Influent | Technology in Motion

“Modern supercomputers can no longer focus only on raw performance,” said David Turek, vice president of deep computing at IBM. “To be commercially viable these systems most also be energy efficient. IBM has a rich history of innovation that has significantly increased energy efficiency of our systems at all levels of the system that are designed to simultaneously reduce data center costs and energy use.”

Read full article IBM tops Green500 supercomputer list.

Fellow startups - check out these helpful insights from Greentech Media and take a look at how the big guys are gearing up their green initiatives.

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Unilever, IBM and other companies said they are constantly investigating green technologies that would help them conserve energy or sell products to customers who embrace efficiencies.

What do big companies like Unilever, IBM or Frito-Lay want from cleantech startups? The answer appears to be technologies that will help them go “green” or sell the things they already understand.

Unilever, which makes food as well as personal and household cleaning products, is interested in smart grid technologies, but not because it wants to enter the information technology market. The company is keenly interested in how consumers use water and other resources at home, said Phil Giesler, director of innovation and corporate ventures at Unilever.

“We realized that the major water use is not in the process of making the products but in how consumers use them,” said Giesler at the Dow Jones Alternative Energy Innovation near San Francisco on Wednesday. Giesler joined other company executives on a panel about what large companies want to startups. “That realization has led us to come up with formulations that need less water” to use.

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Influent’s CEO, Larry Hatch, announced plans to attend the first Going Green East conference, located in Boston, MA. The Bay Area’s Going Green conference has been such a success, that is has birthed an east coast version. The event, scheduled for March 9th-11th, promises to draw cutting-edge greentech CEOs, investors and other prominent industry players. The event will honor the GoingGreen Top 50 Private Companies and feature 50 greentech CEOs that will pitch their market strategies to a panel of industry experts in the “CEO Showcases.”

For more information visit Going Green East.

The 44th US President, Barak Obama, brings with him a very ambitious energy plan. The President’s legislation will benefit cleantech companies across the board from energy efficiency to wind and solar.

The plan entails three bills that aim to accomplish one goal—$150 billion to building clean energy.

The first is the $825 billion stimulus package that is expected to be signed into law in February. The bill includes $20 billion in tax cuts for alternative energy and research and development concentrated on energy conservation and efficiency, $32 billion to modernize the power transmission grid, $16 billion to retrofit public housing to use less energy, and $2.4 billion for developing technology to lower emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The second is a new energy bill that will call for a renewable mandate: 10 percent of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025. According to an interview conducted by Red Herring, Michael Eckhart, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE), confirmed this mandate, stating the energy bill should contain a nationwide renewable electricity standard, also called a renewable portfolio standard, which requires an increasing amount of the country’s electricity to be generated from renewable sources like wind and solar.

Last, Mr. Obama also has his sights on creating a climate bill to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions. The energy plan calls for a cap-and-trade system. Carbon-emitting companies trade emissions credits, or allowances, in an open market under a cap, or limit, on those emissions. The climate bill could mandate reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.

There is a lot of excitement and anticipation around Obama’s energy bills in the cleantech community. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the cleantech investment community voted Obama 6-1 over McCain in the election.

Administrative backing coupled with a real need for alternative energies sets the stage for the development and growth of today’s cleantech companies. Let’s hope the current economic situation does not detain the president from fulfilling his clean energy promises.

Though the price of oil has drastically declined over the past several months, the development of long term alternatives to gas powered vehicles is still in high gear. Electric vehicle (EV) companies are racing to take the market and promote the unique features of their products, but there are still some bumps in the road.

The development of EVs means that component level issues, such as the ability to cool car ‘hot spots’ must be integrated into the build. The power system for an electric vehicle (EV) consists of a motor controller, motor and energy source (e.g., battery). According to the CEO of an EV system company, these components all have huge issues with heat. These issues must be dealt with via a thermal management solution for EVs to truly become a viable option.

Joule

Despite this inhibitor, there are several EV companies that are preparing their products for launch. For example, Optimal Energy, a South African based EV company is débuting the Joule for purchase in the U.S. and Europe in 2010. Their competitive edge — ultimate customization for the greenest of consumers. According to VentureBeat, the electric Joule, an innately eco-friendly car comes with the option to integrate solar panels on the roof to help charge the car. The car is to have a range of almost 250 miles and top speed of about 80 miles per hour. The Joule is projected to cost $22,000 USD.

EV companies are highlighting unique and beneficial features to differentiate themselves from the competition, but an ideal thermal management solution could enhance the appeal of owning an EV. The range per charge could be extended even further, one of the top concerns coming from today’s potential consumer.

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!