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China’s Opportunity: Green Mobility vs. Electric Cars

President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao this week launched a joint effort to “reduce oil dependency, cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote economic growth” through accelerated deployment of electric vehicles — an effort that needn’t exist in opposition to “green mobility efforts.” Nor should it overplay the role of personal vehicles as a solution to the challenges of fast-growing urban centers, warns energy and transportation scholar Lee Schipper in the Dot Earth blog today.

A strong push for plug-in cars in the world’s two largest auto markets might sound like just what the planet ordered. “Virtually all of the emerging markets have economies that are booming,” venture capitalist Steve Westly said at the Cleantech Open awards event in San Francisco on Tuesday, and it’s oil that’s driving them. But getting off oil and onto electricity isn’t the only goal, Schipper tells Dot Earth. “Energy is only a means to an end. What are the ends, urban access and mobility, or cars for a small minority?”

The international effort announced by Obama and Jintao this week, called the U.S.-China Electric Vehicle Initiative, already has several tasks on its to-do list, including: develop joint standards, share data from electric vehicle demo projects in more than a dozen cities in both countries and identify issues related to the manufacture of the vehicles, among other things.

We’ve written before about China’s role on the road to an affordable EV, and the potential for sales in the region to help electric car makers achieve economies of scale. But such a scenario includes a catch: Costs have to come down (with the savings passed on to customers) before electric cars can get anywhere close to becoming mainstream in China.

On the charging side, while China is expected to lead the electric car-charging boom (accounting for nearly half of the more than 5 million charge point installations anticipated worldwide by 2015, according to Pike Research), cities there present a challenge, ECOtality CEO Jonathan Read told BNET recently:

“Cars in Shanghai are crammed into garages all over town…Parking is at a real premium, and people park half a mile away from home — then take public transit.”

As a result, residential charge points that allow drivers to juice up overnight at home are likely to have a small role, he said, relative to installations at shopping centers and other commercial sites (Allan Schurr, VP for Energy & Utilities at IBM anticipates similar challenges for the U.S. market). In a mobility-centric, as opposed to EV-centric, model for greener transportation — whether in China or the U.S. — that public transit piece will continue to play an important role. But it could get considerably more high tech.

Focusing on the ends, while being creative about the means, is what two closely linked concepts — mobility as a service and Mobility on Demand (MoD) — are all about: getting people from A to B by way of trains, buses, cars, scooters and bicycles (the greener, the better) that they don’t necessarily own, with the help of communication networks, GPS and smart algorithms for managing both users and vehicle fleets.

While electric vehicles may not provide a total solution, they are serving to jump-start development of new business models for mobility service providers. As part of a trend I explored in depth for GigaOM Pro (our subscription-only research service), companies are beginning to experiment with ways to package insurance, energy, maintenance and other services around plug-in vehicles.

Image credit: Official White House photo by Pete Souza

“Cash for Caulkers” Could Deliver $23B for Home Energy Efficiency

Step aside “Cash for Clunkers,” and make way for “Cash for Caulkers.” The White House is reportedly considering rolling out a two-year, $23 billion program to encourage homeowners to undertake weatherization projects such as adding air sealing, insulation and energy-saving light bulbs. The program would be called Home Star -– playing off the name Energy Star, the Environmental Protection Agency’s widely recognized energy efficiency program. The New York Times, in a story published last night, reported Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s chief of staff, as saying that it’s one of the “top things he’s looking at.”

Aptera Founders Ousted in Showdown With Auto Vets: Report

The co-founders of Aptera Motors, Steve Fambro and Chris Anthony, did not leave the three-wheeled electric car startup by choice, according to a report this morning over at Wired’s Autopia. Rather, unnamed sources tell the blog that Fambro and Anthony were pushed out in “a boardroom confrontation between the original founders and the auto industry veterans” brought onto the Aptera executive team last year.

VCs Pump Cash Into Solid-state Storage

Data center managers aren’t the only ones suddenly charmed by solid-state drives (SSDs) for computing storage needs. A growing number of VCs are also warming to the green, high-performance potential of the storage technology (GigaOM Pro Research, subscription required).

People Power Revs Up Wireless Energy Management With Open Source

People Power, the latest Silicon Valley venture focused on the home energy management space, will officially launch today, hoping its consumer-friendly product design and open-source home area network platform will make it stand out in an increasingly crowded industry. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup has raised an undisclosed amount in its first venture round from New Cycle Capital and several angel investors to support the commercialization of the company’s product launch. “We think we can build something that is significantly better than what we’ve seen on the market so far,” founder and CEO Gene Wang told us.

