CleanTechnica

Researchers at the University of Huelva have proven that high-oleic sunflower oil has the efficiency it takes to be an environmentally-friendly base for industrial lubricant.

The study found that the biolubricant shared similar characteristics to traditional lubricants, only sunflower oil has a lower volatility and is entirely biodegradable. Using the sunflower oil as an alternative should also help reduce the cost of keeping industry clean.

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A UK company has launched a new device that allows users to cut-off their water supply at the flick of a switch, drastically reducing wasteage and giving a significant boost to water conservation efforts.

Instead of scrabbling around looking for the stopcock, the new Surestop device allows users cut supply instantly, saving water loss, and consequent damage, whilst giving householders direct control over water consumption.

Now the company hopes to expand into areas crippled by drought, where water conservation is a pressing priority.

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Sometimes, when you ask a question, you get a good answer.

A recent post on a push to increase the U.S. gasoline blend rate ended with this thought-provoker: At this rate, will cellulosic ethanol, from non-food plant materials, ever get off the ground?

Yes, replied Sam Salyer, a representative for a Massachusetts-based biofuel company called Qteros. Read the rest of this entry »

At a cleantech panel about business opportunities running up to the 2012 Olympics in London, Dallas Kachan, managing director for the Cleantech Group, said that the second quarter “looks a lot like the first quarter” for cleantech investing so far.

In other words, it’s still down from last year, but deals are still happening and money is still available, he said. “The amount of investment is not continuing to plummet; it’s stable,” Kachan said. “Some might say we’ve reached bottom.” Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to environmental news, doom and gloom often rules the day. And it’s easy to get discouraged. But scientists from Yale University say most polluted ecosystems can recover in as little as 5 or 10 years.

The study means it’s not too late to turn things around if societies commit to cleanup, restoration and sustainability, according to Yale’s analysis of 240 independent studies. The findings appear in this month’s issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.
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LEED, for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, has become the alpha acronym when referring to green, or eco-friendly, buildings. The standard, from the U.S. Green Building Council, recently went 3.0.

Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, is taking the green diploma to an even higher degree. University officials are betting a new Living Learning Center will meet the Living Building Challenge, the world’s most stringent green building rating system from the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, a chapter of the USGBC and its Canadian counterpart.

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There were many viewpoints this weekend at TIE’s annual ‘pow-wow’ TIEcon 2009 when it came to cleantech, but if I were to boil them down (in a electric stove running on renewable energy) I would say the essence can be summarized as this: the mundane matters.

I say this not because there was a lack of enthusiasm in the air-absolutely the opposite-rather I say it because a more zoomed-out perspective on cleantech has begun to crystallize, and with that everyone from VC’s to the entrepreneurs bootstrapping their way through the battlefields of innovation has recognized the value of niches within the ‘ecosystem’ of cleantech.

This, of course, is a fitting metaphor for the area of innovation hoping to save us from ourselves. The area of innovation slated to reinvigorate our intuitions about what it means to work alongside nature as opposed to taking it for granted. At the same time, the principles of business and innovation surrounding growth of capital via monetization requires these innovations to return deep profits for those invested. Here’s how that duality played out in real-time:

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Experts call energy efficiency the low-hanging fruit, because it’s cheaper to cut power use than create new energy from fossil fuels like coal.

But our creature comforts — like iPods, cell phones, PCs and plasma TVs — are sucking the life out of advances in energy efficiency around the world, the International Energy Agency says.

In other words, too much fruit is rotting on the vine.

The IEA says in a new “Gigawatts and Gadgets” report that electricity consumption from power-hungry electronics could cause household energy use to triple by 2030. That means increased greenhouse gases from electric generation, and increased electric bills for creating that power. Read the rest of this entry »

A new way to treat wood has trees back in the limelight: a hardwood’s reliability that even a rain forest mahogany tree can love.

The above picture is of the world’s first heavy traffic road bridge made from Accoya® wood. The bridge, located in Sneek in the Netherlands, is “the first wooden bridge in the world that can support the heaviest load class of 60 tons”.  At this week’s Wall Street Green Trading Summit, a panel on forestation introduced a new way of thinking about how to deal with destruction of the rain forest.

>> More from the recent Wall Street Green Trading Summit:   Opening, Carbon Markets, Weird Investments and Solar Panels for All.

I think we can all agree that planting trees is a good way to go environmentally green (they capture carbon like crazy), but lets take a look at that other green for a moment: the green of cash.  Forestation can turn a profit quickly, given that it is one of the few industries in the United States that we know for sure will be cross marketable as a carbon offset industry.  Read the rest of this entry »

Wilmington, Mass.-based fuel-cell company Lilliputian Systems, which announced it raised $28 million this week, wants to set the record straight.

In October, The Wall Street Journal wrote that the company would be shipping its matchbook-sized fuel cells late this year. But now, the company — which is developing the cells for a range of consumer electronics, including cell phones and laptops — isn’t saying when its products will be commercially available, only that it plans to announce the timing this summer. Does that mean we can expect a delay?

Mouli Ramani, vice president for business development, tells me that’s not the case. When he spoke with the Journal, he was referring to a test-market launch with its partners, not a commercial launch that would make the fuel cells available to the general public, he says. In other words, don’t expect to be able to buy Lilliputian fuel cells at Best Buy this year.

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