Ah, the views!

When your superpowers allow you to flit about, mixing it up high in the air over Northern California, with the gulls and grosbeaks, there's no end to the pretty vistas.

The rolling hills. The redwoods. The Silicon Valley mansions nestled in the hills.

And, when you finally look out over the ocean, you see them. For about three months a year. Huge, dark telltale carpets floating on the ocean near shore.

Algae. Yucky to look at. Unpleasant to swim in. And potentially toxic, if you're a dolphin or bird.

Undeserved algal bloom?

More people than usual these days are inquiring with the mild mannered reporters at Cleantech.com about algae and biofuel.

Perhaps with the pending meltdown in corn ethanol (what meltdown, you gasp? See this and this) more people than ever have been desperately hoping to see algae start delivering on its promise as the feedstock of hope for biofuels of the future.

But it's a slippery promise. If you didn't believe your friendly Avenger's warnings about certain algae biofuel companies last month, pay careful attention.

A former employee of one of the most visible U.S. companies at the forefront of this research confessed to Cleantech.com that biofuel from algae in commercial quantities just isn't real, and doesn't show signs of becoming real soon. He/she (we couldn't tell; it's confusing these days) had especially disparaging things to say about the employer's representation of being able to make large quantities of fuel in the next nine months... especially when they didn't have even have relevant scientists on staff.

What's the problem with algae? The most promising strains to date are single cell varieties. And while they contain a lot of oil as a percentage of their mass, their mass is very, very small.

Using a centrifuge is the preferred way of extracting oil from algae, which is expensive and energy intensive, and yields only nominal amounts.

How nominal? According to Grant Heffelfinger of Sandia National Labs, which has been studying the problem, "even producing 20 milliliters is a hard thing." There are 3,785 milliliters in one gallon.

I don't doubt that technology will advance. But that's what I thought twenty years ago about my Moller SkyCar, and I note I'm still waiting.

AstroPower to the people

Shareholder lawsuits against former solar company AstroPower founder Allen M. Barnett and CFO Thomas J. Stiner recently wrapped up, with the two men agreeing to pay $1 million to shareholders.

When AstroPower shares fell from a high of more than $42 in October 2000 to about $5 a share in March 2003, five lawsuits were filed against the company and Barnett.

If losing a million dollars sounds bad, it could get worse. Citing suspicions of fraud, the judge has ordered attorneys in the case to give the FBI the names of AstroPower employees who accused the two of inflating revenue and misrepresenting inventory.

Because we can't apparently go very long without mentioning SunPower in this column, it's worth pointing out SunPower marketing veep Peter Aschenbrenner served for ten years as senior vice president of global operations at AstroPower.

AstroPower filed for bankruptcy in February of 2004, before investors had begun thinking about even learning how to spell solar. It sold most of its assets, including its factory, to General Electric.

TXU's man on the inside

The $45B leveraged buyout of TXU announced this February was heralded with fanfare, given that it was announced at the same time that the Texas utility was scrapping plans for 8 of its 11 new planned coal plants.

Cleantechies characterized the kinder, gentler TXU as potentially a good target customer for renewable energies such as solar and wind.

What didn't get as much attention were allegations of a swath of global insider trading in connection with the deal.

Now, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally charged Ajaz Rahim, a Pakistani banker who was employed by Faysal Bank in Karachi, Pakistan with insider trading based on information he was given by Hafiz Naseem, an employee of Credit Suisse in New York, the commission says.

It alleges that, on February 5, 6, 7, 8 and 23, 2007, Naseem called Rahim and gave him non-public, material information concerning the TXU deal and other proposed but unannounced buyouts, leading to $2.4M in ill-gotten gains.

Also named by the commission are Francisco Javier Garcia, believed to be a resident of Switzerland, who it says suspiciously purchased TXU securities through Fimat Banque Frankfurt Zweigniederlassung and made $150,500. It also identified Sunil and Seema Sehgal, a married couple in the U.K. for making $270k from the TXU deal and $292k on other deals.

Clearly, coal wasn't the only dirty element of the TXU deal.

Until next time. Stay clean!