RecycleBank Adds $28M, Joins Up With Kashless

RecycleBank, which partners with cities to provide incentives for residential recycling, has just put another $28.25 million in the bank, according to a filing with the SEC. Separately this morning, the company announced a new partnership with Kashless.org, the re-commerce company founded by former Imperium Renewables CEO and serial entrepreneur Martin Tobias.

GE Puts Wind Converter to Work for Solar

As utilities start to build large solar projects and solar power makes up an increasingly larger portion of the electricity mix, integrating this energy into the grid will be a challenge. Solar, like wind, is intermittent — power from the sun fluctuates when clouds pass overhead and wind doesn’t blow consistently. Now General Electric, which has been a major player in helping to integrate wind into the world’s power grids, wants to do the same for solar.

How 3 ARPA-E Grants Could Reinvent Building Efficiency

The Department of Energy this week announced the first round of grants under its Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program, which was created to back risky but potentially breakthrough technologies. Out of the 37 projects awarded grants, three are focused on improving building energy efficiency and could help spur what Secretary of Energy Steven Chu hopes will be “the next Industrial Revolution in clean energy technologies.”…

What the ARPA-E Bets Mean for the Future of Green Cars

Of the $151 million in grants announced this week under ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), the Department of Energy’s highly competitive program for high-risk, early-stage energy technologies, more than a fifth — some $33 million — has been allocated for green vehicle projects. Since the program is meant to support work on tech that other investors consider too risky, each of the projects — from boosting the fuel economy of gas-powered cars to replacing lithium-ion batteries as the technology of choice for electric vehicles — represent something of a gamble. So when it comes to choosing ideas for transforming the auto industry and cleaning up transportation, how wisely is the DOE placing its chips?

What Can Software Do for Hybrid MPGs? Ford Aims to Find Out

What can software do for hybrid fuel economy? Ford Motor and researchers at the University of Michigan plan to find out in a new project meant to speed development of more fuel-efficient hybrid systems. According to an announcement from Ford yesterday, the pair will run up to 175,000 computer design simulations of hybrid control systems, with the goal of eventually developing a software system that would allow drivers to select from several performance settings based on fuel efficiency and other driving preferences.

Test the Wind Speed via iPhone and Mariah Power

Apple’s iPhone has apps for Car 2.0, for home energy management and for fuel efficiency. Now here’s one for clean power that I wasn’t expecting to see: a wind speed tester courtesy of small wind turbine maker Mariah Power. Todd Woody profiles the app in the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog this morning, and says the application uses the iPhone’s microphone to capture the sound of the wind and then utilizes an algorithm to tune out the surrounding noise and calculate the wind decibel speed.

High Hopes for Battery Recycling as Key to Affordable Electric Cars

We don’t usually see recycling as much of a money saver for big ticket consumer electronics. Some electronics makers still charge a premium for devices that count ease of recycling among their green credentials, and some companies charge to reclaim their equipment for recycling. (For example, I’d have to pay $30 for Apple to take back my laptop for recycling unless I buy a new Mac to replace it). But for plug-in cars — overgrown consumer electronics in many ways — recycling the battery could be one of the keys to reducing cost.

Lesson from Cali Clean Power Veto: Transmission Still a Choke Point for Energy Goals

Hundreds of bills escaped California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s veto power last night ahead of a midnight deadline to act on a mountain of legislation — but not a pair of long-debated clean energy bills. As expected, the governor killed two items, which would have required utilities in California to get at least a third of their energy from renewable sources by 2020, but with limits for how much of that goal they could meet with power generated out of state (at an Arizona solar farm, for example).

Clean Power Grants Step In to Fill Tax Credit Gap, But Problems Remain

If it seems like it’s been twice as hard to raise money for renewable projects this year compared with 2007, that’s because it has been. At the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in San Francisco on Tuesday, John Eber, managing director at investment bank JP Morgan, said tax-equity financing for renewable energy is expected to total $2.5-$2.6 billion this year, down from $3.6 billion last year and $6 billion in 2007. Tax-equity financing is based on the exchange of tax credits, so it’s no wonder it has plummeted in a market where profits — and therefore taxes high enough to make use of tax credits for renewable-energy projects — are harder to come by.

SG Biofuels: Amasses World’s Largest Jatropha Library, Aims For $1/Gallon Oil

In the rush to grow energy crops for producing alternative fuels, jatropha has often been heralded as the most promising because it can be grown on marginal land. But so far jatropha hasn’t lived up to the hype — requiring too much water and producing too little yield — prompting some early investors, like oil giant BP, to give up on the crop. But a young Encinitas, Calif.-based startup, SG Biofuels, says the problem with these early efforts was that they put the cart before the horse.

