Cleantech/Greentech/Energytech/Ecotech
What is it?
According to Neal Dikeman, creator of Cleantech Blog, “cleantech, also referred to as clean technology, and often used interchangeably with the term greentech, began in the venture capital community and has emerged as an umbrella term encompassing the invest asset class, technology, and business sectors which include clean energy, environmental, and sustainable or green, products and services”.
Nick Parker and Keith Raab, founders of the Cleantech Venture Network (now Cleantech Group), coined the term cleantech in 2002. The term has described “green and clean” technologies, particularly solar, biofuels, fuel cells, water remediation, and renewable power generation.
Where’s it headed?
I would like to suggest that a new trend is immerging in cleantech; a renewed focus on energy efficiency via hardware components for electronic devices and historical cleantech applications. These are the unsung heros of cleantech; the innovative garages that keep the big guys running. These hardware technologies are altering the landscape of cleantech, widening and redefining the definition to include all members of the supply chain.
This new momentum is being created by needs that are not being met by current solutions. According to Lee Bruno, a contributor to Venturebeat, computing density is driving server farms and other electronics to look for fan alternatives. New chips are expected to increase ten-fold in heat output over the next few years. Smaller hardware is required to do more work. A possible answer to this problem comes from a group of Purdue engineers that are designing miniature compressors and evaporators, which are critical for refrigeration systems. Their elastic membranes are made of ultra-thin sheets of a plastic called polyimide. And the plastic film is coated with a metallic layer that conducts electricity. When electricity is sent through the metal layer, the diaphragm can move back and forth to produce a pumping action researchers call “electrostatic diaphragm compression.” Development continues with this effort, but one can see that the heat problem is causing people to seek new solutions. A new standard thermal management system is needed that will create higher computing density, resulting in a greater level of efficiency from server farms to personal laptops.
Another example of a new hardware stems from the power consumption of data centers. According to Spansion CEO Bertrand Cambou, the data centers in the U.S. consume twice as much power as the collective solar footprint produces in the country. The only way to alter this statistic is to heighten the importance of energy efficiency at a product level. According to Greentech Media, Spansion wants to replace DRAM, the memory inside most servers, with a type of flash called EcoRAM. Spansion says that a data center based around the company’s flash costs 1/4th as much to operate, takes up 1/4th of the floor space and costs less than half of a traditional one because the chips use far less power and there is less need for air conditioning.
Just think if EcoRAM’s power saving product was paired with Purdue’s cooling solution. Now there’s some serious cleantech integration!
