Michael Kanellos: October 9, 2008, 12:32 PM

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Sequestration Specialist Gets Into Fuels

The best thing to do with old carbon dioxide is to make fuel out of it, figures Derek McLeish, CEO of Carbon Sciences.

To date, the company has touted its method for turning carbon dioxide from smokestacks into calcium carbonates, such as baking soda. It takes energy to convert the gas into a solid, but you end up with a byproduct that has a market value. That beats shoving it underground, where it can only have a limited use.

Carbon Sciences now says it has devised a formula for making liquid fuels. It is a biocatalytic process, which means that both microbes and chemical catalysts are involved. The biocatalysts “destabilize” the carbon dioxide. Water is injected as part of the process. The end result is a number of carbon-hydrogen molecules, which become precursors to fuel. McLeish added that the hydrogen atoms released from the water molecules do not have to be converted into freestanding hydrogen molecules first in the company’s process.

The biological part of the process is key because CO2 is a stable molecule; cracking or destabilizing it requires quite a bit of energy with traditional processes.

Carbon Sciences isn’t the first company to think of something like this. LanzaTech, a Khosla Ventures company, wants to make ethanol from CO2. Japan’s Mitsui is also trying to do carbon dioxide into methanol, another liquid fuel.

“Algae is basically CO2 fuel,” said McLeish.

Not all of these techniques will survive and neither will most of these companies. Still, it’s good to see progress. Besides, McLeish is probably the only CEO out there with a recent land-speed record. At the Bonneville Salt Flats recently he cranked up a motorcycle with a sidecar up to 218 miles per hour.

Michael Kanellos: October 9, 2008, 11:16 AM

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Telio Solar, Pt. 2: A Company Exec Details the Strategy

Our manufacturing is better.

That is, in essence, the business plan of Telio Solar Technologies, a relatively new and relatively unknown maker of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells. We wrote about the company earlier today and have now spoken to Vice President of Operations Peter Kim.

The company has devised a co-evaporation manufacturing process (evaporation plus chemical deposition) that will result in inexpensive CIGS cells with comparatively high efficiency, Kim said. The company has licensed its CIGS chemistry formula from the Institute of Energy Conversion at the University of Delaware. Telio’s own intellectual property revolves around how to manufacture cells in large volumes: executives from the company come from some of the large LCD makers in South Korea. (Side note: the IEC is also working on CIGS on flexible substrates with Dow Corning.)

Before the end of the year, Telio wants to produce a 300mm x 300mm prototype with around a 10 percent efficiency.

By the beginning of 2010, it wants to be in mass production with a 30-MW facility. The solar cells coming out of the factory then are expected to have an efficiency of 13 percent. Telio is also shooting to be on par with thin-film specialist First Solar. (First Solar hovers around $1 per watt for a module, not including the other costs that go into putting out a solar system.)

By 2015, the company wants to be producing solar cells with a 15 percent or higher efficiency for something close to 70 cents a watt. The shots below are from the prototype factory.

The company will primarily focus on producing large modules for utility solar farms, similar to the kinds of things being made by First Solar (cadmium telluride solar cells), Signet Solar and the other Applied Materials client states (amorphous silicon.)

“Our focus is on the large glass substrate,” Kim said. “We are really focused on mass manufacturing.”

The company was only started in late 2007. It raised $3 million and with that built a prototype production line in South Korea. In the CIGS world, that is both quick and cheap. It will try to raise another round soon. William Miller, the CEO Emeritus of SRI, is an adviser.

While the company still has a ways to go, it will be interesting to see what happens and how the collective experience it has in LCDs and semiconductors play out.

Michael Kanellos: October 9, 2008, 8:15 AM

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A New CIGS Company Emerges: Telio Solar

Just when you thought the market for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar panels might be overheated and overcrowded, here’s another name for you: Telio Solar Technologies.

Telio is a something of a South Korean-U.S. venture. It was founded by Gapseong Noh, a chip expert, and Chriss Hwang, an expert in OLED manufacturing. Both attended college in South Korea, grad school in the U.S. and have worked at various companies with operations in one or both countries. The same goes for several other members of the management team.

The company, which is based in Los Altos, recently completed the construction of pilot line in South Korea for manufacturing CIGS cell measuring 300 millimeters by 300. It wants to have a commercial manufacturing facility up and running by the first half of 2009 that will produce 600mm x 1200mm modules. The company hopes to have 10 MW of manufacturing capacity by next year and 30 MW in 2010.

The company’s Website says it can achieve efficiencies of 13 percent, which is higher than is currently being made by companies already making CIGS cells like Nanosolar. Telio uses thin-film deposition technology to deposit the chemicals. The above picture is a shot of their equipment. (note: we spoke to Peter Kim, vp of operations, later in the day. See more details here.)

