Texas Gov. Rick Perry doesn't much care for the "increasingly activist" U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and he's willing to put Texas in the forefront of promoting plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to get the federal agency off the state's back. That, according to Perry's state of the state address Tuesday, in which he proposed a $5,000 tax credit for Texans who buy plug-in hybrids if they live in "non-attainment" zones for air quality standards. Those include the metro areas of Dallas-Forth Worth, Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, Port Arthur and El Paso. "Rather than wait for more mandates and punishments for environmental non-attainment, let’s continue encouraging innovation," Perry said of the proposal. If Texas' legislature takes up Perry's plan, that could make Texas — not known as the most environmentally friendly state — something of a leader in promoting electric transportation. More than 40 states have incentives for regular old hybrids, like preferred access to parking or high-occupancy vehicle lanes. A smaller number of states have tax credits of some kind for hybrid owners. But when it comes to plug-in hybrids — which aren't yet being mass-produced, though a few hundred converted vehicles are on American roads today — right now only a half-dozen states or so are proposing tax breaks. And of those, only Oregon has specifically proposed a credit matching the $5,000 value that Perry has proposed, said Felix Kramer, founder of CalCars.org, an electric vehicle advocacy Website. Of course, the federal government did include a $7,500 maximum tax credit for plug-in hybrids in the energy package it passed in October, Kramer noted — more than double the $3,400 maximum federal credit previously available to regular hybrid cars. That credit has a cap of 250,000 vehicles, though lawmakers may double that figure as part of the stimulus package now working its way through Congress, said Chelsea Sexton, the former executive director of the electric vehicle advocacy group Plug In America. Even so, adding state incentives on top of that federal break for plug-in hybrids "is going to make a big difference for a car in the $35,000 to $40,000 range," Kramer said. Those are some possible price points he gave for plug-in hybrid vehicles being promised by Toyota, General Motors and other automakers. Toyota has said it will start testing about 500 plug-in versions of its best-selling hybrid Prius in 2009, and GM wants to bring its Chevy Volt to market by 2010. Other automakers less well-known to Americans might be aiming at those incentives as well. BYD Co. from China launched a plug-in hybrid called F3DM last month, and plans to sell the car in the United States in 2010. And whether the tax credits might apply to all-electric vehicles from startups like Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive as well as automakers like Nissan, Mitsubishi, Daimler, Think and others (see Showing Off Green Cars Amid Economic Gloom) will depend on how they're structured, Sexton said. By the way, Perry also said that more plug-in hybrids also could help the state's burgeoning wind power industry by providing car batteries to store excess energy at night, he said. Utilities have said that using plug-in vehicles as electricity storage devices will be a critical part of building a "smart grid" infrastructure that can accommodate intermittent renewable energy resources like wind power, which is most productive at night. Texas leads the country in wind power, but lack of transmission and storage capacity has led some of the state's wind farms to pay the state's main grid operator to take it (see Texas Wind Farms Paying People to Take Power).

An Israeli solar startup called BrightView Systems has raised $6 million, but you will have to wait to find out what the company does.

The Series A funding came from Israel Cleantech Ventures, which provided the money to  BrightView in mid-2008. Hasso Palttner Ventures in Germany is another investor.

What we know is that BrightView thinks its technology can fix some shortcomings in solar cell production. But whether that means the company is developing equipment or software remains to be seen. The company, which isn't disclosing its technology, plans to launch its first product this year. 

The market already has large equipment makers, including GT Solar and Applied Materials. But we haven’t heard much from software companies that develop tools to improve solar cell manufacturing.

In the semiconductor industry, which shares similar manufacturing processes as the solar industry, a plethora of large and startup companies have developed software to monitor and analyze manufacturing performances.

Rudolph Technologies (NSDQ: RTEC), a Flanders, N.J.-based software developer in the semiconductor industry, launched a solar manufacturing software suite earlier this month.

Could BrightView be doing something similar?

