Influent | Technology in Motion

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.

Like many start-ups, Influent is in the process of raising its next round of funding. The current economic crisis has created one of the toughest environments ever for start-up companies to obtain the funding critical to enable growth. According to Rebecca Buckman of Forbes.com, a prominent Silicon Valley investor stated that VCs “have been living off fumes for a long time now”. Returns and morale are low.

To compensate, VCs are demanding higher standards of diligence and taking advantage of market conditions to drive better terms, creating much lower pre-money valuations for start-ups. This ‘tightening of the belt’ only works to a certain degree. It’s once again time for VCs to embody their prospecting name, to make high risk/high reward investments. ‘Safe’ investments won’t always transform the marketplace or offer the high returns that are necessary to build VC funds. The current state of the economy might be abysmal, but this environment has the potential to drive VCs to invest in unlikely start-ups. Perhaps the next Google or Cisco will emerge.

Despite the economic downturn, there are VCs across the country participating in forums to find the next it company. Take Early Stage East for example, a conference held in Baltimore, MD to match start-ups with VC investors. The video conference coverage by Forbes.com, details the useful connections and feedback that entrepreneurs receive as conference attendees.

Some tips from VCs for pitching a company – branding is key, make outside references and resist that overwhelming temptation to overcrowd your slides.

We know the advantages of liquid cooling; it can extract more heat from cooled parts, which makes it ideal for handling issues like overclocking and it is less influenced by the ambient temperature. Liquid cooling is not limited to one component, so it can cool the CPU, GPU and other components simultaneously while creating relatively no noise.

Fujitsu’s LifeBook N7010

The appeal of liquid cooling has some OEMs working diligently to create a water cooling system that can fit into today’s average height profile, .7-1.5 inches. It seems the closest that anyone has come thus far is the Fujitsu LifeBook N7010. The laptop, which was reviewed by Engadget on Dec.15, didn’t exactly receive extensive praise. According to Thomas Ricker of Engadget, the laptop is full of compromises including its size, nearly 2 inches thick and 7 and half pounds in weight. The computer has only one hour of promised battery life. On the flip side it is packed with features like a digital television turner, 1.3 megapixel webcam, fingerprint scanning security, 4GB of memory, a 4-inch LCD touch screen along with other bells and whistles. Don’t expect to get your hands on a LifeBook N7010 if you live in the US, Fujitsu is only distributing this liquid cooled laptop within Japan.

Strides are being made to create a viable liquid laptop solution, but there is still no liquid pump on the market that can fit into an average laptop profile. The quest continues.

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.

During our meetings with data-center companies, we have asked their take on the green data-center movement. A different kind of green is often emphasized—money.

Energy efficiency is one of the most sought after characteristics in computing. There are two reasons for this; first is the ability to create PR and influence public opinion and second is the need to create higher computing density without increasing energy costs. If a given device can make a data center 20% more efficient then the same center can offer 20% more computing power without adding additional costs. Although many data-centers are working hard to become innately more efficient, this often means using the same amount of power to do more work rather than a focus on overall power reduction.

Some purists might consider this not truly ‘going green,’ however using the same amount of power to produce more work is in fact the definition of efficiency. Being green only has upsides; you’re creating positive PR, saving money while creating greater computing power and did I mention helping the environment.

Check out a network of data-center companies that feel the same way. Visit Greengrid. A global consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data-centers and business computing ecosystems.

We have completed our Low Pressure Air 30 (LPA30) prototype and we will be demonstrating its versatility and cooling ability to various potential customers.  I will be updating our customer visits and conversations, highlighting trends and needs in the industry.

I have two exciting new hires to announce. The first is our Controller, John Mills. John brings 30+ years with HP as a Global Project Manager and Analyst for the Ink Jet division. John has extremely valuable experience through his time spent consulting and administering executive education programs. The second is Mike Fitzgerald, Chief Product Development Officer. Mike has spent her career at Tektronixs and was most recently VP and General Manager of Tektronixs’ Measurement and Accessories Product Line where she almost doubled the business in her four year tenure. John and Mike will be valuable assets to the Influent team, enabling us to bring our breakthrough technology to market in the most efficient and well executed manner possible.

Before I get into our current work, I must mention our team and the amazing resources that we have supporting our product development efforts. In the summer of 2007, three former HP executives located in Corvallis, Oregon formed SynnOps, LLC to act as Influent’s operations arm. They were greatly interested in the technology and wanted to take on a new challenge. This connection has only multiplied to include many Corvallis area engineers that ironically have skill sets that are extremely aligned with our R&D and product development efforts.

LPA30

Tim Lucas, our CTO, spent the majority of his summer in Corvallis, working with a team to create LPA30, otherwise known as Low Pressure Air 30. There has been an amazing amount of design wins that have benefitted from the development including small size, efficiency, life and multiple hot spot cooling. The finished device will shortly be in the hands of our sales team and in front of prospective customers.

I would like to elaborate on a point that I touched on at the end of my last blog: component integration in the cleantech industry. The trend in cleantech towards innovative hardware components means that hardware companies are integrating with one another to create the best possible solution, which in turn produces the largest profit.

The benefits of integration aren’t exactly new news, but let’s put today’s cleantech hardware companies in perspective by visiting the significance of Seagate Technology. Seagate’s creation of the first hard disc completely revolutionized the computing industry. However it was their partnership with Control Data Corporation (CDC) that further propelled their success.

Seagate Technology was the first to create a hard disc to fit the 5.25-inch form factor of the PC “mini-floppy” drive, ST-506. Seagate revolutionized the amount of data that could be stored in set space. Their new technology was selected by IBM and negotiated for a large volume contract. Seagates relationship with IBM allowed them to build a powerful distribution channel. Seagate management believed that vertical integration of key components was crucial in the face of competition. This mentality spurred Seagate’s purchase of Control Data Corporation CDC’s voice-coil and disk-manufacturing patents. This gave Seagate access to a high-end server customer base and the first 5,400 drives on the market (the CDC Elite series). Seagate quickly began to leverage vertical integration across its entire product line and became a dominant force. Seagate’s vision for integration has taken them down a successful path with innovations like first palm-sized external-storage device that could hold 5 gigabytes of data and on June 2, 2008, they announced a 2.5-inch enterprise solution (Savvio 10K.3 hard drive) which consumes 70% less power than traditional 3.5-inch drives and offered 300 gigabytes of capacity.

Seagate is a prime example of a hardware company that recognized the need for integration. I think cleantech hardware companies are realizing that they would be smart to follow the same path.

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!