The study reinforces the need for climate policies, such as those like cap and trade that would limit countries’ total emissions, to take into account the climate-changing emissions embodied in traded goods and services, the report says. The study also points to a growing opportunity for those companies developing carbon management platforms, such as San Francisco-based Carbonetworks, Germany’s SAP or Redwood City, Calif-based Hara, to track these outsourced emissions.

The report’s authors looked at published trade data from 2004 to build a global model of the flow of products across 57 industry sectors and 113 countries or regions. They then allocated carbon emissions to particular products and sources and from that were able to calculate the net emissions “imported” or “exported” by countries. The study concluded that about 23 percent, or 6.2 gigatons, of all carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning globally is emitted during the production of goods that are ultimately consumed in a different country.

The fact that many rich countries are net importers of carbon emissions won’t be a surprise to many, as so much production of machinery, electronics, apparel and textiles in recent years has shifted to developing countries like China. But the report, which was published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds scientific weight – and some specific figures – behind what was arguably already an intuitive trend.  

The U.S., for example, leads the pack as a net importer of emissions with about 699 metric tons, or 2.5 tons per person, of carbon dioxide per year. Japan is second at 284 tons per year. China, however, is the largest exporter of emissions with 1147 tons per year, while Russia is second at 286 tons per year. See the graph for a nice visual representation of these carbon flows.

But all this trading of carbon points to a complicated question: Who is responsible for emissions and how should the burden of mitigation be shared? These questions need to be considered as countries around the world move to limit total emissions, the authors said. Currently, national inventories of carbon, such as those by the UN Framework on Climate Change, only account for those emissions produced within countries, the report says.  

These issues have led some to call for taxes on the import of carbon-intensive goods, which advocates say would protect domestic industries from foreign rivals using dirtier, cheaper power and would prevent so-called carbon leakage, when carbon-intensive production moves offshore. Carbon import tax has gained momentum after the recent Copenhagen talks, at least in Europe.

The cross-border flow of carbon also offers an opportunity for the growing number of companies developing software to help their clients track the carbon emissions related to their businesses. These software developers have so far focused largely on helping companies calculate emissions directly related to their operations, such as the fuel consumed by their fleets or the electricity used at their facilities.

But the “next step” in the evolution of their products, says Forrester analyst Chris Mines, will be tracking supply chain emissions, like those related to goods imported from abroad or trucked across town. Big companies like Wal-Mart and Hewlett-Packard are now “pushing hard” to get their suppliers to provide data on the embodied energy of their products, Mines said, and software suppliers will “catch up.”

Michael Meehan, chief executive of startup Carbonetworks, told Earth2Tech his company’s carbon management platform is already being used by some clients – especially those looking to “protect their brand as an asset” – to track supply chain emissions. But he said doing it is “extremely difficult” partly because you need to protect against double counting. When a good is trucked across country, you need to decide who is apportioned those emissions, the transporter, the distributor or the company buying it, he said. But Meehan said this is the perfect kind of job for software from an outside vendor: “You can’t manage this stuff internally, there is just so much.”

The bill, dubbed “Building Star” and  playing off the name of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Energy Star program, would cover about 30 percent of the cost of energy-related equipment and services including energy audits, building envelope insulation, mechanical equipment upgrades, lighting and energy management and monitoring equipment. If passed, the program is expected to save building owners more than $3 billion on their energy bills annually by reducing enough peak electricity demand to avoid the need for nearly three dozen 300 MW power plants, according to a statement by Sen. Jeff Merkley, a cosponsor of the bill.

Buildings account for about 40 percent of total U.S. energy use, with the commercial sector, such as office, retail and healthcare facilities, making up 18 percent of the total.

