Global warming isn't the only problem for glaciers.

Layered-on soot is increasing the rate that glaciers in the Himalayan plateau are melting, according to a new NASA study released at the American Geophysical Union taking place this week in San Francisco. Clouds of soot and particles that cling to glaciers in the region trap heat and thereby accelerate melting. Since the 1960s, the acreage covered by Himalayan glaciers has shrunk by 20 percent.

One of the persistent worries in Asia remains a deepening water crisis as high mountain glaciers shrink. Three nothern states in India have lost 17.7 cubic kilometers a year for the past decade. Typically, the glaciers act to refill water supplies in lowlying regions.

Freescale, the chip company formerly known at Motorola Semiconductor, wants to cut its carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2015 from a 2008 baseline and recycle 90 percent of its waste. It will also try to reduce water consumption by 50 percent – chip companies actually end up using a lot of water in their fabrication facilities.

The goals come on top of an earlier goal to reduce the carbon footprint by 40 percent in 2010 from a 2001 baseline. Freescale recently passed that by reducing emissions 42 percent under that measurement. It has also conserved around 170 million gallons of water. Like Samsung, Freescale has also begun the process of substituting chemicals with a high greenhouse gas profile with ones that emit fewer harmful emissions. It's not an easy process – chip making remains notoriously precise and complex – but so far companies seem to be making progress. Most of the greenhouse gases associated with electronics companies actually get emitted indirectly: far more emissions are produced by customers using their products than are produced at the factory. But every bit helps and regulations will require these companies to change existing practices.

Like a lot of chip companies, and chip equipment makers, Freescale hopes to see much of its future growth come from the green market. The company sells controllers and other devices for automotive manufacturers and it's a big player in home-networking components.

Energy Recovery, which makes energy efficient desalination equipment, bought Pump Engineering for $20 million and one million shares of Energy Recovery stock. Pump specializes in energy-efficient seawater pumps. (Energy Recovery held one of the few greentech IPOs last year).

With Pump, Energy Recovery says it can offer a more complete suite of tools to municipalities and others building desalination plants. It also gets the company into a new market, namely pumps. Reverse osmosis desalination is generally energy intensive: water gets highly pressurized before the salt can be removed. Energy Recovery's machines harness the pressure in the wastewater streams that flow from reverse osmosis systems and then feed it to the pressurizing machines at the front of the process, thereby lowering the total energy required.

Exploiting this pressure from about 5 kilowatts to 6 kilowatts per cubic meter to 2 kilowatts per cubic meter. The system is also 97 percent efficient on average, which in turn makes the reverse osmosis process 60 percent efficient.

The company also provides Norway's Statkraft for equipment for osmotic power stations, one of the more novel forms of alternative energy.

At the end of September, we wrote about how medical supply giant Abbott cut oil and gas consumption by 35 percent compared to a 2006 baseline though, in part, waste heat technologies.

Now, the company says it is saving one billion gallons of water a year, a key milestone considering that some of its facilities are in water-starved Singapore. The company set out to get to 40 percent below its water consumption of 2004 by 2011 but it's already there. Water consumed in manufacturing processes is down 37 percent.

How did the company accomplish it? Through a variety of technologies like installing more water-efficient scrubbers for controlling dust in a Michigan facility or by installing tighter-fitting pipes in other facilities. An Arizona plant implemented leak tags to ensure that leaks are detected and fixed at a more rapid rate.

Conserving water saves energy too – around 5 percent of California's power revolves around transporting water. (The figure climbs to 19 percent if you add heating.) IBM is working on a number of water projects these days as well. Carbon, water and energy are all interrelated, according to IBM.

To help solve the world's water problems, we're going to need data first.

As part of its water initiative IBM has created a portal with An Taisce, the national trust of Ireland, to monitor water quality, pollution levels, tides, weather and other factors at 130 beaches and lakes. The plan is to then roll this out to other regions and nations. The portal, called Splash, is open to the public.

While Ireland is obligated to collect the data under EU directives, the goal of the program is not just to obtain localized information. Ultimately, IBM hopes to mine the data to see if it can discern trends in storm water runoff, pollution percolation and other issues.

"It is more of a predictive tool," said Cameron Brooks, director of Big Green Innovations at IBM.

While IBM has begun to conduct research and assume projects in smart grid and solar, expect to see Big Blue increasingly identified with water. Water represents one of those sprawling, under-researched problems that will take time, government grants, logistical know-how and scientific expertise to fix. Thus, it's ideally suited for conglomerates like IBM, General Electric and Siemens.

The projects and issues vary widely. In the Netherlands, IBM is engaged on flood control projects, which involve creating computerized simulations for various levee and storm water scenarios for Rotterdam and other cities. In Malta, IBM is trying to figure out if there are ways to increase water use efficiency and reduce the power associated with delivering water: Malta now heavily relies on desalination. In Dubuque, Iowa, it is working on a system that can more accurately predict leaks in the delivery system.

"Thirty percent of the water that is treated [on average in the world] does not make it to the tap," he said.

Another project in Northern China revolves around pollution analytics. IBM is also experimenting in the labs with materials to see if anything it has devised for semiconductors can be used for desalination or producing power through osmotic pressure.

Scary fun facts: The earth pretty much has the same amount of water – 1.4 billion cubic kilometers – as it did a few billion years ago. Only about 0.75 percent of that, however, consists of readily accessible groundwater or freshwater, according to the World Water Council. The rest is frozen (2.25 percent) or salty (97 percent.).

Siemens is the company that just can't resist.

The German industrial giant is considering purchasing solar cell maker Q-Cells, according to Reuters (via Forbes here.).

Earlier this month, Siemens bought solar thermal vendor Solel for $418 million. Earlier, it has bought an number of water companies and ramped up its investments in smart grid.

In a list of the top ten acquirers in greentech, we picked Siemens as number two, right behind General Electric.

This is a pattern you should get used to. Small, innovative startups often have tremendous technology, but they lack the capital, distribution networks and relationships to bring their ideas to fruition. Large conglomerates often fail to capitalize on the interesting stuff in their labs, but they do know how to buy stuff that seems to work and take it commercial. Thus, greentech will be a barbell market – a lot of small companies and a few large companies with not a lot of things in between.

As acquisitions spread, you can start to think of Silicon Valley as a farm system for conglomerates. That doesn't sit well with some: Didn't Silicon Valley win out over old-style conglomerates like Digital and IBM? Yes, but it doesn't mean it happens in every situation. Green startups are born to be bought.

And if Siemens isn't interested, start talking to Philips (two lighting acquisitions this year), Toshiba, TSMC, and Cisco Systems.

Atlantium Technologies has obtained approval from the Food and Drug Administration to bring its device for killing the microbes in water to the U.S.

In Atlantium's system, water passes through a tube containing a quartz insert and two UV lights. The light passes through the water, disinfecting it, and then it reflects off the quartz, allowing it to pass through the water again and again for more rounds of disinfecting. By controlling the angle and direction of the light, the quartz insert effectively creates curtains of UV light that the water must pass through. In essence, it's like a big fiber optic cable that you pass liquids through. I visited their offices back in 2006, but they made me promise not to publish the pictures. Too bad – it's very space age.

The company has sold the system to soda bottlers in Israel but also dairies, which have to add water to certain products. It doesn't directly work on milk because milk isn't clear. In Yogurt, dairies won't use it to kill beneficial strains in the dairy matter itself but in any inserted water. UV water purification, ideally, consumes less power than traditional forms of water purification and pasteurization.