Current Savers Blog

As part of Reuters new Green Business section, we have chosen a diverse group of companies to serve as a proxy for the emerging green technology sector. Over the coming months we’ll be discussing each of them at length, and rebalancing our portfolio to reflect trends in the industry.

Click here to see our portfolio in action. You can track our performance against benchmarks, comment on our choices, and create a portfolio of your own.

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Comverge, Inc is one of the leading demand-response companies, known for their role in limiting electricity use during peak demand, employing technology to manage large companies’ power usage and control their costs. Their software can automatically adjust an air conditioner’s temperature or turn off a swimming pool pump when power supplies are tight, reducing prices for suppliers and end users by lowering end user demand at peak times.

Cree Inc manufactures light emitting diode (LED) fixtures, which consume less energy and last longer than incandescent and fluorescent lights. LED’s are experiencing increased demand as costs for power generation and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions rise, and Cree recently reported a third-quarter profit that topped Wall Street estimates on increased demand for ultra-efficient lighting,

LG Chem Ltd looks at first glance is an old-line industrial company with a petrochemical segment provides basic chemicals like polyvinyl chloride products, plasticizers, octanol, and butanol. But the company’s Compact Power unit is producing the lithium-ion battery for General Motors Volt plug-in, and the company is expected to play a central role as more hybrid autos roll out.

First Solar, Inc designs and manufactures solar modules using a thin film semiconductor technology. Its solar modules employ a thin layer of cadmium telluride semiconductor material to convert sunlight into electricity. The company has benefited from cost-conscious utilities’ efforts to buy more clean, renewable power through deals with Sempra and Edison International’s (EIX.N) Southern California Edison, and expanded its presence in the U.S. utility market in April with the acquisition of rival OptiSolar’s project pipeline.

Itron Inc makes smart meters for the electricity and water industries, which allow households to monitor their power usage while also sending the data back to their local utility. Utilities can then read meters remotely, saving the cost of a worker, a truck and fuel.

Energy Conversion Devices Inc makes lightweight, flexible solar laminates for rooftops and buildings that convert sunlight to electricity. Although the company was forced to slash its revenue outlook in March, executives argued that the company’s strong balance sheet and differentiated products would allow it to weather the recession better than many solar players. The company’s so-called thin film products are made from amorphous silicon and unlike traditional solar panels, do not rely on costly crystalline silicon as their primary raw material.

Ocean Power Technologies is developing water buoys that capture wave power. Based in New Jersey, the company is working with Spanish utility Iberdrola and various governments on wave power projects in Spain, the United States and the Orkney Islands and Cornwall in the UK.

Ormat Technologies is engaged in the geothermal and recovered energy power business. The Company designs, develops, builds, owns and operates geothermal recovered energy-based power plants, usually using equipment that it designs and manufactures. In 2008 the company bid over $3.5 million for rights to explore for geothermal energy beneath an active volcano near Alaska’s largest city.

Pacific Ethanol produces and sells ethanol and its co-products, and provides transportation, storage and delivery of ethanol through third-party service providers in the Western United States. Ethanol makers have suffered as the drop in gasoline and ethanol prices have outpaced the downturn in prices of corn, the main component of U.S. ethanol. Pacific Ethanol has three of its four plants idled in the industry slump and is in default on $230 million of construction-related term loans and $31.5 million in notes.

Q-Cells is the world’s largest maker of solar cells. The company said it saw business pick up in March, signaling it may have passed the worst of the crisis that has hit the sector. Solar stocks have skyrocketed since March on optimism about government efforts to stimulate demand for the clean energy source, but analysts warn that with earnings season beginning, investors in the high-flying sector are in for a strong dose of reality.

SunPower Corp SunPower Corporation is a vertically integrated solar products and services company that designs, manufactures and markets high-performance solar electric power technologies. Makers of solar panels were virtually unscathed by the economic downturn until late last year, when funding for all types of projects dried up, green ones included.

Suntech Power Holdings Co. is the top Chinese solar panel maker, which designs, develops, manufactures and markets a variety of photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules. Shares of Chinese solar companies have been among the biggest gainers since China said in late March that it would launch a generous subsidy for solar power systems.