Changing World Technologies thinks the public is ready to invest in its waste-to-biofuel business. It will be bucking a trend. The West Hempstead, N.Y.-based maker of biodiesel and organic fertilizer from animal and food processing waste is seeking to raise about $33 million by selling 2.8 million shares through an "OpenIPO" auction process being managed by W.R. Hambrecht & Co. That's the same method that Google used to go public in 2004, but it's still a "very unconventional" way to do it, said John Quealy, an equity analyst for Canaccord Adams. But "given the turmoil that the capital markets are in, I think companies need to be a bit more inventive in going-to-market strategies," Quealy noted. That may be an understatement. The United States saw only 43 IPOs in 2008, a huge drop from 272 in 2007, making last year the worst year for public offerings since 1978, according to Renaissance Capital. "IPOs as you know have been pretty much shut down since September, with rare exception," Quealy said. "In the clean energy space, it’s been entirely shut down." The list of canceled IPOs includes a host of biofuel companies. In September, Redwood City, Calif.-based biofuel catalyst developer Codexis canceled its plan to raise $100 million through the public markets, citing poor market conditions. Other biofuel makers had canceled their IPOs before the current financial crisis got underway. In March, Ralston, Iowa-based biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group called off its plans to raise up to $150 million, and in January, Seattle-based biodiesel maker Imperium Renewables nixed its ambitions $345 million IPO (see Imperium IPO Delay Underlines Feedstock Shortage, Analyst Says). Beyond the state of the markets, biofuel makers have to contend with a basic set of economic equations, Quealy said — the price of the feedstock they use, and the selling price of the fuel they produce. That's the equation that has put makers of corn-based ethanol in such dire financial straits in the past year, and it could apply equally to "next-generation" biofuel makers, he said. "Regardless of the technology," he said, "it really just comes down to the front end and the back end." And Changing World's front-and-back equations might present the company with a tough sell. According to the company's prospectus, it estimates its commercial production costs will be from 85 cents to $1.60 per gallon — about half of that feedstock costs and the rest the cost of its conversion process. But over the past four years Changing World has been selling its renewable diesel at prices ranging from a low of 14 cents a gallon in Sept. 2006 to $1.19 a gallon in Sept. 2008 — and that 2008 high price was when oil was trading for around $100 a barrel. On Tuesday, oil was trading at around $47 a barrel. Of course, Changing World will be able to claim the $1-per-gallon tax credit available from the federal government to bolster that selling price. It also tells prospective investors that it hopes its commercially produced biofuel will command prices close to those for No. 2 Heating Oil, which has averaged $2.25 per gallon over the past three years. But given the wild swings in prices of commodities from oil to corn to recycled materials over the past six months — and the continued uncertainty over the economy — it's hard to say how confident investors will be in Changing World's math.

Scientists at Brookhaven National Labs have identified bacteria that can boost the growth of poplars on marginal land. That's good news for Zeachem, the startup that wants to produce cellulosic ethanol from the trees. Zeachem says it will be able to squeeze 135 gallons from a bone dry ton of plant matter with its "acetic adid-to-fuel" process. That's unusually high, and one of the main reasons to keep an eye on this company. The scientists, along with colleagues from Belgium's Hasselt University (mascot: The Golden Spuds), identified 78 different bacteria ordinarily found in the roots of poplars and willows and then tested them on various trees in greenhouse conditions. Some bacteria inhibited growth, others had no effect, but others actually made the trees grow faster. "In particular, poplar cuttings inoculated with Enterobacter sp. 638 and Burkholderia cepacia BU72 repeatedly showed the highest increase in biomass production — up to 50 percent — as compared with non-inoculated control plants," the lab said. Good Show, Burholderia! The group is now sequencing the genes to determine how the metabolic turbocharger kicks in. The research grew out of earlier experiments to use poplars to clean up toxic-waste sites. Producing ethanol from poplars on marginal land, of course, also helps reduce any potential food versus fuel conflicts.

Desalination could dramatically help the looming shortage with water. The problem is the membrane. Right now, desalinting seawater largely revolves around pressurizing water and forcing it through a membrane to purify it. The process takes a lot of energy and hence a lot of cost. Desalinating seawater can cost as much as 50 cents a liter. A collection of private companies and research institutes in Spain have begun to experiment with capacitive deionization for purifying seawater. In this, two electrodes would be placed in a tank. The ions (i.e., salt particles) would be drawn to one electrode. The ions would absorb the ions, which could then be released in a regeneration cycle. Capacitive purification was considered in the past, but the materials were too expensive. So who knows, it might work now. Expect to see a number of desalination come to the fore in the next few years. Policy makers and the public love the idea and areas of Australia, Africa and China are already suffering through prolonged droughts. Some of the more interesting ideas out there: Porifera: A spin-out from Lawrence Livermore National Labs, the company wants to make a desalination membrane out of carbon nanotubes. The company claims it won't take much energy to purify water in this way and the membrane can't get fouled. Salt and other bad stuff can't fit through the pore/openings in the nanotubes. NanoH2O: Grew out of a research project at UCLA and so far has raised $20 million in two rounds. It has a membrane embedded with nanoparticles that repels salts and lets water pass. By exploiting chemical attraction, NanoH2O reduces the amount of mechanical-induced pressure required for reverse osmosis: The company claims it can process 70 percent more water with 20 percent less power than conventional reverse osmosis plants.

Quos: A highly secretive Chicago company founded by Chinbay Fan and funded by Khosla Ventures. One thing Quos can't keep secret: patent applications for a system that desalinates and purifies with graphite porous electrodes.

"The apparatus is capable of removing ionized and non-ionized organic compounds, inorganic ions, particulates and bacteria from wastewater streams in a single unit to produce potable water. Porous carbon-based electrodes function as impurities filters to remove particulate matter, such as ash, sand and high molecular weight compounds, as electrodes to concentrate and remove ionic species, and as adsorbents to remove organic materials and bacteria from the wastewater stream," says patent application 11/724534.

Stonybrook Purification: It has created a thin, fibrous scaffold for reverse osmosis membranes that increases water flow to the reverse osmosis membrane. The company, out of SUNY Stony Brook, also has its own reverse osmosis membrane.