Solyndra, the well-funded manufacturer of cylindrical CIGS solar cells, is sending in the paperwork to obtain loans from the Department of Energy to build and operate a solar factory. These applications are going to become a great way to get a detailed view of its manufacturing plans. Someone sent us the environmental assessment documents and here are some fun facts. The company is currently building a 110-megawatt facility in Fremont, Calif. and wants to follow up with a 420-megawatt plant that will contain six production lines. The 110-megawatt facility will be partially built with DOE loans but the 420-megawatt facility will require loans. The larger facility will break ground, ideally, in 2010 and be fully built out by 2011, according to the application. The 420-megawatt facility will employ about 120 people, according to Solyndra's application. It will consist of over 609,000 square feet. 532,200 square feet will be dedicated to manufacturing space, around 64,000 will go to office space, 11,000 will go to a cafeteria and another 4,000 square feet will go to a company gym. The gym is a drop in the bucket. Besides, healthy employees keep costs down so putting a gym in the factory is perfectly legit. (Anything that doesn't lead to Wall Street employees getting money is actually OK in my book at this point.) But it is sort of fun to point out and no doubt there will be some that try to exploit the system. The next nine months should produce an interesting array of documents.

Advanced Equities: the name sounds harmless enough. But to some VCs it means, "Uhh. Maybe I won't pick up the phone." The firm tends to specialize in raising late stage funds for companies that have been in startup mode for a while. It is currently helping Bloom Energy raise a sixth round of $150 million. Greentech is tough and often requires a lot of capital. Advanced often works with Kleiner, Perkins. But some VCs in the Valley have told me they tend to be skeptical when the company calls. There is a theory -- whether true or not, I do not know -- that the Advanced deals are really aimed more at getting high-net worth individuals to invest in these late rounds than VCs. Here's an article with more. Again, it's just a theory. I could have a small sample. It could be a natural aversion to sales calls. The company has also clearly participated in important deals. I've tried to get in touch with Advanced but they have a phone tree that's about as helpful and informative as a bodyguard at a celebrity wedding. But the VCs I've talked to about the firm have told me that their first reaction when it comes to an Advanced deal is to approach with caution. In fact, the VCs tend to be the ones that bring up the company's involvement in a deal as a relevant point.

I didn't even know there was a Round F. Does this one go to eleven? The smug, highly secretive solid oxide fuel cell maker is said to be trying to raise a sixth round of venture funding. The new round is for $150 million, according to VentureWire. In all, that would bring the total in funding to over $400 million. Sources close to the company say that the mood inside is upbeat and that Bloom may soon discuss its technology. But we've heard this before. Bloom essentially makes a stationary device for industrial sites that produces power from chemical reactions. Bloom tends to have a selective form of paranoia. If the New York Times or Tom Friedman come knocking, the doors open. All others use the service entrance. Unfortunately, the obsequious gushing coverage of the company has yet to hit on one of the most important questions how come over six years of work and hundreds of millions in capital has resulted in virtually zero commercially available solid oxide fuel cells from the company? Inquiring minds want to know.

Fun side note: Bloom used to be called Ion America, which made it the only company in greentech to have a name that you could confuse with an afternoon TV talk show.

