which is based in San Francisco, would start with the biggest inventory of apartments in the market, 4 million listings, and would seek to build the database to 10 million within two years. Move.com, by contrast, will start with 650,000 listings. Rent.com would not say how many individual listings it has, but a spokesman said it listed apartments at 21,000 properties, many with multiple units for rent on a given day.   VoIP Planet Highlights EQO's Value Proposition "Bridging Disassociated Domains" VoIP Planet Bridging Disassociated Domains April 21, 2006 By Ted Stevenson EQO (pronounced 'echo') Communications' vice president of marketing and alliances, Ian Bell, calls them "archipelagos." The two island chains this company's technology seeks to link are online social communities — whether they're about dating, business networking, or just plain ol' chit-chat — and the approximately 2 billion mobile phone users wandering around the globe.   HelioVolt's Power Buildings on CNET "Start-up plans first step toward solar homes" CNET April 14, 2006 By Martin LaMonica Solar start-up Heliovolt, a company that envisions buildings coated with electricity-generating roofs and sidings, will begin building prototypes later this month. Heliovolt is one of several companies seeking to come up with cheaper ways to build material that can convert light to electricity. Most solar photovoltaic cells are made of silicon, but a shortage of silicon, coupled with the maturity of the traditional solar industry, has made it hard to lower the price of solar panels, according to experts. Companies such as Heliovolt specialize in copper indium gallium selenium, or CIGS, solar technology, which proponents say can be as durable and efficient as silicon cells but can be manufactured for less money.   Macworld Lauds EQO for OS X Macworld Lauds EQO for OS X Macworld Daily News Mac users get Skype for mobile phones April 14, 2006 By Jonny Evans A solution that lets Mac users with Skype connections use their mobiles to make and receive Skype calls through their handset has been announced. EQO Communications has released a beta version of EQO Mobile for Skype for Mac OS X. The release means Mac users can extend Skype VoIP calling and messaging to their mobile phones. The solution consists of a small client application that runs on the mobile and another on the Mac. As long as Skype is active on the computer, users can use EQO’s software and their mobile to keep in touch with Skype contacts. The software lets users make and receive Skype calls, exchange Instant Messages, and view presence information about their buddies over the Skype network. Over 45 different handsets from vendors including Nokia, Motorola, Palm, and Sony-Ericsson are supported. EQO recently introduced support for Palm TREO 650 and Motorola ROKR, SLVR, and RAZR phones.   San Jose Business Journal profiles Jim Fowler & Jigsaw Connecting another piece of the puzzle Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal By Laura Counts April 7, 2006 As a salesman for five dot-com startups since 1995, Jim Fowler had squandered countless hours trolling for the right people to pitch. Pricey corporate data companies like Hoover's were some help, but often the information was hopelessly out of date or didn't penetrate below the upper ranks. "People think the hardest part of sales is cold calling," Mr. Fowler said. "It's not. It's finding the right people to cold call." --- Mr. Fowler and colleague Garth Moulton launched Jigsaw Data Corp. in December 2004 with about $6 million in funding from El Dorado Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, and just 200,000 business contacts in the company database. A year later it boasted 2 million names, and by April it was growing exponentially, with 58,000 users and 2.75 million contacts at 160,000 companies. --- Mr. Fowler's friends and business associates invariably cite that enthusiasm. "He's a rare character. He's got the energy of five people and the passion of 10," said Mike Davies, COO of Top Down Consulting, who worked with Mr. Fowler at NetGravity in the late 90s. "He's antithetical to the average sales guy because he is so substantive. He's also a very ethical guy, and generally you don't get that when you are dealing with people who are so charismatic." --- Mr. Fowler says he's in this for the long haul. He believes it will take five years to really get in the face of the large data companies. He says he wants his firm to last, rather than become an acquisition target. "You don't get too many shots at these. This is my sixth startup, and it would be really disappointing to me to not execute on this one," Mr. Fowler said. "We want to build something that really changes the way the world does business."   EQO featured in Business in Vancouver Harnessing a 21st century movable feast Business in Vancouver By Bob Mackin April 3, 2006 With EQO’s product, the Skype interface appears on a mobile phone handset screen to show the user’s contact list with icons displaying availability of each person on the list. Calls can be made or received on the Skype network. Alternatively, instant messaging can be used.   