California Cleantech Open, Pt. 2

Following up on my previous post, here are a few more things from the California Clean Tech Open presented at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

Here’s a list of the 44 finalists vying for the “$100,000 Startup in a Box” prize package. It’s worth taking a scan of these firms to get a flavor of the range of clean-tech technology and entrepreneurs – everything from desalination to diapers, from solar concentrators to plug-in hybrid chargers.

Some quotes from the hallways:

• Power Assure’s Donnie Foster said that his firm’s pending software “can cut Data Center electricity bills by 50 per cent. According to Gartner, Data Centers need to go from “always-on to always-available.â€? Power Assure’s uses load shifting and load shedding to correlate IT load with energy consumption.

• Green Plug’s VP of Business Development, Seth Socolow said that his company’s “goal is to rid the world of external power supplies. The model of every device coming with a dedicated power is a broken model.â€? He went on to claim that 3.2 billion external power supplies will be manufactured and shipped in 2008 and 2 billion will go into landfills.

• Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, is a developer of eco-friendly building materials. The startup recently acquired Alpen Windows, an energy-conscious window manufacturer. Mr. Surace enthusiastically rattled off some statistics:
  • 9 percent of global energy goes to passenger cars, but 52 percent is tied to buildings, and 12 percent of global energy usage goes to inefficient building materials.
  • “After you’ve taken care of walls, insulation and ducts – you’re left with windows, which is why we acquired Alpen Windows,â€? said Surface. “The R value of most windows is terrible, the best is R3. The DOE has been trying to raise the R value of windows for years but the only people who talk about R value is us and Alpen Windows.That’s why we bought them.â€?

• Gigagreen plans on building a dirigible that extracts energy from the jet stream and transmits it wirelessly to earth. The company’s “high altitude wind energyâ€? platform “beams powerâ€? to earth – using what? Alex Flemming, the founder, would not reveal the precise method. He denied it was microwaves, which I think leaves a long extension cord or lasers or magic as the only other technology alternatives. The company is looking for funding.