The closest you could get to one of Toshiba’s SCiB lithium-ion batteries at this week’s Green Products Expo in New York was looking at a photograph, but there were other noteworthy things on display to check out. Like the name suggests, the Expo exists to showcase consumer products that will help you curb energy consumption, remove noxious chemicals from your life and otherwise get more green. Although the green consumer market sounds attractive, it’s not exactly exploding. The high price of a lot of products, or their limited availability, seems to hold it back. The Expo had a Japanese tone to it, which makes sense. It’s the world capital of energy efficiency, obsessions with indoor air quality and trying to live in small, cramped spaces without going crazy. Toshiba’s E-Core LED luminaire cuts CO2 emissions by about one sixth, said Navid Ahdieh, specialist, environmental affairs. In the picture to the right you can see one of these suckers all lit up. The E-Core 100 also has a lifespan of 40,000 hours; so, not quite the Livermore lightbulb, but not bad either. Toshiba has shown these lights at Ceatec (a Japanese consumer electronics show) and CES. But then there’s the price. An LED bulb that can put out the same amount of light as a 100 watt bulb like this one also costs around $100. It’s the big reason you don’t see them in Home Depot. LED sales have dipped recently, but expect them to rise over time. Builders can score big LEED points with LEDs. Toshiba’s SCiB, by the way, is being targeted at electric vehicles, with a charge time on a plug-in hybrid or an electric car taking about five minutes (depending on the size of the charger). Currently, the SCiB is only being used in battery packs and electric bicycles, said Ahdieh. No comment on how fast one of those bikes can get from zero to 60. Are you tired of drying your hands on the front of your jeans? The vacuum-cleaning innovator Dyson had its Airblade hand dryer at the show. The Airblade contains a filter that can remove 99.9 percent of the bacteria from the air, said a company spokeswoman. The dryer also uses up about 80 percent less energy than your standard warm air hand dryer, and it’s less expensive than paper towels, which Dyson says can save on costs by 98 percent. It only looks like it’s going to bite your hands off. After getting a quick spritz of water, I plugged my hands into the machine. They were dry in only a few seconds. James Dyson, who invented the company’s bagless vacuum cleaner, is also working on a solar-powered car. Dyson doesn’t mention this much, but hand dryers like this have been staples in Japanese public bathrooms for several years. You see them in convention centers a lot. Air pollution doesn’t stop at the front door to your house. Some pollutants are stronger indoors than outside. That's the idea behind Trane’s CleanEffects filter. The unit filters out allergens and other particles (smoke, bacteria, mold, pollen, spores, etc.) from the air. The CleanEffects filter connects directly to your heating or air conditioning system to reduce indoor air pollution. The filters can be vacuumed or washed if they start to look like the lint trap in your dryer. Its especially helpful if you like to burn some incense while you smoke a stogey and then grill up some steaks on the kitchen stove. The execs at the show didn’t have much to say about how energy efficient the air filter was. They did note, however, that the energy-efficient home of today might conserve energy, but that also means it is better at holding in nasty air particles.

This is the text for an interview I did with Gennefer Snowfield that was published on Triple Pundit. It is a bit of a blast from the past, since I am talking about a program i started while CMO of Fireman's Fund. One interesting thing I realized, however, was that there are applicable themes to some of the issues that exist today with corporations developing "green" strategies. Whether you are talking about philanthropy or the broader issue of CSR, including "green" practices, I believe the most important thing to do is to have your programs tightly aligned with your business model. How do you define for-profit philanthropy? In the case of corporate philanthropy, there is often a false dichotomy between profit motive and philanthropic endeavors. I believe that the best results come when the corporation’s philanthropic programs are completely aligned with their business strategy and profit motive. If a corporation can see the specific impact of their philanthropy on their bottom line, that corporation is more likely to apply significant resources to their philanthropic program. If the philanthropic programs are only loosely tied to the business strategy, or completely disconnected, then the philanthropy is perpetually at risk of being marginalized or eliminated, especially in tough times. This may seem obvious, but it is rarely done right. A common refrain in corporate philanthropy circles is “the CEO and board really need to champion the corporate giving program.� But what is missed is the fact that it isn’t just about them being good or caring people -- they have a fiduciary duty to the shareholder. If you run a corporate giving department, you should be striving to create a situation where your programs are key to the business success, and that the impact is obvious and measurable. Last I checked, only 10 percent of charity came from corporations. Corporations that take this strategic philanthropy approach will ultimately give more to charity because it helps build shareholder value. Ultimately, everyone gains from this. Please describe your philanthropic business plan and your current charitable activities. Back when I was CMO of Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, I launched a strategic philanthropy and branding program called “Fireman’s Fund Heritage.� The name of the program was based on the fact that the company had originally been founded 140 years ago to provide a portion of its profits to the local fire departments. In reviving this mission, we offered grants for equipment and programs to fire departments in the communities we served, which both helped them protect the properties we insured, and also created a strong sense of trust and customer loyalty among the company’s employees, agents, and customers. The program was shown empirically to have a positive impact in customer loyalty, employee morale, and sales. This easily justified the millions of dollars in grants that were given each year, which were tied the amount of business generated by local agents. How do you communicate the impact of these efforts to your customers? The program was heavily oriented around customer communications and employee engagement. To a certain extent, we also regarded our independent agents as “customers.� The most important message in the communication was explaining and demonstrating how the grants that were going to fire departments were actually resulting in improved protection in their community and lives saved. By showing the natural connection of the money given in grants and the reduction in property losses and lives, we educated customers as to why this type of corporate giving was appropriate and did not amount to higher prices for their insurance policies. It also gave them a sense of pride and connected them to their community in a way that no other insurance provider could offer. Why do you think it's important for companies to adopt philanthropy as part of their revenue model? I don’t think it is necessarily important for every company to engage in philanthropy. If they do so, however, I think it is critical that the CSR programs be closely tied to revenue (or drivers of revenue, like customer loyalty or referral.) By doing this, you have a “virtuous circle� that reinforces itself and sustains itself, benefiting both the business and the community. That being said, in today’s environment of transparency and easy access to information, customers do want to know more about the companies that they choose to do business with, so good corporate practices are just good business. I would caution, however, against establishing a corporate giving program that is just window dressing or is totally disconnected to your raison d'être as a company, because your customers will see through it very easily. What would you say is the most critical element in successfully implementing philanthropic endeavors? Aside from what I mentioned above about the philanthropy program being absolutely tied to your business strategy, the biggest learning I had at Fireman’s Fund was that it is critical to get your employees involved to the maximum extent possible. The power of the grassroots involvement of your employees in your corporate philanthropy creates a powerful connection between company and employee and also fosters teamwork and community among your employees. Daryl Siry is the former chief marketing officer for Tesla Motors. He now consults on marketing and the automotive industry. You can read more here: http://darrylsiry.blogspot.com.

