Servers and computers technically aren't one of largest consumers of electricity in America. In Northern California, datacenters account for only 2.5 percent of the electricity consumed. By contrast, lighting accounts for about 22 percent of the power gobbled up in America. Electronics and IT, though, represent one of the more promising areas to reduce power consumption. Why? Many datacenters, desktops and components weren't originally designed for maximum power efficiency. Hence, room to improve exists. Second, the manufacturers are motivated: Nearly every chip and computer company in the world believes that improved power efficiency will give them a competitive edge. These companies are some of the most obsessive and aggressively competitive outfits on the planet. (Compare how fast GM has moved to improve gas mileage with, say, the pace that Intel has moved to curb power.) Starting in about 2006, power consumption became one of the top concerns for IT managers, which prompted many into action. The continuing growth of the Internet also means that the power required for computers will invariably rise. Thus, you are going to see a lot of progress in green IT, perhaps at a far quicker rate than in other fields. Which brings us to the Sparc Enterprise T5440 server from Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu. The server, which was was developed and will be sold by both companies but still more identified with Sun, incorporates a lot of interesting features for cutting power. Sun claims the server consumes 26 percent less power than the IBM Power 560. For one thing, it has intelligent fan control to better vary the speed of fans. The server is also divided into fan and cooling zones so that the closest fans are utilized to cool the closest components. Variable speed fans are already a favorite in datacenters. Oracle conducted a test earlier this year and found that variable speed fans in a datacenter pay for themselves in around nine months in reduced electricity consumption. Power distribution is also rerouted digitally, rather than with more traditional analog devices, which increases efficiency. Another power saving technique: thread parking. The four processors in the server contain eight processing cores each and each core sports eight computing threads. Thus, in a fully-stacked server you can get 256 computing threads. If a thread isn't active, the server can shut it down to save power. With 256 threads, of course, you can virtualize the bejeezus out of this thing. It sells for $44,995. That's a lot more than your typical Intel or AMD server but energy costs are prompting more interesting big, back-end boxes like this.

Sapphire Energy has been something of a mystery in the algae-fuel world. There are over 50 companies now touting that they will convert pond scum into liquid fuel (up from around four companies in 2006). Most of them, however, can't get funding and many seem to be plying "me too" ideas borrowed from early algae advocates like GreenFuel Technologies. So when Sapphire announced it had landed over $100 million in funding from, among others, Cascade Investment (the venture firm founded by Bill Gates) it drew attention. Only a few other algae companies – GreenFuel, Solazyme – have raised the tens of millions needed to move toward prototype production. The attention further magnified the fact that Sapphire has been somewhat tight lipped on its technology. Last week, Tim Zenk, vice president of corporate affairs for the company, filled in some of the details. I've also included comment and speculation from some competitors. As a prelude, I'd like to point out that algae companies like to snipe at each other, similar to the way CIGS companies or Intel and AMD like to point out each others' flaws. It will make a algae conference taking place next month in Seattle next month interesting. Overall, Sapphire differs in that it plans to grow algae that will produce hydrocarbons – i.e., crude oils that can be somewhat quickly refined into liquid fuels, Zenk said. It believes it can produce crude algal oil, once in mass manufacturing, for $60 to $80 a barrel. "We're very focused on fuels that are an exact replacement for gas, diesel and jet fuel," he said. "You will get an exact replica of light, sweet crude." Most other algae companies are raising algae that will produce lipids, or naturally occurring fats. Lipids can be made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrocarbons only include hydrogen and carbon. (Lipid defines a quality of dissolving in fat but not water while hydrocarbon is a chemical definition.) Converting a lipid into a gas replacement or other type of fuel can take additional processing. Still, the lipid algae companies say they can produce oil in at the same range. How does Sapphire get algae to produce substances that are less natural for it to produce? Genetic engineering. The company comes out of research conducted at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of California San Diego by Stephen Mayfield and others. You can call UCSD Bacteria U. It has been a center of biotech research for years and now is spawning a number of biofuel and green chemistry companies all based around using microorganisms as chemical factories. Sapphire has already produces samples of a fuel equivalent to 91 octane gas. Some sources have said that Arch Venture Partners commissioned the original research and then formed the company around that research. Arch partner Robert Nelsen has been involved in several early biotech startups. I still need to confirm this last point about Sapphire's birth. Genetic engineering also influences how Sapphire will grow its algae. It wants to grow the algae in open, saline ponds, rather than sealed bioreactors, like Greenfuel. The company also says that it has minimized the danger of rogue algal blooms from its genetically enhanced algae ponds as well as the risk that natural strains will out-compete its algae or eliminate its special qualities through hybridization. "We will optimize it to live only in certain conditions," Zenk said. Algae execs at competitors tend to scoff at this notion. The challenges keeping wild species at bay, getting consistent results generation to generation represent massive problems. And one can only imagine the land-use hearings when Sapphire says it wants to build a pond to raise GMO algae. Again, it is their job to scoff,  but they have a point. Eliminating the salt water from the algae is a doable problem, added Zenk. Water extraction techniques from other industries will be borrowed. Again, many competitors (and scientists at NREL) have said that water extraction has been one of the lingering problems in algae fuel. Money is not an issue, he added. The company has raised far in excess of $100 million. That figure has cause many to speculate if some of the funding is contingent. Typically, biotech companies only get a limited amount of money – $15 million or so – until the science has been proven. Then the big dollars flow in. If you look at the filings with the California Department of Corporations, it says that in August Sapphire sold $18.7 million worth of stock as part of a $11.7 million Series B round of fundraising. The California filings do not contain all of the contributions to the round. The SEC document, which you can get if you are in Washington, has more information. Either way, Zenk was fairly unambiguous about the company having the money. In a swipe at competitor Solyazme, Zenk said that brewing algae fuel by feeding algae sugars won't be tenable at a large scale. "There isn't enough farm land in the world" to grow the sugar. In a video a few weeks ago, Solazyme said that growing algae in ponds wasn't tenable: The company tried it before switching to sugars. Lastly, Sapphire says that it hopes to be able to prove its main concept – that genetically optimized algae grown in outdoor ponds that produce hydrocarbons on a large scale – within three to five years. Note, he didn't say they will produce oil in three to five years. He said they could prove the concept. Thus, when Sapphire can produce fuel is still a bit murky. If the concept can be proven, expect even a bigger flood of investors. Then again, other algae comapanies say they could well be in production by then, which could make it a real horse race.