While the energy-saving portion of the proposal will resonate with some, the bill’s supporters appear to be largely focused on its ability to stimulate job creation. The Energy Future Coalition, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group that was heavily involved in Building Star’s drafting, says it would create at least 125,000 jobs (see this 13-page white paper by the coalition for a more detailed look at the Building Star proposal). Much of that work would be for the construction industry, which has taken a particularly tough beating in the economic downturn. The coalition estimates the program would spur $15 billion-$20 billion in market activity.

Patrick Hughes, a spokesman for the Energy Future Coalition, said Building Star could get wrapped in with the Home Star bill, which Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman said earlier this week he wants to move quickly to launch. President Obama, who has called saving money through energy efficiency “sexy,” touted Home Star program in a speech on Tuesday.

The announcement marks the first commitment by a major homebuilder to construct all its homes in a region to the GreenPoint Rated standard, an important validation for the nonprofit that was established in 2004 (so far more than 10,000 single- and multi-family homes in California and Nevada have been or are being built to meet Build It Green’s green building criteria). But more importantly, the move shows that giant homebuilders are beginning to believe that there are enough mainstream buyers interested in green to warrant a shift toward building homes with features like highly insulated windows and walls and the use of recycled materials.

“Consumers want homes that will save them money in operations and that are green,” KB Home spokesman Craig LeMessurier, told us. “The two go hand in hand.” Over the last three years, KB Home has built about 1,100-1,200 new homes in Northern California, and the company operates in 11 U.S. states. LeMessurier wouldn’t say if the company might expand the commitment to other regions, nor would he say if the new green homes in Northern California would cost more to build than conventional construction. If there is a premium passed to buyers, however, KB Home clearly believes it can win over customers with lower energy and water bills and the marketing power of green.

KB Home isn’t alone in its shift, albeit still slow, to green building. Miami-based Lennar, a leading U.S. builder, has unveiled a line of green homes called PowerSmart Homes that are designed to save up to 40 percent on energy use. The company says it aims to have all its new homes in Minnesota achieve its PowerSmart criteria. Pulte Homes, which calls itself the nation’s largest homebuilder, is increasingly focused on adding green features to its structures and last year won the U.S. Green Building Council’s “Outstanding Production Builder” award for its Villa Trieste project in Las Vegas, which includes 185 single-family homes that met the council’s highest standard, LEED Platinum.

The announcement by KB Home is also noteworthy because the company chose to hang its hat on an independent rating system, in this case Build It Green, rather than brand its homes green based on in-house criteria. GreenPoint Rated, like LEED, depends on third-party verification and that means KB Home’s structures in Northern California will have to show that they’ve been built to standards developed by independent experts.

The credit line, offered by the China Construction Bank, will allow ECOtality to finance vehicle charging projects for its customers and reduce the upfront capital they otherwise would have needed to invest to get the projects moving. That, in turn, “will accelerate EV adoption worldwide,” CEO Jonathan Read said in a statement. Read said the deal would provide ECOtality with the capital needed “to become the dominant player in the EV marketplace with no current dilution to our shareholders.”

The focus on China isn’t new for ECOtality, whose subsidiary eTec snagged a nearly $100 million federal stimulus grant last year to support the construction of more than 12,000 charging systems in five U.S. states. The company announced last September that it had formed two joint ventures with Shenzhen Goch to manufacture, assemble and sell EV charging equipment in the country. ECOtality said then that Shenzhen Goch would contribute $15 million for the joint ventures in exchange for exclusive sales and distribution rights for ECOtality’s charging systems in China.

ECOtality, at the time of the announcement with Shenzen Goch last year, seemed to emphasize that a major benefit of the partnership would be to sell its charging systems in China, which is expected to account for nearly half of worldwide installations by 2015, according to at least one research report. Today’s announcement makes it clear that ECOtality’s partnership with Shenzhen Goch is as much about selling into the Chinese market as it is about exporting products to markets worldwide, including to the U.S., which was specifically mentioned in the statement. As Josie Garthwaite has written before on Earth2Tech, there is growing chance that the charge point you pull up to in the U.S. in the future will have a “Made in China” sticker on the back.

