Congress’ decision to expand the wildly popular “Cash for Clunkers” program with stimulus funding earmarked for renewable energy projects has some cleantech leaders crying foul.
Congress authorized the transfer of an additional $2 billion to the program that provides rebates to car dealers that take in old, gas-guzzling cars for new, more efficient vehicles, but did so using money that was intended to provide loan guarantees to renewable energy project development. The DOE funds had been seen by many in the alternative energy sector as key to getting pilot plants and commercial scale wind and solar projects of the ground, spurring necessary private financing. Mass High Tech recently reported on the industry’s wait for stimulus cash.
“The ethanol industry understands the trying economic times this country finds itself in and thus supports ideas like the “Cash for Clunkers” program, but is concerned to see the program paid for by depleting the renewable energy loan guarantee program,” said Rob Dinneen, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, in a statement.
In addition to buoying the sales of Detroit’s Big Three, or more accurately Detroit’s Big One and Washington, D.C.’s Big Two, the program was also designed to reduce the dependence on foreign oil. But that will be difficult to do if alternative energy producers such as ethanol and biodiesel firms cannot get their production plants built in a timely fashion. Furthermore, advocates of renewable energy contend the environmental and economic benefits of clean energy generation outweigh the benefits of more efficient vehicles.
Even members of Congress are questioning the logic of this move. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California wrote a letter to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, requesting data on what kinds of cars are being turned in and what cars are being purchased under the program.
“The tremendous number of sales in the first week of this program demonstrates that the CARS Act has succeeded in increasing new vehicle sales, but Congress needs this data in order to determine if the fleet modernization program delivered significant fuel economy gains and oil savings,” the letter states.
It is clear that Congress is interested in supporting a politically popular stimulus program, but how it did so raises significant questions about the original intensions of the program. A quick restoration of funds for renewable energy loan guarantees would likely resolve those questions.
[Editor's note: This entry is cross-posted and also appears on the Boston Business Journal's blog.]
Kenny, seen here in Boston as chairman/CEO of Digitas, in 2007
Local digital advertising executive David Kenny — the managing partner of VivaKi, which is the digital unit of Publicis Groupe (known better locally as Digitas) — is making the media rounds in the wake of the Microsoft-Yahoo search advertising deal announced earlier this week.
Kenny weighed in on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal in a New York Times blog and, according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Kenny was also among a number of digital ad executives whom Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz met with back in June. The WSJ said they discussed how a possible Microsoft-Yahoo deal could add value to VivaKi’s clients. “I didn’t feel they were lobbying, but felt they were generally asking my opinion,” Kenny told the Journal.
In AdAge, Kenny was quoted as saying that the deal is “a net positive for marketers.”
“Anything that creates a credible platform and more innovation in search is going to be good for consumers and, therefore, good for advertisers,” he told AdAge.
Saint Gobain, the world’s largest manufacturer of building materials, cut the ribbon on a research and development lab in Northborough, the company’s largest R&D site worldwide.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick was on hand for the event, which offered a glimpse of the company’s energy-efficiency innovations. Patrick told the MetroWest Daily News the site offered a “glimmer of good news” in a tough economy.
The 60,000-square-foot building houses laboratories, offices and meeting space for 200 Saint Gobain scientists and engineers, officials said. Construction crews broke ground on the $15 million expansion just a year ago, according to the MetroWest newspaper.
Saint Gobain is headquartered in Paris and employs more than 300 people in Northborough. NECN.com offered a video clip here.
Saint-Gobain employs 340 people in Northborough and has had a strong central Massachusetts presence since 1990, when it acquired abrasives manufacturer Norton Co. of Worcester, according to the MetroWest newspaper.
Saint-Gobain has other locations at the former Norton site in the city of Worcester and in Taunton, among other Massachusetts sites.
Google has added Boston’s MBTA to its Google Maps GIS service, as of this morning. The new integration means Bostonians can map point-to-point routes and compare travel times by car, on foot, or by public transit – as on this map of the route from Mass High Tech’s newsroom downtown to MBTA headquarters in the Theatre District. Twitter user @j_b_f was first to notice the development, late this morning.
The MBTA this afternoon invited news media to a joint announcement tomorrow at 11 a.m. at South Station with city transportation officials and Google Cambridge’s engineering director, Steve Vinter. No details of the planned announcement were released, but the website Universal Hub reports officials will announce the new tool at the presser. A Google spokesman said the company is “evaluating data,” but has no information to release. MBTA officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to a report on the website Greater Greater Washington earlier this month, Boston and Washington DC were the only two major U.S. transit systems remaining without integration with Google Maps. Since 2006, the T has offered a wayfinding solution on its own website that provides much of the same functionality as the new Google integration.