Suzlon Energy Ltd of India is one of the world’s largest producers of wind turbines. The company said in February that sales of new U.S. wind power generation in 2009 will probably be half the record 2008 level as the financial crisis paralyzed cash flows to new wind farms. Development of new wind farms has slowed sharply in recent months as banks suffering from the global credit crisis shut off the flow of money for new projects.

MEMC Electronic Materials makes silicon wafers for the semiconductor and solar industries. The company said last week that although prices for polysilicon wafers remained far below levels seen recently — prices went as high as $500 a kilogram last year due to a shortage of the material in the burgeoning solar industry -0- demand began to show some signs of improvement in the early part of the second quarter.

Dozens of the world’s top movie, television and music stars showed off their green cred on Saturday night at a Hollywood-style fundraiser honoring the Natural Resource Defense Council’s 20 years in Southern California.

The event at Beverly Hills’ Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel was a who’s who of Hollywood environmentalists, including actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Redford, and Laurie David, a global warming activist and producer of the Al Gore movie “An Inconvenient Truth.” All three are trustees of the NRDC’s Southern California office. In 2003, the group even dedicated its new building to Redford.

It’s no secret that the environment and climate change is a hot cause in Hollywood, and it’s hard to imagine another social issue drawing as much star power to one event. The party also raised a hefty $2 million.

“Mad Men” star Jon Hamm and designer Tom Ford also attended the party, which was hosted by “Seinfeld” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus and included a musical performance by Grammy-winning rockers Maroon 5. Actress Rosanna Arquette deejayed the after party.

On stage, Redford recalled why he joined the NRDC in the 1970’s, saying it was “because they had the power to sue.”

Many attendees echoed that refrain throughout the night, with Louis-Dreyfus bluntly stating: “I love lawsuits.”

The evening also included a list of the group’s legal victories in the region, including helping to stop inadequately treated sewage from being dumped into the Santa Monica Bay and testing children for lead poisoning in the 1990s. More recently, NRDC and other environmental groups last year reached a deal with land holder Tejon Ranch to permanently protect 240,000 acres of California land from development.

But the group also suffered a setback in the region last year after the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. navy can conduct sonar training exercises off the southern California coast without restrictions to protect whales, dolphins and other marine mammals.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the evening was as green as could be, with a vegetarian, locally sourced menu, organic wine, and trees and bushes as decoration. Even the table centerpieces didn’t require watering, instead featuring asparagus and artichokes and tulips planted in stones.

Photocredit: Reuters (Maroon 5 performs at the NRDC’s 20th Anniversary Celebration in Beverly Hills on April 25, 2009)

To keep the swine flu from spreading, California public school students are being told to practice what they have dubbed the “Dracula Sneeze.”

California Schools Superintendent Jack O’Connell said that last week teachers reminded students that if they have to sneeze, to put their mouths into the crook of one of their elbows.

“The students started calling that the Dracula Sneeze, and we picked up on that,” O’Connell said on Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, no state public schools have been closed due to swine flu. A private school in the Sacramento, California area was closed on Monday when a teenager got sick, possibly of swine flu.

O’Connell said students can identify with the Dracula character and if that helps them practice better hygeiene, the Dracula Sneeze is what they’ll call the maneuver.

The image many have of the fictional vampire Dracula is of one of his arms — enclosed in a cape — draped over his mouth.

In addition to the Dracula Sneeze, O’Connell said students are told to wash their hands often — for at least 20 seconds each time — and to say home if they are sick.

O’Connell said the biggest state school system in the United States is monitoring the progress of swine flu but has yet made any plans to shut any schools.

“Our schools are safe,” O’Connell told Reuters. “To keep this in perspective, we have seven identifiable cases of swine flu in California limited to two counties, and we have 6.3 million students. We want to take every precaution. We are monitoring. We are watching.”

Photo credit: Reuters/Centers for Disease Control/Handout. (An image depicts the ultrastructural details of a number of influenza virus particles.)

Norway’s finance minister wants to ban sales of new gasoline-powered cars from 2015.

