Michael Kanellos: December 10, 2008, 7:16 PM

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Berkeley: Radical Hotbed of Energy Efficiency

With the appointment of Steve Chu as the Secretary of Energy, it becomes official: Berkeley is the world capital of efficiency. Chu, the director of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, has been one of the leading advocates of trying to curb fuel consumption through things like designing buildings better for their environment. Chu follows in the footsteps of Art Rosenfeld, who taught at the University of California and worked at the lab for decades. A physicist (Enrico Fermi's last grad student), Rosenfeld convinced the state of California to past stringent energy efficiency laws and appliance standards in the 1970s. Since then, electricity consumption in California has stayed roughly flat in per capita terms: It has doubled elsewhere in the country. From 1974 to 1994, Rosenfeld directed the Center for Building Science. He is now with the California Energy Commission. Other notable scientists working on energy efficiency in Berkeley include Arun Majumdar, the Almy and Agnes Maynard professor of mechanical engineering, and Steve Selkowitz, who now runs the Center for Building Science.

We waste a lot of power in the U.S., by the way. The U.S. consumes about 100 quads of energy a year, Manjumar told me recently. A quad is a quadrillion BTUs. A BTU is equivalent to the energy produced by a match.

"Of the 100 quads, about 55 to 60 go into waste heat," he said. "Fifty or 60 percent of the energy is wasted as heat."

The city's image in the popular imagination won't likely change. And effciency is pretty undtramatic. Don't expect someone to blurt out "You've got to throw yourselves on the gears of the machine and demand R 9 windows at an economical price" in the middle of Sproul Plaza any day soon. But the history and work taking place in the East Bay could have a pretty big impact.

Michael Kanellos: December 10, 2008, 1:41 PM

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Steve Chu to Be Named Energy Secretary

Steve Chu—the Nobel Prize winning physicist who runs the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab—has been selected to become the U.S. Secretary of Energy, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The appointment will likely be hailed by a large number of people in the greentech world. Chu left Stanford to become the director of the Berkeley lab in 2004 so that he could help promote energy research within the federal government. He has been one of the driving forces behind the effort to commercialize technologies developed inside the national labs and at the University of California.

One of Chu’s big accomplishments has been the $500 million research pact between the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Illinois and petroleum giant BP. (Steve Koonin, BP’s chief scientist formerly with Caltech, was also instrumental in that deal.)

Chu speaks often at greentech events, warning about the dangers of global warming, the need for more research and the economic benefits of developing a green industry.

He’s also a great interview. Here’s a lengthy one he gave me in 2006.

Michael Kanellos: December 10, 2008, 12:08 PM

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Small or Big? What Size Companies Will Weather Recession the Best

Science project companies are the place to be.

That’s the word from a few VCs I met with this morning. The credit crunch has made it extremely difficult for semi-established solar or biofuel companies to raise the tens of millions to build commercial-scale factories. Some of the deals were still taking place in late September and October, but the spigot is running dry. If your company is in this group but didn’t get its cash, it could be in trouble.

By contrast, science project companies don’t need a lot of money. Investors also don’t expect them to produce anything commercially for a couple of years. By then, the economy could be rolling again.

But, before you quit your job to run off to a company exploiting bacteria to make tennis shoe adhesives, remember that not all start-ups survive. A lot of companies died during the dot.com crash, but Intel and IBM made it out.

Michael Kanellos: December 10, 2008, 8:19 AM

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Firefly’s Green Truck Batteries Hit the Road

Firefly Energy, which has created a new type of lead acid batteries for truckers, has put prototypes of its OasisT battery on the road and says it’s on track for mass production in the second quarter of next year.

The OasisT effectively generates more electrons than standard lead acid batteries. That means that a single charge lasts longer. The battery can also endure more recharging cycles and has a longer lifespan than a normal lead acid battery, according to Firefly, which spun out of construction equipment giant Caterpillar.

The key to the OasisT is an internal membrane coated with graphite foam. The foam effectively increases the reactive surface of the membrane, thereby increasing the power.

Firefly’s Oasis batteries are designed to power the living quarters inside long-haul trucks. Truckers typically run their diesel rigs all night to keep the air conditioning or heating going. This also keeps the TV powered. (You’re up, stuck in Tulsa and want to watch reruns of “B.J. and the Bear,” for instance.) Unfortunately, that burns a lot of fuel. California has imposed regulations that only allow truckers to run their rigs in idle for five minutes every hour to cut down on diesel fumes and greenhouse gases. That leaves truckers the option of broiling (or freezing) or waking up every hour—or getting a battery like the OasisT that can power their sleeping chamber. Other states will likely follow suit.

Firefly emerged from stealth mode about a year ago.

The first four Oasis batteries were installed on a Freightliner truck operated by G&D Integrated of Morton, Illinois.

Ten four.