Bionavitas wants to give algae more light. The Redmond, Wash.-based startup has unveiled what it calls Light Immersion Technology — essentially, acrylic tubes that can direct sunlight deeper into a pond of algae. That could allow algae to grow up to 1.5 meters deep, rather than the about 10 centimeters depth now possible before "self-shading" prevents deeper growth, Bionavitas CEO Michael Weaver said Wednesday. And that density of growth per square meter could allow algae-based biofuel to compete with petroleum-based diesel and gasoline on price, he claimed. "For you to be able to grow any kind of density that’s cost effective, you must be able to break through the self-shading barrier," he said. Algae-based biofuel production has gotten a lot of interest for its promise of providing a naturally oily feedstock. But growing and harvesting large quantities of algae at an affordable cost have remained challenges (see Algae Biodiesel: It's $33 a Gallon). Weaver, who made his fortune by co-founding legal software company Applied Discovery and then selling it to LexisNexis, founded Bionavitas in 2006. He and other founders have funded it themselves and with angel investments so far. Now he wants to raise some money to prove the technology works. How much exactly will "depend on the market itself," he said. "It's not the same kind of venture capital market it was a year ago," when algae-based biofuel startups raked in a record amount of investment (see Algae Biofuel Investments Explode). Still, Weaver hopes to have one or two 1-hectare pilot plants, using canal-shaped covered ponds with Bionavitas's light-immersing acrylic tubes floating freely in them, up and running soon. The algae grown there would be aimed at biofuel production, which could include both biodiesel or other fuels made from algal oil or ethanol made from algal sugars, or both, depending on the partners Bionavitas brings in. Bionavitas is also developing a closed, computer-controlled bioreactor using LEDs for light to grow algae for nutraceutical uses, which can offer higher prices than fuels, he said. Growing algae for bioremediation, or cleaning toxins from contaminated water, is another potential line of business, he said. "We have a significant amount of interest from the mining industry," he said, "specifically, companies that have legal obligations to extract harmful elements from the water that’s coming from their mines."

Prism Solar Technologies, which uses holographic films to convert sunlight into electricity, plans to start assembling the films into panels for market launch later this year.

The Lake Katrine, N.Y.-based startup, founded in 2005, is negotiating for a factory space near its headquarters to accommodate equipment that can produce 60 megawatts of panels per year, said Stephen Filler, director of business development at Prism Solar, Wednesday at the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. The holographic films will be made at its technology development center in Tucson, Ariz. The company also plans to build a 1-gigawatt factory in New York state to build the films.

The company recently won a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for starting its panel manufacturing operation. Prism Solar also plans to announce a new round of funding soon, Filler said. The company raised $8.5 million in 2007.

The selling point of the startup’s technology is that it uses holographic films to reduce the need for expensive silicon (see company diagrams). The holographic film, sandwiched between glass, can capture the desired portions of the light spectrum to boost energy production. The film then reflects the light in various directions, so the light can hit the front and back of the silicon-based solar cells to improve energy output as well, the company said.

Filler said Prism Solar’s technology could reduce the use of silicon by up to 70 percent. He declined to provide the initial pricing for a Prism Solar’s panel, but said the company expects the price to reach $1.04 per watt by 2012 and $0.75 per watt by 2015.