From then, Kristin Halvorsen (pictured left, in red jacket) says that new cars should be powered by alternative fuels such as electricity, biofuels or hydrogen or at least be hybrids, for instance able to use both gasoline and electricity.

I went and spoke to her at the weekend about her proposal (for a story click here) — she reckons that it’s realistic even though it has little chance of becoming law even in a Nordic country that says it is a leader in fighting global warming. She says she’s the only finance minister in the world arguing for such a ban.

She says people have grown too fond of cars powered by fossil fuels - treating them “like a member of the family” - and need tougher action to slow climate change.

But her Socialist Left Party is only a junior partner in the three-party cabinet and Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg does not support her party’s proposal. And some opposition parties accuse her of “climate populism” - latching onto public concern about global warming ahead of elections due in September.

So is the ban a good idea?

earth2tech: Smart Grid Stimulus Spending Capped Too Low

With more than $4 billion in stimulus funds allocated to the smart grid, utilities argue that the cap on spending for any one smart grid project is too low.

WSJ Environmental Capital: Al Gore: Passing the Climate Bill a ‘Moral Imperative’

Al Gore came back to Congress today to warn about the perils of climate change and throw his weight behind draft energy and climate legislation.

When it comes to sizing up the scope of the energy and climate challenge, forget pedestrian comparisons such as the Apollo or Manhattan projects—it’s time to think big.

cnet Green Tech: Q&A: Agassi’s Better Place idea–brilliant or nuts?

Shai Agassi is famously persuasive. With just an idea, he was able to raise $300 million to launch Better Place, a venture that plans to build electric car charging spots and battery switching stations in Israel, Denmark, San Francisco, and many other places. But industry executives have voiced skepticism the ambitious plan: Can one company build an electric vehicle charging infrastructure and operate it profitably?

Treehugger: Israeli Cyclists Pump Up The Earth Day Voltage With Pedal Powered Concert

With government money flowing and traditional industries fading, 2009 is set to be a watershed year for green business. Reuters News and Venture Capital Journal have selected five decisionmakers who will help to decide the course of technology, energy usage and climate change in the years to come.

Vinod Khosla

Founder, Khosla Ventures

Khosla grew up dreaming of being an entrepreneur, despite spending his childhood up in an Indian Army household with no business or technology connections. He eventually became a founder of Sun Microsystems and then joined legendary venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

In 2004, Khosla, driven by the need for flexibility to accommodate four teenage children and a desire to be more experimental, formed Khosla Ventures, funded entirely with family funds. His goals remain the same - work and learn from fun and knowledgeable entrepreneurs, build impactful companies through the leverage of innovation, and spend time as a partnership making a difference. He has made investments in companies working on waste water and water desalinization, solar, geothermal and cellulosic ethanol.

More:

• IPO VIEW-Green tech cos waiting for market to open up
• Venture capital looks to new sources of biofuels
• Khosla looking for clean energy “black swans”

Dan Reicher

Director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org

Reicher wants to conquer the Valley of Death — the seemingly insurmountable funding gap for unproven green technologies. The former Clinton administration Energy Department official is putting Google’s philanthropic funds behind a range of possible breakthroughs, including $10 million for geothermal, but also solar thermal and high-altitude wind power. Two early recipients of Google.org’s largesse were geothermal firms AltaRock Energy and Potter Drilling Inc.

More recently, Reicher has promoted Google’s free software that lets consumers track home electricity use and improve energy efficiency.

More:

• Google looking to invest in energy sector
• Lack of new power lines threatens renewable growth
• Investors take on green energy’s “Valley of Death”

Jennifer Fonstad

Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Fonstad’s interests span a broad set of technology and life sciences companies, including cleantech. One of the investments that helped make her #89 on the Forbes Midas List is GreenFuel Technologies, which takes carbon dioxide produced by power plants and feeds it to algae, which are then converted into biofuel. Before becoming a champion of a particular entrepreneur, Fonstad considers a number of factors in evaluating a potential investment opportunity, such as whether the company has a strong technical team with clear breakout capability, experience and a real passion for re-inventing the world.