Biofuel Company LS9 Closes $25M With Chevron Backing

LS9, a company which is using a genetically modified version of e.coli bacteria to make diesel from biomass, on Thursday announced it has raised $25 million in its third round of funding. Chevron Technology Ventures’ venture capital arm, CTTV Investments, participated in the round, making this the latest biofuel project from the big oil company. In 2008, Chevron announced a development deal with algae-based fuel company Solazyme, and has been working on a cellulosic ethanol joint venture, called Catchlight Energy, with forest-product company Weyerhaeuser.

Zenn Ditches Car Production Plans to Focus on EEStor Drive Train

Canadian electric vehicle maker Zenn Motors has been stating its grand vision for a while: to supply a range of automakers and grid operators with energy storage technology created with partner EEStor. That’s what Zenn CEO Ian Clifford told us at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference earlier this year. But this week, Clifford seems to have accelerated those plans and told Reuters and GM-Volt that Zenn no longer plans to sell its own higher-speed electric vehicle (the cityZENN car), and will also “shift focus away” from the low-speed electric it currently sells.

Smart Grid Shopping: Silver Spring Snaps Up Greenbox

It’s officially a trend: smart grid companies building or buying software that will manage energy consumption within the home. This morning smart grid networking company Silver Spring Networks announced that it plans to buy Greenbox Technology, a 2-year-old startup founded by the creators of the well-known interactive web technology Flash, which has built software to measure a home’s energy consumption. The companies wouldn’t disclose the price of the acquisition agreement.

Another Battery IPO on the Way, This Time in China

The initial public offering of battery maker A123Systems has been in the works for more than a year, and now that the company has finally set the terms for its offering, it’s carrying the hopes of a lot of startups and investors that it will jumpstart the IPO markets, especially for cleantech companies.

Cisco’s Smart Grid Strategy: Embrace Everything Based on IP

If we learned anything from the construction of the Internet, it’s that the more partners and standardized technology that are involved at the early phases of an infrastructure rollout, the smoother it will go. IBM is trying out that embrace-everyone strategy by launching its SAFE software, and Cisco similarly debuted today an ecosystem for partners to make sure systems are interoperable with its smart grid network using Internet Protocol.

IBM Launches Software to Act as Smart Grid Glue for Startups

It’s always been hard to explain IBM’s role in the smart grid — the computing company has its hands in dozens of utility smart grid deals by way of software that can act as a facilitator for smart grid buildouts. This morning IBM detailed a bit more about how it’s acting as a sort of glue between utilities and third-party smart grid vendors, with the announcement of new software called “Solution Architecture for Energy and Utilities Framework (SAFE).”…

Message from Frankfurt: Hydrogen’s Out, EVs Are In & Software Is Key

One day down, a dozen more to go: At the end of the biennial Frankfurt Motor Show’s opening day, we have a snapshot of how much the auto industry has changed in recent years (to start, only 753 companies showed up this year, compared with more than 1,050 in 2007), and a glimpse of where it’s heading. The last few international auto shows (notably in Detroit and Geneva) have displayed automakers competing to flaunt the greenest, fastest and most futuristic vehicles in their lineups while also trying to appear frugal in a way befitting the gloomy state of their industry and the economy.

Startup Mission Motors’ Electric Superbike Breaks Speed Record — Now What?

It might sound familiar: An ambitious startup sets out to build a high-performance electric two-wheel vehicle priced for the niche luxury market, hoping to establish its brand and business as it develops lower-end models for the mass market. Well, that’s the game plan for Mission Motors, which today announced a new speed record for electric motorcycles on the Bonneville Speedway track (150.059 MPH) with a prototype of its 2010 Mission One model.

Does Fiber Have a Role in the Smart Grid? A Tennessee Utility Thinks So

Utilities will have to make a major decision this year about what kind of networks to use for the smart grid, and many are looking to technologies like cellular, WiMAX, RF Mesh and broadband over power lines for their build-outs. But one of the more unique smart grid projects we’ve heard about comes courtesy of a fiber-optic network in the little town of Chattanooga in Tennessee. Municipal utility and communications company EPB is in the process of building out a $200 million fiber network for the city’s residents that will offer Internet, phone, video and — in an unusual twist — smart grid services.

Good Karma and the Future of Plug-in Vehicle MPG Ratings

Startup Fisker Automotive’s claim on Tuesday that its upcoming plug-in hybrid sports car, the Fisker Karma, will get the equivalent of 67.2 miles per gallon sounds downright modest relative to the triple-digit estimates we’ve been hearing in recent weeks from General Motors (230 MPG for the extended-range electric Chevy Volt) and Nissan (367 MPG for the all-electric LEAF).

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