The T and general manager Daniel Grabauskas are overdue for some good news this week, after three of the agency’s boardmembers wrote letters to state transportation secretary James Aloisi saying they have no confidence in Grabauskas’ leadership. The letters cited a damning NTSB report, out earlier this month, on a Green Line trolley crash that killed an operator in 2008.
Connecticut newspaper the Day reports General Dynamics Electric Boat is working on a submarine that could travel submerged at about 100 knots, or about four times faster than the current fastest sub.
Electric Boat plans to test a version of the DARPA-funded sub off Rhode Island in early 2010:
The technology, if developed, could revolutionize ocean transportation if it could be adapted to cargo and passenger ships.
The vehicle would travel inside a large gas bubble created in the water, a process known as supercavitation. The bubble reduces drag, since the drag is much lower in air than in water, allowing the vehicle to travel at high speeds.
Supercavitation is not new. The technology has been applied to weapons, but never to transport vehicles, according to DARPA.
The Burlington-based maker of mobile field administration software for the architecture, engineering and construction agencies announced in 2007 that it had closed a $6 million Series A. The second close on that fund brings Vela Systems’ Series A to $10.5 million, and its total funding to at least $11.9 million – including a $1.4 million angel round closed in 2006.
The two-year old Chelmsford company is developing plastic polymers that are tough and have high melting points that can be used as flame retardant additives. FRX officials said these materials do not include halogens like traditional flame retardants, making them safer for the environment. The materials can also be used as stand-alone plastics.
Two new sites — Happn.in, and Venturefizz.com, — are offering themselves up as hubs of all things Boston. One is tracking Beantown’s Twitter memes; the other is mapping the Bay State’s high-tech economy by aggregating job postings, company profiles, news feeds and influential tech blogs in one place. (more…)
Ad Astra Rocket Co. has developed an ion rocket that could shorten the trip to Mars to 39 days.
Aside from simply being a snazzy rocket you could use to fly to Mars, the technology also has a provincial Bostonian angle. Ad Astra is based in Texas, but its CEO, Franklin Chang-Diaz, is an MIT alum and former astronaut whose daughter, state senator Sonia Chang Diaz, defeated her scandal-plagued predecessor, Dianne Wilkerson, in last fall’s election.
MIT researcher Oleg Batishchev, whose Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster is based on the elder Chang-Diaz’ technology, called the Ad Astra rocket a Ferrari, while his plasma thruster, intended for steering satellites, is an ecnomical hybrid.
To demonstrate his thruster ’s simplicity, Bathshchev and his team made a version of his rocket out of a Coke bottle and a Coke can. After the jump, watch video of the bottle/can rocket. (more…)
Staff writer Galen Moore talks to New England Business Day about Tickets for Charity:
Tickets come direct from the sports teams and musicians at face value. Buyers pay about the same markup as a typical reseller charges. The face value goes to the venue or ticket agency, and the remainder goes to a charity chosen by the fan, artist or team. Tickets for Charity charges about a $4 to $12 fee per ticket, Poster said.
“If we capture half of one percent of that market we’re doing a great thing for society,” Poster said. Tickets for Charity has brought in $7 million in total revenues, with $3 million going back to charities including The Boys and Girls Clubs of America, City Year, Oxfam and the United Way.
The two-year-old clean tech firm founded and backed by Flagship Ventures managing partner Noubar Afeyan emerged from stealth mode Monday, announcing it is working on a large-scale test of its Helioculture technology, which uses the genetically engineered cells to produce fuels with the sun, wastewater and carbon dioxide.
Landing a Series B “will allow us to bring a product to market,” Kayton said. What that product is has been a subject of much speculation, and Kayton would not reveal any details other than to say “we are in an alpha stage.”
Verizon Communications Inc. said it would 8,000 more positions by the end of the year as the company continues to be stung by a slowdown in corporate accounts. (more…)
Scott Kirsner takes a look at some of the funding issues former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is having with his video game company, 38 Studios, which is developing a massively multiplayer game to challenge World of Warcraft:
“I’m not going to complain about the economy,’’ Schilling said. “It’s like pitching on a rainy day. The other guy has to pitch in it, too.’’
Adding to the company’s need for cash, in May, Schilling and Close made a risky deal, acquiring a Maryland game development studio called Big Huge Games. Close says the acquisition will enable 38 Studios to develop versions of its game not just for personal computers, but also for gaming consoles like Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Big Huge Games also has several games in the works that could generate revenue even before Project Copernicus is finished.
But the purchase doubled the company’s headcount, to about 140 employees, and game industry executives who have run similar size companies estimate 38 Studios’ annual operating expenses at $15 million to $20 million.
Schilling sounds like he’s not panicking, but if he ends up needing a new job, I know a baseball team whose latest old-guy pitcher isn’t working out too well.
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