While IBM has expertise in digital technology, the company needed a partner with experience in metering and measuring the physical infrastructure of buildings, Florence Hudson, energy & environment executive in IBM corporate strategy, told us. Together with Johnson Controls, Florence said IBM could help customers “integrate the physical with the digital” to make better decisions about their assets.

The joint initiative is essentially a platter of various tools and services that IBM’s and Johnson Control’s customers can now select from to add intelligence to their buildings. One of the key services, IBM said, is systems integration. Johnson Controls develops and installs building management systems, essentially metering devices connected to a computer that let facility operators monitor and control air-conditioning, lighting and other physical systems throughout a structure. IBM, meanwhile, develops business software systems, like those for asset management. Together, the companies will integrate customers’ building systems with their business systems to help improve the performance of their buildings and reduce operating costs.

Another key element of the joint effort is around energy management. Johnson Controls’ Metasys Sustainability Manager combined with IBM’s business analytics software will provide building owners, operators, tenants and data-center managers “actionable information” to help reduce energy use and waste, IBM said. Hudson said IBM has developed a dashboard for facility operators that would help them more proactively manage building systems, such as identifying a boiler that is beginning to run inefficiently but hasn’t yet completely failed. This could lead to between 10 and 20 percent energy savings across an organization, IBM said.

The latest announcement isn’t the first time IBM and Johnson Controls have worked together. Last June, IBM announced the formation of an “industry alliance” called the Green Sigma Coalition with leaders in metering, monitoring, automation, data communication and software. Charter members of the coalition included Johnson Controls, Honeywell Building Solutions, Cisco, Siemens Building Technologies Division, SAP and others. The members committed to working with IBM to integrate their products and services with Big Blue’s Green Sigma solution, a consulting offering focused on helping organizations reduce their environmental impact.

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons user TakingITGlobal.

ecoATM’s secret sauce is its kiosks’ ability to automatically estimate — using electronic and visual techniques — a price of the unwanted items that will give consumers an “immediate financial incentive” to recycle at the station, Mark Bowles, ecoATM’s chief marketing officer, told us today. The company has built a network of 50 buyers around the globe that will take used consumer electronics devices that ecoATM collects from its kiosks (currently just mobile phones but soon expanding to iPods, MP3 players and game cartridges) and recycle the components. ecoATM finds the best price for the devices and then passes a portion of that revenue onto its customers.

So far the company has placed five kiosks, and it aims to deploy 200 across the U.S. by the end of the year, mostly in electronics retailers. Typically, customers receive coupons for buying products in the store where the kiosk resides, and ecoATM then reimburses the store for the value of the exchange. But the coupon model encourages more spending, which contributes to more waste. That might be part of the reason Bowles said ecoATM is also experimenting with paying customers in cash.

ecoATM has certainly hit upon a market ripe for innovation. The EPA says that in 2005 the U.S. generated 2 million tons of e-waste and only about 350,000 tons of it was recycled. The remaining bulk ends up in landfills. All that valuable waste has led to a flurry of activity in the recycling market, much of it so far revolving around web sites like SecondRotation that help consumers find homes for their used goods (here’s a list of five such sites).  In another example, Kleiner Perkins-backed RecycleBank partners with cities to provide incentives for residential recycling.

But Bowles says the web site-as-recycling-center model doesn’t work. Most people don’t want to go through the hassle of labeling and shipping their used items and finding prospective buyers. ecoATM, he says, is all about convenience.

If you own a hybrid-electric vehicle today, chances are it has nickel-metal hydride battery technology. These batteries today account for 97 percent of the hybrid electric vehicle market, by revenue. But the nickel-metal hydride technology has reached its maturity, according to GBI researchers, and Li-ion technology is advancing more quickly and offers better overall performance characteristics, such as longer life, high energy density, and is more light weight. The report estimates that hybrid electric vehicles will make up 10 percent of new sales by 2020 and that Li-ion batteries will be in more than 60 percent of those cars and trucks.

