Staff blogs

Cleantech Forum XX, the Cleantech Group's 20th assembly of clean technology investors, entrepreneurs, service providers and other influencers since 2002, is underway in Shanghai, China.

And while the main session only begins a few hours from now, some themes have been emerging in pre-sessions, closed door meetings, VIP events and the welcome reception.

Flies on the various walls of the luxury Grand Hyatt Shanghai—the highest hotel in the world, occupying the 53rd to 87th floors of a downtown tower—would be hearing well connected capital and other insiders opining that:

On a showroom floor in India’s westernmost state of Gujarat sits the prototype for a car made at a local production plant and expected to be commercially available early next year.

The non-air conditioned, four-seater model is expected to be priced at Rs. 85,000 to 1 lakh ($1,748 USD to $2,057 USD).

And it’s an electric car, one that’s said to run on either nickel-metal hydride or lithium-ion batteries.

Our feathered friends can breathe a sigh of relief. Unless of course they plan to fly anywhere.

A new study published in the Journal of Applied Ecology shows that wind turbines don’t scare away farmland bird populations.

The research is being touted as proof that wind farms are safe for birds, and that wind should now be adopted as a major source of renewable energy in Europe. But that overgeneralization of the study’s findings is dangerous.

It's the rickshaw everyone wants to drive. 

At least, that's the kind of reaction India's Council of Scientific and Industrial Research is hoping to get for the newly-launched "soleckshaw." (Sorry fans of the Tata Nano).

And with the tagline "Robust and ergonomically designed to take the drudgery out of the rickshaw driving," who could possibly resist?

John and Helen Taylor are pushing the envelope these days. And it doesn’t involve pressing the petal to the metal for a new speed record, but rather pushing every drop of fuel to squeeze out the most mileage.

The couple is driving a Volkswagen Jetta TDI across the 48 contiguous states with the hopes of breaking the current Guinness World Record for the lowest fuel consumption on a nationwide drive, which is 51.58 miles per gallon.

The team, which is sponsored by Volkswagen, is now 14 percent ahead of the record with an average of 58.24 miles per gallon.

So what are these clever techniques the couple are advocating?

This week, Google captured headlines with news of its patent for floating data centers.

Not a classic technology breakthrough, but it is compelling (despite it being only on paper).

Why?

Because of the twist it adds to previous floating platform designs with its reliance on wave energy converters to power the floating grid.

What most people missed, however, was a North Sea plan to build a platform which would be powered by electricity from the mainland.

The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change did the unthinkable this week.

Rajendra Pachauri suggested people scale back on their consumption of meat, in part by eliminating it from their diet for one day a week. Pachauri’s logic was that nearly 20 percent of greenhouse emissions are caused by meat production, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Spokescows applauded Patchuri's suggestion.

Would you let anyone you know fish for their breakfast in this?

Lest the pageantry and scrubbed skyline of the televised Beijing Olympics lull the world into thinking local officials have finished cleaning up China, it's important to remember that much work remains to be done.

On a recent visit to Beijing, I was fascinated—in a morbid sort of way—with the river running behind my hotel, on Liangmaquio Road.

A major collaborative research venture wants to smarten the electric grid in Australia. The trouble is, $3 million over three years may make for good PR, but doesn't deliver the kind of serious money needed to tackle the big challenge.

This week, the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research in Australia outlined a three year, $3 million collaborative research venture between government and university research centers focused on developing technology for a smart grid.

Australian government officials refer to the project as the Intelligent Grid Cluster. It's designed to spur innovation and help tackle the monumental challenges of building a next generation smart grid.

No, not Freedom Fries. It's the Freedom Prize.

Backed by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Freedom Prize Foundation is putting up more $4 million in awards for new renewable energy technologies.

Freedom Prizes of $500,000 to $1 million will be awarded for innovative deployment of existing technologies in five categories, including industry, military, schools, government and community.

The Freedom Prize was established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 which authorized the DOE to support the foundation, but co-founder Josh Becker told the Cleantech Group it was a long road to get to this point.