Forbes/Wolfe Impressed by Oxonica's Momentum Oxonica Gains Momentum Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report March 2006 If any of you were worried that investors had lost their enthusiasm for nanotechnology, take a look at the IPO action in Oxonica Ltd, a British nanotech startup . . . *** Despite Oxonica's lofty stock price, it is a nano company with some real momentum. Its revenues of £684,000 for the six months ending June 30, 2005, represented a six fold increase from a year ago. The company reports its results from the second half of 2005 on March 28 and I expect revenue growth to be strong. I am impressed by its management and how nimble they have been in making strategic acquisitions and partnerships. *** This is definitely a newcomer to keep an eye on.   InternetNews: Azaleos Backs Up Exchange Azaleos Backs Up Exchange InternetNews By Paul Shread March 24, 2006 A startup founded by former Microsoft employees is using its knowledge of Exchange to make sure that the messaging platform stays up and running. Azaleos this week unveiled a new disaster recovery solution for Exchange, Azaleos Full Fidelity Disaster Recovery. The company also boosted its Exchange management solutions to provide assured Exchange backups, 99.999% uptime for Exchange, and onsite upgrade to Exchange 12. Azaleos co-founder and CTO Keith McCall says the company can now perform all management of a customer's Exchange environment. The former director and product unit manager of Microsoft Exchange Solutions says Redmond, Wash.-based Azaleos uses its knowledge of Exchange and proximity to Microsoft headquarters to benefit customers. "Our knowledge of and access to information within Microsoft gives us a great advantage," says McCall. "We also know what's coming down the pike too."   Azaleos 'Full Fidelity' Solution in Redmond Magazine Azaleos Offers 'Full Fidelity' Disaster Recovery Solution Redmond Magazine By Stuart Johnston March 23, 2006 A firm in Redmond, Washington is claiming it can deliver 99.999 percent uptime on Microsoft Exchange Server with a new service offering available immediately. Here's the surprise – it's not Microsoft. Azaleos Corp.'s new offering provides customers with the option of buying a dual-site disaster recovery solution that protects customers from losing any messages or data if one of its two servers completely fails. Dubbed Azaleos Full Fidelity Disaster Recovery, the offering provides an additional layer of fault tolerance over its OneServer "Exchange appliance," which already features redundant dual-processor servers in the same rack.   Network World on added options in Azaleos appliance Azaleos adds e-mail backup option Network World By John Fontana March 20, 2006 E-mail management vendor Azaleos this week is set to introduce an e-mail back-up option for users of its OneServer appliance. The option, which combines OneServer appliances running Exchange with network storage devices from Network Appliance, gives users a hot backup to a disaster recovery site. "If you are going to have Azaleos provide you with the OneServer appliance and let them manage it, backup is a very logical extension of that," says Michael Osterman, president of Osterman Research. "Backup is absolutely a critical activity." Azaleos, which began shipping OneServer a year ago, is modifying its service-level contracts to change its guaranteed availability. It also is building its disaster recovery capabilities to mesh with the capabilities of Exchange 12, which is expected to ship at year-end. Azaleos is using the platform to monitor and manage mirroring between the FAS270 storage devices as part of its new disaster recovery architecture. "What some disaster recovery services offer is access to your e-mail from a Web browser, but what we have is full-fidelity access via Outlook that includes e-mail, calendaring and contacts," says Keith McCall, CTO of Azaleos. "One of the benefits you have there is that you don't have to retrain your employees on how to access e-mail during a disaster."   Computerworld: Jigsaw solves the puzzle of contact Solve the Puzzle of Contact ... Computerworld By Mark Hall March 20, 2006 In an audience poll at Computerworld's Premier 100 IT Leaders Conference this month, 62% of the 163 respondents said their IT departments are responsible for developing and supporting contact management systems for users in sales and marketing. And in most cases, the poll showed, the monthly cost is more than $50 per end user. What they -- and you -- might consider is Jigsaw Data Corp.'s online contact management service. "Jigsaw is Dun & Bradstreet Reports meets Wikipedia," quips Jim Fowler, CEO of the San Mateo, Calif.