But plug-in hybrid electric vehicles could be an even bigger opportunity for advanced battery makers. The report’s authors believe the automotive industry will evolve from hybrid electric to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles “in the near future” and that the pace of the transition will be much faster than expected. This shift will provide a “huge sales growth” opportunity for advanced batteries, Li-ion batteries in particular, according to GBI researchers.  The report estimates that global plug-in vehicles sales will reach 1 percent of the light-duty vehicle market by 2015 and 5.3 percent by 2020. That could translate into a global plug-in vehicle battery market of $17.3 billion by 2020.   

So the market for advanced batteries is clearly large, but which countries will likely lead the development of the technology? Advanced battery manufacturing currently is dominated by China, Japan and South Korea, together accounting for 98 percent of the market in 2009. While Japan’s share of the market will remain significant in the near term, GBI researchers say that the country’s dominance is “fading away.” Japanese manufactures controlled 55 percent of global advanced battery production last year, down from 78 percent in 2002. Meanwhile, China’s share rose to 25 percent in 2009 from 11 percent in 2002, and South Korea’s reached 18 percent last year from just 6 percent in 2002 (See chart below).

GBI researchers seem most impressed with China’s advantages in the market: attractive government incentives and cheap labor, which has allowed manufacturers there to replace a conventionally capital-intensive business using automated production lines with a labor-intensive one that relies on people-power in its production lines. Aware of these advantages, Japanese and Western companies are fast entering into partnerships with Chinese battery manufactures.

Warren Buffet, for example, has invested $230 million into BYD Company, a Shenzhen-based battery and electric car maker that has said it will sell electric cars in the U.S. starting in 2011. To date, however, BYD’s sales of its F3DM plug-in hybrid model have been weak. But according to previous reports, hybrid cars will be truly mass-market in China by 2011 or 2012, and the country’s fleet will begin a minimum 10-year transition to plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles as early as this year.

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Chart courtesy of GBI Research.

Comfort Link’s Baltimore district cooling system has had $80 million in capital investment, has a total cooling capacity of 32,000 tons, includes more than 10 miles of chilled-water distribution piping, and serves more than 11.5 million square feet of buildings. Comfort Link essentially sells cooling as a service by owning, operating and maintaining the district system for its customers. Prior to the acquisition, Veolia provided centrally produced steam, hot water and chilled water to about 250 commercial, government, institutional and hospitality customers in Baltimore, but the deal marks the company’s first foray into using ice for thermal storage, John Gibson, Veolia Energy’s VP of the southeast region and general manager for its Baltimore operations, tells us.

Ice thermal storage systems have been attracting increased attention lately because of their ability to lower energy costs and provide more energy-efficient cooling for buildings. Last month, for example, Windsor, Colo.-based Ice Energy, which has raised more than $74 million in funding, announced a deal to build a 53 MW ice thermal energy storage system for Southern California Public Power Authority, a consortium of 11 municipal utilities and one irrigation district.

Air-conditioning is one of the biggest energy hogs in larger buildings and is often needed even during colder months because of the internal heat gains from people, lighting and equipment. Ice thermal storage systems like Comfort Link’s produce ice by running chillers at night, when demand for, and the cost of, energy is low. During the day, when energy is in higher demand and costs rise, the ice is used to help cool buildings. The systems minimize capital investment by running the chillers around the clock and by reducing the size of the mechanical cooling equipment needed to condition buildings compared with conventional technology.

Veolia said it anticipates expanding the Comfort Link system to add more customers in the area. As part of the deal, eight Comfort Link employees were hired by Veolia, Gibson said. Veolia purchased Comfort Link’s district cooling system business line but not the entire company. Comfort Link also provides consulting services around building heating, cooling and air conditioning, though it’s unclear if the company will continue operations.

Image of a water-cooled chiller courtesy of Wikimedia Commons user P199.

