Clean Technology

In case you missed it, from The Register:

Denmark has become the second country to sign up to Shai Agassi's ambitious plan to wean the world off petrol-driven transportation, with the announcement of a deal between Agassi's Project Better Place and Danish utility Dong Energy. As with the Israeli deal announced in January, the latest venture will involve mass production of electric vehicles and the rollout of an extensive recharging and battery swap infrastructure.

Speaking to The Register this afternoon, Agassi said that the Israeli and Danish projects were broadly similar in size and timescale. Both will see the first vehicles on the road next year, with production ramping up into thousands in 2010, by which time the fueling infrastructure will be starting to emerge.

Also like Israel, the Danish government will be offering tax breaks on the vehicles. According to Agassi, the average price of a car in Denmark is $60,000 (about €38,000), while the tax break could price an electric car as low as $20,000 there. So the Project Better Place formula for success so far seems to be to get the attention of a power company to provide the network, and secure the tax breaks that will make electric vehicles a compelling proposition compared to petrol. This may not play so well in countries that don't already tax motor vehicles heavily, and/or that have a substantial auto manufacturing industry.

For more on Shai Agassi and Project Better Place, check out the video below of him speaking to NDN on March 12th in DC:

At Wednesday's NDN conference, Project Better Place, CEO, Shai Agassi gave an inspiring talk about what promises to be the next chapter in the history of the electric car. Shai is an amazing speaker (see video) whose story is just as amazing. The second in command at SAP where he was widely viewed as the next CEO, he left to found a startup dedicated to the simple notion of ending the era of the gasoline car. His key insight that electrical infrastructure-not the car-is the key to bringing the electric car to market was conceived at Davos when he was asked for ideas on how to make the world a better place. Initially he went to Shimon Peres to discuss introducing a car in Israel whose short distances, high gas costs and interest in reducing dependence on oil make it a logical place to start. Peres challenged him to find an auto company to build the car and financing for his idea. When he secured Renault/Nissan to build the car, and $200 million in startup capital, the Israeli government responded with innovative legislation that is being downloaded by other legislatures for study faster than any bill in history. The legislation creates a sizeable differential in the tax on gas and non-gas cars for ten years. As usage shifts to electricity from gas, the tax on both will rise to preserve revenues but the differential will persist until, the Israeli government anticipates, gasoline cars disappear for good.

Part of what is so inspiring about Shai's idea is its social approach. Rather than view the car as a technical object, he looks at it as a driving contract. We expect a car to be ours, to have 5 seats (though we drive alone, we want to be prepared for a roadtrip with friends), to be fast and to be affordable. All these, the electric car can easily fulfill. But one last element has been the holdup. We also expect to fill our car up no more than about 50 times a year and for the fill up to take under five minutes. Recharging an empty battery takes longer. By focusing on the energy infrastructure rather than the car, Shai's inspiration is to use a plug-in architecture for daily charges making fillups easier as well as cheaper and a battery swapping technology to deal with those rare instances when someone needs to travel more than 130 miles.

The idea has been generating such buzz that already other car companies are looking to join up. This is what they call game changing.

For those wanting to take a break from the campaign, here is a report on climate change and clean technology....

When it comes to addressing climate change how do we do more than play at the margins? That was the challenge posed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom at the latest Cleantech conference bringing together venture capitalists, hedge fund managers, clean tech entrepreneurs and others seeking market solutions to climate change. Noting that San Francisco has the largest fleet of plug in hybrids in the country-three, Newsom warned that despite all the promise of new clean technologies, rollout has barely begun A lot of low hanging fruit is out there, Newsom exhorted, but mayors, governors, corporations and people need to do reach out and pick it.

At the latest Cleantech, a conference that has gone from filling a room to an entire hotel in just three years, a host of visionaries and venture capitalists looking to cash in on what John Doerr says is a bigger opportunity than the Internet, exchanged the latest news on thin film solar technologies, biofuels, windmills and electric cars as oil economists predicted gas prices of over $4 per gallon this summer and higher prices ahead. With global oil production at close to full capacity and China and India just beginning their consumption trajectories, oil prices (as well as those of natural gas) seem almost certain to continue to climb. Falling prices of batteries, solar power and other renewables have made clean technologies the obvious solution to a looming energy and climate disaster. But first costs have to drop and acceptance has to increase.

Concentrating solar power through mirrors is one promising way to bring the cost of solar power down. So are thin films-the use of sun absorbing foil and other materials--in place of expensive silicon. To store intermittent wind, water and solar energy, better and cheaper storage, whether mechanical or chemical in the form of lithium ion batteries, will be critical. Finally, new business and pricing models will be important to the rollout of electric cars, home generation of electricity and other consumer methods of creating power.

While the technologies on display were impressive, they are not developing quickly enough to stop, for example, the melting of the summer Arctic ice cap. That's where policy will be critical. The easiest lift is efficiency. California consumes only one half the energy of the country as a whole at no loss to consumers. Speakers agreed on the need to "put a price on carbon" whether through a carbon tax or cap and trade system with several projecting that the United States would have a cap and trade system in place within 24 months. A "feed in" tariff such as that employed in Germany that pays consumers for producing power, predictable instead of on-and-off subsidies and decoupling of production from purchase markets were also mentioned as critical levers.

Blocking progress has been the stodgy nature power utilities-the largest customer for many products--that operate under a web of regulation. Absent in the industry so far has been the adrenaline of cost reduction through mass production-the driver of the consumer electronics, cell phone and Internet revolutions.

While no one has yet figured out a way to marry the speed of the Internet to clean technology, next month Vice President Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection will begin a multi million dollar ad campaign to raise awareness of the danger of climate change and hopefully accelerate action.

Indeed, other countries are arguably outpacing the United States. At the conference, Dr. Sultan Ahmed al Jaber of the UAE accepted an award for the UAE's $15 billion clean tech initiative, Masrad. If the US has one strength it is innovation and high tech companies are rushing to get into the game with Google, in particular, making a huge push to reduce its carbon footprint and offering $10 million to companies making a plug-in hybrid car. Google has installed one of the world's largest collections of solar panels the Googleplex.

I'll be back in California later in the month to meet with clean tech participants and NDN members to learn about your efforts and insights regarding this challenge. Or email me at mmoynihan@ndn.org.