It also has strong connections Stanford. The advisory panel includes William Miller (former Stanford Provost, CEO Emeritus of SRI, and active in the very intriguing startup Nanostellar), David Kreps (professor of economics) and Alan Fahrenbruch (longtime researcher at Stanford.). In that area code, Miller’s name alone is probably good enough to attract piles of VC money. I’m not sure who has invested in Telio, but I have a good guess and will try to tell you soon.

Although South Korea hasn’t been a strong player in solar yet – it will be. Solar panels are similar in many ways to LCD TVs and OLED screens and South Korea, largely due to LG and Samsung, is one of the leading centers in display research and manufacturing. LG this Summer announced that it will make solar panels while one of Samsung’s subsidiaries has started building solar power plants. Expect to hear more about Samsung manufacturing panels too.

In case you were wondering, CIGS funding is officially into the billions. Five CIGS companies raised over $344 million through 2007. This year, Nanosolar raised $300 million alone while Solydra says it has raised $600 million (that total includes $72 million raised before this year.)  SoloPower raised $200 million, according to some reports, earlier this year.

And let’s not forget the big players like Avancis (a Shell- Saint Gobain joint venture) and BP Solar that participate in CIS and CIGS (CIS is CIGS without the gallium.) that can likely weather things like a global credit crunch better than any of the startups.

Will they all survive?

Michael Kanellos: October 9, 2008, 7:02 AM

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For the Water Crisis: A Space-Age Toilet Flusher

The Siphon Flush from Magnet hopes to put a dent in the 11 million gallons of water a day that gets lost because of faulty tank flappers.

And it will let you flush 21 golf balls down a toilet, if you’re in the mood. See video here.

The device, being showcased this week at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas, takes a different tack on operating a toilet. Most flapper valves work by forming a seal around the pipe at the bottom of a toilet tank.

The integrity of the flapper, however, is easy to destroy. Cleaner chemicals can erode the rubber, for example, and begin to let water seep down the pipe. And those slow drips add up. More than 85 percent of water leakage in residential plumbing systems comes from the toilet and a majority of toilet leaks are caused by faulty or worn flappers, the company says. The EPA has said that a silent leak in a toilet can waste 500 gallons of water a day, according to the company. In all, that results in 11 million gallons a day lost due to faulty flappers. In all, Americans flush 2.1 trillion gallons of water down toilets a year.

The Siphon Flush, which was designed with prototyping software from Invention Machine, exploits how water and air displace each other instead. The opening to the hose sits atop a thing called a “float chamber” which is attached to a collapsing and expanding hose that rises and falls with the water level in the tank. Thus, when the tank is full, the expanded hose keeps the float chamber above the water line, thereby preventing leaks. When flushing, the hose collapses, the float chamber is submerged and water goes away. If Archimedes were here, he’d run through the streets naked again.

Expect to see a lot of changes coming to household appliances due to rising energy and water costs. Some companies, for instance, are staring to bring things like ecological stucco (a standard in France) or toilets that use sink water rather than fresh water (like they have in Japan) to the U.S. Companies like Integrity Block are bringing out eco-friendly building materials.

This is also another example of the software opportunity in greentech. Both Invention Machine and Autodesk are increasingly trying to demonstrate how their tools can help curb energy consumption.

Michael Kanellos: October 9, 2008, 5:17 AM

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Video: Test Driving the Tango

We wrote about it last month and now you can see the video of the Tango, the all-electric car from Commuter Cars. There’s not a lot of room inside the car once you squeeze in two adults so you don’t get a lot of shots from inside the car, but you get to see it in action on the road. Click here for the full film of the Tango.

The highlights? It’s fast. It can go from zero to 60 mph in about four seconds. I got it up to 50 in a few seconds while going uphill. CEO Rick Woodbury took it up to 80.

It’s also remarkably stable, because the 2,000 pounds of lead-acid batteries are located beneath the floorboards. Putting all of that weight down low gives the car a very low center of gravity, akin to a Porsche. Commuter Cars can also put in lithium-ion batteries, which are actually more popular. They don’t weigh as much but they car can go further on a charger.

Weirdly, the bobsled-style seating is also interesting. It’s different than an ordinary car and novelty goes a long way. It’s far more roomy than you’d think too. Another plus: You get stares. People stopped to look at us.

The downside? It’s $108,000. Cheaper versions are coming – the current model comes with two engines. Still, this car will have to be somewhat cheap. For six figures, you can get a stylish convertible, like a Tesla Roadster. A commuter car needs to be in the $30,000 range.