“This means we are making bets on people first and foremost and we are making bets on our judgment about market spaces that are emerging,” she says. Forbes notes that she “once escaped kidnappers while working in Russia by jumping out of a moving car; and closed a deal while in labor with her first child.”

More:

• Forbes Midas List
• Slimed, Pt. 1: Biofuels and the Aquatic Species Program

Lyndon Rive

CEO, Solar City

Solar City was dubbed “the Swiss arms dealer” of solar installation by VentureBeat, although “Swiss army knife” might be more like it. The company sells, leases, installs and maintains solar panels for residences and small businesses, with a sideline in energy efficiency consulting. The idea is to convince geographic clusters of homes and businesses to go solar, and then reap cost savings from economies of scale.

The company’s venture background is impeccable: Rive sold an earlier software company to Dell, and Solar City is backed by Elon Musk of PayPal fame, who happens to be Rive’s cousin. And if the switch away from fossil fuels fails, and the polar ice caps melt, Rive has a hedge — he’s a member of the U.S. Underwater Hockey team.

More:

• Arizona Solar: Demand Is Strong but Manufacturing Needs Help
• When Is the Right Time to Buy Solar?

Matt Kistler

Wal-Mart senior vice president for sustainability

The world’s largest retailer may not have the greenest of corporate images, but its sheer size ensures that its initiatives will have an outsize impact on the global economy. Matt Kistler is the public face of Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts, from curbing plastic bag use — aimed at cutting plastic bag waste by a third by 2013, equal to 9 billion bags a year — to reaching new fuel efficiency targets for its massive truck fleet.

The efforts of Wal-Mart and Kistler, a former marketer, are not only aimed at burnishing its corporate image and trimming costs, but also to cater to green-conscious consumers, as with its private label coffee brand, certified by Fair Trade.

More:

• Wal-Mart’s new packaging credo: Let’s get small
• Wal-Mart says will pay more for long-lasting goods

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom)

It might not be a sin to be zealous. But I have to admit I have a sometimes-unfortunate habit of over-doing things. I offer this as a health warning to anyone planning to read beyond this point.

Perhaps it’s nothing to be proud of and fear not: I am not on any kind of a crusade to rid the world of taxis. But I have nevertheless managed to go a whole year now without seeing the inside of a cab and it has definitely improved the quality of life.

Why would I rather wait for buses, trains or travelled by bike or on foot than jump into the nearest cab?

It’s purely a CO2 thing. I don’t have anything personal against cab drivers — they’re just trying to earn a living. And, in all honesty, the amount of CO2 a taxi produces is pretty insignificant compared to a coal-burning power plant.

It’s also not a “being cheap” thing with me (even if I am cheap) or a “save-the-company-money” thing. It was simply a personal choice I made a year ago on one cold and rainy night. I had the option of taking a cab home for a 5-km ride or waiting 40 minutes for the last train. After weighing the pros (saving 10 euros and maybe as much as 2 kg of CO) vs the cons (waiting in a drafty, dimly lit train station), I decided to wait. The 40 minutes flew by and by the time I got home I had a strange but good feeling about it all: 2 kg of CO2 saved is 2 kg of CO2.

Since then, I’ve walked past waiting taxis to take public transportation on scores of work assignments and private journeys. Even on out-of-town trips I’ve learned that with a little bit of planning I can usually walk or take public transportation to where I need to be with only slight, if any, inconvenience. I walked six kilometres through south Duesseldorf the other day on a wonderful head-clearing stroll along the Rhine River to get to one assignment and the only drawback was getting up an hour early. But it was worth it: I saved CO2 and got some exercise in the process. If you’re a zealot about CO2, avoiding taxis has plenty of pleasant side-effects.

Admittedly, it’s sometimes a bit of a pain lugging luggage on crowded trains or buses to and from airports or central rail stations. But, so far, it’s always been do-able. It might take a bit longer and it’s certainly less comfortable when you’re stuck standing in a crowded airport bus. But it always feels good to know you’re cutting a few kg of CO2.