Petra Solar said it will use the new funding to expand its customer base and hire more staff. The South Plainfield, N.J.-based company also said it plans to expand its product line to address new applications and market segments. We’re still waiting for comment from Petra Solar, but we’re thinking that those new applications and markets might have to do with commercial and residential customers. The company’s website has dedicated sections for commercial and residential products and services.

Update: Petra Solar CEO Shihab Kuran has confirmed for us that the company will use the funding to expand into commercial and residential markets, but always with “utilities in mind as partners,” such as those with initiatives to add PV to their customers’ roofs. Also, the startup will use the funding to expand its applications for utilities, such as around smart grid, mounting systems and grid reliability.

Last year Petra Solar inked a $200 million deal with New Jersey utility PSE&G to build 40 MW of pole-mounted solar capacity, or about 200,000 installations. Petra Solar CEO Shihab Kuran said in a statement released at the time that the contract, its first deal with a utility, was “transformational” for the company. Petra Solar now says it’s shipping its pole-mounted solar systems in volume to PSE&G, and that a growing number of utilities and municipalities are “engaged with the company.”

Petra Solar’s pole-mounted package, called SunWave and including a solar panel (presumably with an embedded micro-inverter since it cranks out AC power) and a communications system, can be directly tied into a utility’s electric grid. The communications piece sends critical operational data, such as energy generation, voltage and temperature, to a utility’s back office where it can be viewed through a Web browser. Communications can also go the other way, from the back office to the pole-mounted systems, for firmware upgrades.

Petra Solar says its SunWave product is price-competitive with conventional roof-mounted PV but can be brought online faster because of the relative ease of mounting the systems to a utility’s existing distribution and streetlight poles. The startup hopes this will be attractive to utilities rushing to meet government rules that mandate the increased use of renewable energy.       

Founded in 2006, Petra Solar previously has received a grant from the Department of Energy worth up to $2.9 million and raised $14 million in venture funding.

Image courtesy of Petra Solar.

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We sat down with Robert Warburton, acting chief executive officer of Vulcan Power Company, to get his outlook for the industry. The Bend, Or.-based geothermal project developer, which announced earlier this week that it raised $108 million in private equity investment, has some 170,000 acres of geothermal properties in four Western states including California and Nevada. Vulcan is currently developing geothermal plants totaling 300 MW of power, and it has signed 180 MW of long-term power purchase agreements with utilities, with another 120 MW currently under negotiation.

Earth2Tech: Federal and state policies such as renewable portfolio standards and the Recovery Act largely fueled the U.S. geothermal industry’s growth last year. Could the loss of some of these drivers mean the industry will struggle to expand?

Robert Warburton: From our point of view, renewable energy is a clear focus in this country now and we don’t foresee that going away. The key is to bring the cost of [geothermal] down. There are firms out there — design firms and equipment suppliers –- who are working on more efficient geothermal technology and making projects more cost effective. So there are efforts going on, private and federally funded, to improve drilling techniques and the success rate of drilling. But geothermal on its own is already pretty cost competitive with grid pricing at this point.

E2T: How important is technology for the growth of the industry? Is technology the linchpin to making geothermal a large portion of the nation’s energy mix?

RW: I think financing is probably the most critical piece because geothermal is a capital-intensive business. Technology would follow after that to the extent you can be more efficient with your drilling — lower cost of drilling a well –- and improve your ability to find the resources. Typically you may assume that you drill 10 wells and two or three will be dry. If you can drill 10 but only one is dry, you just reduced your upfront costs. But over the next several years the key component will be access to capital. The current technology is robust enough to support the growth projections by the [Geothermal Energy Association].

E2T: We don’t hear as much about geothermal energy as we do about other forms of renewable energy, and it seems venture capitalists, with a few exceptions, have largely ignored the sector. Do you think the industry has failed to capture the imagination of investors and, if so, what needs to happen to change this?

