GREENTECH 2007: NEW ENERGY/CLEANTECH SHOWCASE

Can't wait til next year.

Successful Green Energy Conference in Pasadena Highlighted Significant New Technologies
June 15, 2007 (Business Wire)

WHO
Business leaders, academics and energy researchers, including:
- Dr. Nathan S. Lewis, professor of chemistry & chemical engineering, Caltech
- Carl Kukkonen, president/CEO,Direct Methanol Fuel Cell Corporation and CEO/co-founder,VIASPACE, Inc.,
- James T. Stoppert, senior director, Cargill Industrial Bioproducts, Cargill, Inc.
- Michael A. Giardello, CEO, Materia, Inc.
- Bill Gross, founder/CEO, Idealab
- and a host of other authorities...

WHAT
GreenTech 2007, a conference displaying the best new ideas in Clean Tech and New Energy

WHEN
June 14.

WHERE
Pasadena, CA, #4 on SustainLane Government’s top five list of “cities leading the Cleantech revolution” (1. Austin, Tx.; 2. San Jose, CA.; 3. Berkeley, CA.; 4. Pasadena, CA.; 5. Boston, MA.)

WHY
- The excitement in the world of GreenTech, from New Energy to CleanTech to sustainable communities, has never been greater. The speakers at the conference represented the full spectrum of ideas and possibilities from better cellphone and laptop batteries to bigger and better biofuel projects. Presentations to be posted at Entretech by June 22.

- Both the “Featured Address” by Professor Lewis of CalTech and the “Keynote Address” by Bill Gross of IdeaLab hyped solar energy. Both authorities gave raves to solar energy's abundance and potential and both stressed the need for technologies to make it more economically competitive.
Professor Lewis' book (click to enlarge)

- Dr. William Tumas of Los Alamos National Laboratory talked about cutting edge hydrogen transportation projects, commenting, “…there are only 3 things left to figure out: how to produce it, how to store it and how to transport it…we still have a long way to go.”

- Dr. Carl Kukkonen of VIASPACE Energy Co. offered some exciting insights into Lithium-ion battery technology.

- Roland Schoettle of Optimal Technologies presented on the concept of the “smart grid” and promised AEMFAST and SUREFAST, new ways to integrate central and distributed grids.

- Martin Wenzel of Miasole explained how thin film solar is nearly cost competitive with photovoltaic panels and is getting better.

- Much of the afternoon was dedicated to chemistry, the breakthroughs in the replacement of hydrocarbons with renewable feedstocks in synthetic materials. BioRefineries were explained. Metathesis, the creation of new organic materials, is the hot topic. Exciting, though one worries about water.
Bill Gross of IdeaLab

- There was right-thinking and there was wrong-thinking but mostly there was solution-thinking and money-making thinking and that is what New Energy is all about: New ideas to fuel the New Energy economy that is being born.

QUOTES
- Lewis: “By pure economic analysis, I’m sure the earth isn’t worth saving…”
- From “Energy in Flux; The 21st Century’s Greatest Challenge” by Joseph A. Stanislaw of Deloitte Touche, one of Big Accounting’s biggest:
“No single technology will be the answer; what is needed is an array of technologies aimed at different markets and different ends of the supply/demand equation. Each country will need to find the mix of policies and priorities that will enable it to meet its economic and social needs while working toward these broader goals:
1. It will take two or more generations – of both people and technology – to make the transition to a sustainable, non-hydrocarbon-based economy.
2. In the meantime, the global economy will continue to utilize hydrocarbons as its primary fuel source.”