-based company. Fowler says Jigsaw has 52,000 members and adds 10,000 new contacts to its database daily. You can sort them by industry, job function, geography and other parameters. You also can import and export data from and to Outlook, Salesforce.com and other applications. Over the course of this year, Fowler says, Jigsaw will be bulking up its corporate profiles to provide detailed competitive information.   SC Magazine gives top marks to New Boundary's product Prism Patch Manager SC Magazine March 18, 2006 The main interface is clear and well laid-out and generally typical fare for a console. The window is split into three panes. One shows machines, group and profile, the second information on highlighted devices, the third information on particular patches or problems... Overall, we were quite pleased with how Prism Patch Manager ran and would recommend it for most enterprises.   EQO praised in the Blogosphere Echoing EQO - Mobile Skype Red Herring By Aner Ravon March 17, 2006 EQO communications have released a mobile Skype client - a J2ME application which extends your Skype identity from the PC to the Mobile phone (full coverage by EQO). The one liner is straight forward: “Are you a Skype user? Extend it to your mobile phone”. Reality is more complicated but it seems like EQO took the right approach.   Red Herring: EQO brings Skype to Cells EQO Brings Skype to Cells Red Herring By Mike Cohn March 15, 2006 A Canadian startup, EQO Communications, introduced a mobile service on Wednesday that enables Skype users to exchange instant messages in addition to making VoIP calls over a wireless network. The service works on more than 40 models of phones that run J2ME (Java 2, Micro Edition), including Nokia, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson phones. Users can communicate with any of the Skype users on their buddy list or conduct multiparty chat sessions.   EQO in Computer Business Review EQO extends IM to mobile Skype, plans carrier deals Computer Business Review By Rhonda Ascierto March 15, 2006 EQO's VP of marketing and alliances Ian Andrew Bell said the company currently is in discussions with a number of other VoIP vendors to develop similar mobile products for their platforms. "Everything we do for Skype we can do for AOL, Yahoo, Google and MSN," he said.   PC Magazine: EQO saves a bundle Technology Travels PC Magazine By Bill Machrone March 15, 2006 When it comes to saving money, though, I get it right. Eqo (pronounced "echo") extends your Skype phone to your cell phone, bringing big potential savings over roaming charges. Again, Eqo has a trendy community angle, "Take your buddies with you," but the real message here is "Save a bundle."   Jigsaw in Wall Street Journal Baby Sitting for Start-Ups wall Street Journal By Rebecca Buckman March 13, 2006 As a first-time Silicon Valley chief executive, Jim Fowler needs all the nuts-and-bolts management help he can get. These days he's getting a lot of it from an unlikely source: his venture-capital investors. Mr. Fowler, an ex-U.S. Navy diver, runs Jigsaw Data Corp., a San Mateo, Calif., Internet start-up that allows salespeople to trade business contacts online. He chats with one of his venture-capital backers, Tom Peterson, about operational matters and other issues several times a week. Mr. Peterson also keeps in near-constant touch via email, dropping Mr. Fowlers messages about analyst reports and business referrals. El Dorado, which has invested about $2.5 million in Jigsaw, is "incredibly involved" in the company, says 41-year-old Mr. Fowler, who started the business in 2003. In today's tough environment for start-ups, where making money and going public is much harder than it was six years ago, venture capitalists "have to justify their investments," he says, and thus "they spend a lot more time on them."   NetworkWorld: MarkMonitor helps prevent counterfeit Targeting bogus goods Network World By Ann Bednarz March 13, 2006 Fortunately for businesses, as counterfeit-related damages have multiplied, so too have the tools to fight back. Brandimensions, Cyveillance, GenuOne and MarkMonitor are among software makers with products that monitor for inappropriate or fraudulent use of a corporate name or identity on the Internet, including Web sites, domain names, chat rooms and auctions. ... World Wrestling Entertainment has been using software from MarkMonitor for two years to help find knockoffs, after fans tipped off the company to the rash of unauthorized merchandise being sold on the Web. WWE first deployed MarkMonitor's brand-protection software to find inappropriate uses of its corporate name, brands and logos. The company recently added the vendor's new Auction Monitoring module, which creates a daily snapshot of suspicious auctions and resellers so Papachristos doesn't have to manually scour the sites. She then decides whether to send a cease and desist letter, report the offense to the auction site, or request a suspension of the seller. "It saves me so much time," Papachristos says.   The Wall Street Journal Covers Clean Edge Report Energy Technology Wins Bigger Slice Of Venture Capital W