RW: Its growth isn’t as high as other renewable energy. People put up 1000 MW wind farms. Geothermal is pretty much confined to the Western U.S., and that has had an impact. Plants tend to be in sizes of 20-60 MW, and that doesn’t capture the attention of the general population. Also, it hasn’t been as evident in the marketplace that geothermal is a very reliable and cost-effective renewable energy strategy. But I think that is becoming more the case now, and there is a focus within the industry in making it known.

E2T: Do venture capitalists have a role in geothermal?

RW: I don’t know that I’d call it an explosive new technology. There are steady advancements in technology but not what I’d call game-changing technology. But as investment firms get more comfortable with the drilling risk and the ability of firms to deliver, I think you’ll see more investment.

E2T: Where do you see opportunities in geothermal for startups?

RW: Potentially on the drilling side, but there is a lot of competition. Also on the equipment supply side, maybe to come up with a more efficient system to extract that energy. There are a number of firms working on technology to extract energy from lower fluid temperatures [see for example, Raser Technologies’ use of so-called Kalina conversion technology]. Right now, the main focus on geothermal is to find fluids typically above 275°F or 300°F but to the extent that you can use lower temperature fluids, it opens up more opportunities from a drilling point of view. You could use fluids that in the past weren’t hot enough to be used by the existing technology.

Image of drilling rig courtesy of Vulcan Power.

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CEO Michael Woelk told us last November that his grand vision for the company’s $50,000 gas analyzers was to have them deployed as part of vast networks to monitor changes in global carbon emissions. While this project will be limited to California, it still puts Picarro one step closer to that goal and could serve as an important validation for the startup’s technology.

California’s AB32 law requires the state to reduce key greenhouse gases by 25 percent within a decade. As part of that effort, seven Picarro devices will be placed in regions of the state where methane emissions are believed to be highest, such as landfills in Los Angeles and farm fields in the Sacramento valley, to help produce a clearer picture of those gasses generated across California. The California Air Resources Board, the state agency managing the emissions-monitoring program, reportedly spent $400,000 on the devices and software modeling to analyze the data.

Picarro’s gas analyzers, which are about the size of a desktop PC, fire laser beams into the air to determine concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other gases by measuring the changes in wavelength signals. While the technology has existed in labs for decades to make these measurements, Picarro says it’s the first to have stuffed all this measuring capability into a portable, 58-pound box of sensors that requires little maintenance.

So far Picarro’s customers are research and regulatory groups, like the California Air Resources Board and World Meteorological Organization. But the startup believes its technology will become increasingly valuable as governments look to ways to accurately measure carbon emissions, rather than relying solely on estimating them based on the amount of fuel consumed. Under programs like cap-and-trade, verifiable reductions in emissions will become a valuable asset, and Woelk said he sees a day in the near future when companies operating refineries or managing landfills will seek out technologies like Picarro’s to get an accurate measure of their emissions.

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According to a Securities and Exchange Commission document filed late last month, the Durham, N.C.-based firm increased a previous round of funding (announced last June) by about $1.7 million. ARCH Venture Partners, Applied Ventures, Illinois VENTURES and a handful of others were disclosed as investors in June, but it’s unclear who joined in the final tranche. We’re waiting to hear back from Semprius on more details of the funding.

Perhaps the startup’s biggest win to date is its partnership with Siemens Industry Inc., a U.S. affiliate of Germany’s Siemens, a global powerhouse in automation systems, power conversion and control technologies, among other things (see How Siemens Is Tackling the Smart Grid). Semprius announced last week that it is partnering with Siemens Industry to jointly develop and deploy a “plug-and-play” CPV demonstration system based on Semprius’ solar module arrays and Siemens’ automation and control components. The companies said the systems are slated to be installed in “numerous” test sites, including at utility sites, commercial sites, and government facilities, but they didn’t say when the demos would be up and running.