What difference does it all make? Probably almost none. I reckon I might have saved about 100 kg of CO2 in the last year (and “lost” maybe 25 to 50 hours in the process) by shunning taxis. But then again, I sometimes daydream about 10 or 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 people….or maybe even 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 people turning into cab-avoiding zealots like me and abandoning taxis altogether. That probably won’t save the world. But it would save the world a lot of CO2.

And it could make a small difference, couldn’t it?

 The Walt Disney Co rolled out a new look and mission for its North American Disney Stores in an Earth Day celebration designed to reposition the chain it bought back from The Children’s Place last year as a “light education” destination, Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide said.

 Disney reacquired the 225 stores after Children’s Place fell behind on a pledge to invest millions to fix up the outlets. Disney had a tough time making the stores profitable before it handed them off to Children’s Place, but Fielding said he just completed the chain’s five-year plan and is “optimistic” about its prospects, even in one of the worst retail environments in living memory.

In addition to a new store design to be rolled out over the next year, the chain is looking for new digs in cities where bankruptcies and foreclosures have reshaped communities and the commercial real estate surrounding them.  “We are still repositioning that portfolio to make sure we are in the right malls, in the right cities, and the right states,” Fielding said.

As its first global initiative, Disney Stores launched a global Earth Day effort organized around an offering of recycled products, conservation-themed games for kids, and a giveway of reusable bottles that had families lining up at the stores on Wednesday.  The global celebration also includes a tree planting initiative linked to sales of recyclable shopping bags, and Disney is working on signing up U.S. partners for more charitable endeavors like it frequently sponsors at its 106 European stores, Fielding said.

The worldwide do-gooderism is aimed at reminding kids – most of whom come to the stores for the latest Princess dress, Buzz Lightyear or stuffed Mickey — that “they are part of a bigger world and to be conscious of what’s going on around them,” Fielding said.

Yay, Earth Day … Now hand over the Pooh Bear before my kid starts screaming.

In honor of Earth Day on Wednesday, environmental Web site GreenDaily.com has named singer Mariah Carey the “least green celebrity.” What did Carey do to deserve the dis? She was quoted as saying that she flies her personal trainer from St. Barts in the Caribbean to New York to keep her on a workout regimen.

The AOL-owned GreenDaily.com created the “least green” celebrity list in cooperation with social networking site Bebo.com, based on an online poll.

A spokeswoman for Carey was not available.

While Carey was voted least green by 35 percent of respondents, another 27 percent said actor John Travolta was Hollywood’s worst environmental offender for his use of private jets, which GreenDaily.com said are responsible for 800 tons of carbon emissions per year.

Who is Hollywood’s greenest celebrity? Thirty-six percent of the poll’s respondents said actor and longtime environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio. He topped the list, followed by U2 frontman Bono and actor Ed Begley Jr., the former “St. Elsewhere” star who has been known to sell his own green cleaning spray at the farmers market on weekends.

It’s a green world out there, at least on Earth Day. And with Web sites like GreenDaily.com trolling through Hollywood, woe to the stars who live it up and forget about their carbon footprint.

The California Department of Public Health is alerting health-care providers that two children in Southern California, a 10-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl,  have been diagnosed with a strain of swine flu that has never been seen in the United States.

“Although both of these children have fully recovered, we are investigating the illnesses and working to identify any additional cases,” spokesman Mark Horton said in a statement.

“The California Department of Public Health will continue to work closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health departments to gather as much information as we can about these swine flu cases,” he said.

A preliminary analysis showed that both patients had been infected with swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses, which are different from the strain identified in a 1976 outbreak.   The source of exposure has not yet been identified and individuals who came in contact with the two children were being interviewed and tested.

Health care professionals were being advised to be aware of the new strain of swine influenza when treating anyone with flu-like symptoms who has been around pigs.

The CDC says it documents only one swine flu infection every one or two years but has seen that number grow to 12 just since 2005, possibly due to better reporting.

Cases are typically related to close contact with infected pigs in places like barns and livestock exhibits at fairs. Neither of the children diagnosed with the current strain said they had been in proximity to pigs.