Semprius says its secret sauce is what it calls a micro-transfer printing technology, a process in which semiconducting material is rapidly stamped onto a substrate, such as glass or plastic (see a video here). The technology is a faster and less expensive way to produce semiconductor devices – in this case solar modules but it could be extended to other industries such as disk drives – than current manufacturing techniques on the market, according to Semprius.

The startup’s initial focus is the production of CPV modules for “large-scale” power generation. These modules would use gallium arsenide-based, multi-junction solar cells coupled with “inexpensive optics” to concentrate solar energy onto the high-efficiency cells.  The company’s CPV system design also calls for using dual-axis trackers, and that’s at least partly where Siemens comes in — its automation and control equipment could be used to drive the trackers. In addition to any technological support from the deal, Siemens adds a new layer of validation for the startup’s technology and business plan.  

Semprius also announced in January that it is one of four companies selected to participate in the Department of Energy’s PV Technology Incubator Program. Under the program, the department will invest up to $12 million total in the four companies to support their advancements to full commercial scale. Semprius is off to a strong 2010, but commercial production will be where the rubber meets the road.

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The federal government – occupying nearly half a million buildings, operating more than 600,000 vehicles and employing more than 1.8 million civilians – spent more than $24.5 billion on electricity and fuel in 2008 and is the largest energy consumer in the U.S. economy. Federal departments and agencies will achieve emissions reductions by measuring their current energy and fuel use, becoming more energy efficient and shifting to clean energy sources like solar and wind, the statement said.

The announcement should be welcome news for the growing number of firms, such as Kleiner Perkins-backed Hara and German software giant SAP, developing products and services that help organizations track and manage their carbon emissions. Companies that help building owners reduce energy use through efficiency measures, as well as renewable energy developers, also stand to gain from the new federal mandate.

While the new target is limited to federal departments and agencies, private businesses are increasingly looking to track and understand their carbon emissions across their operations. Earlier this week, the Security and Exchange Commission issued guidelines on what publicly traded companies must disclose to investors about climate-related effects on their businesses. One issue they must consider is the potential risk to profits from environmental protection laws, such as those mandating a reduction in green house gas emissions.

In related news, the Obama administration  yesterday gave notice to the United Nations that the U.S. will aim for a 17 percent emissions cut by 2020 over 2005 levels. The Copenhagen Accord agreed by the U.S. and other countries at U.N. talks in December calls for governments to submit non-binding climate plans by the end of this month. But the final U.S. 2020 emissions goal depends on Congress passing a climate bill.

Besides calling for reduced emissions, the executive order signed last fall requires federal agencies to meet other sustainability goals. Those goals include a 26 percent improvement in water efficiency by 2020, a 50 percent recycling and waste diversion by 2015, and the implementation of a net-zero-energy building requirement by 2030. The government said agencies are already taking actions toward these goals. The Central Intelligence Agency, for example, has recently opened two LEED-certified buildings that reduce energy and water use over conventional construction, and the Environmental Protection Agency is upgrading its fleet over the next decade to hybrid-electric and plug-in vehicles.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Photo by Paul Morse for the White House.

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LS9 aims to produce biofuels and renewable chemicals to replace conventional petroleum-based products, and the company said this breakthrough will enable it to do this at lower costs. Biofuels ultimately will need to compete against conventional fuels on the open market, and any technological advancement that lowers production costs should make LS9 more competitive.

The startup currently operates a 1,000-liter pilot plant in South San Francisco, Calif., that produces vehicle-ready diesel from so-called first generation feedstock like sugarcane. But the long-term goal of LS9 is to produce biofuels and chemicals using cellulosic feedstock (energy crops, plant waste, etc), which the company says would reduce the total, life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of its products.

Last year, CEO Bill Haywood said LS9 has been in the process of building a demonstration plant that it aims to complete this year. Spokesman Jon Ballesteros told us today that the company is on track to have the demo facility up and running in the “earlier part of this year.” Ballesteros wouldn’t say how large that facility would be, but Haywood previously told Earth2Tech that it would have an annual capacity of 2.5 million gallons.

Last September, LS9 raised $25 million in a third round of funding from oil giant Chevron’s venture capital arm and others, though the round was less than the $75 million-$100 million the company was asking for earlier in the year. But some critics have questioned the environmental benefits of biofuels that rely on any land-based plants, and recently venture capitalists have focused more on algae-based fuel startups such as Solazyme and Solix Biofuels.

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The Facebook app asks users to pledge to “unplug” one or more home appliance from a list of 20 during Earth Day. The user selects how many hours those appliances will be turned off, and the app calculates the emissions avoided and what the rough equivalent would be in terms of miles driven in a car. “Unplug” users can invite friends, view their friends’ commitments, and track their collective emissions reductions. “If we band together then we can make a difference,” People Power Chief Executive Gene Wang told us.

People Power, which is backed by New Cycle Capital and plans to launch its core products later this year, aimed to make the app fast and easy to use. Based on my quick test drive, they’ve at least accomplished that. Whether the calculator receives “viral adoption,” as People Power made it clear it hopes for, of course remains to be seen. In addition to the app, the startup also decided to go musical — it launched the “People Power Band” (we’re not kidding) and produced a single called “Happy Birthday Mother Earth,” which is available for download on the company’s website.

The marketing push, effective or not, at least underscores People Power’s emphasis on the consumer. When I spoke with Wang before the startup’s launch last year, he told me one of the ways People Power would differentiate itself would be with a consumer-friendly product design. That could be a smart move if retail becomes a key distribution channel for home energy monitoring devices in a few years (after the current surge dominated by utility distribution deals).

There’s a variety of Facebook applications and iPhone apps already out there intended to help users cut carbon, by reducing home energy consumption and driving times in vehicles. Last March at Green:Net 2009 we featured a panel that looked at how difficult it’s been to start a web-based social movement around fighting climate change. However, sites like 350.org, founded by Bill McKibben, have more recently found some success at galvanizing young people on the web around “350,” the upper limit of carbon dioxide parts per million in the atmosphere. Leading up to the Copenhagen summit in October 2009, 350.org was able to help organize what it calls “the most widespread day of political action in the planet’s history,” with more than 5200 events in 181 countries.

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The partnership with Waste Management represents a major milestone for Harvest Power, which was founded in 2008 and so far has just one facility up and running: its Fraser Richmond plant near Vancouver, Canada. The deal gives Harvest Power a well-established partner in the waste businesses, and it paves the way for the startup to access organic waste (feedstock for its recycling processes) from Waste Management’s operations across the United States and Canada. Waste Management serves more than 20 million customers through a network of 367 collection operations, 273 active landfill disposal sites and 134 recycling plants.

Harvest Power chief executive Paul Sellew told us that the two companies are still working out the details of their agreement, but it likely will involve the startup building and operating recycling plants at select Waste Management facilities. “They have a great infrastructure in place, and it only makes sense to utilize that,” Sellew said.

Harvest Power’s business is to convert renewable organic materials from municipal and other waste streams into fuels such as biogas and compressed natural gas, as well as composted soil. The startup plans to use onsite combined heat and power systems to convert much of the fuel into electricty, which would be sold to utilities. The compost would be marketed to communities near the processing plants. Yard trimmings and food residuals account for about a quarter of the total U.S. municipal solid waste stream, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Harvest, which has some proprietary technology around composting but uses processes developed by Germany’s Bekon Energy Technology and others for converting the waste into renewable forms of energy, aims to build as many as 50 facilities in North America over the next 4-6 years, Sellew told us. Each facility would be able to process at least 30,000 tons of organic waste – or about what a community of 100,000 produces – per year, depending on the availability of feedstock. The startup has so far raised $40 million in equity, debt and grants, including this latest round of funding.

Image courtesy of Harvest Power. It shows steaming at a composting vessel at the Fraser Richmond plant.

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