Industrial energy efficiency projects land $155M; Chamber advises cutting capital gains for startups

Video Gallery

Companies born in the recession

New England prepared to leverage smart grid expertise

MHT's Jackie Noblett: Generating power from hot pavement

Spin Transfer whips up $36M in first round [February 13, 2012]

Oxford Immunotec taps Altieri as CFO [February 13, 2012]

SeraCare selling to Linden for $82M [February 13, 2012]

UtiliData finds more funding from Braemer [February 13, 2012]

Industrial energy efficiency projects receive $155 million

The Department of Energy awarded $155 million in economic stimulus funds for 41 projects to improve energy efficiency at industrial facilities. The industrial sector accounts for more than 30 percent of the nation’s energy use and is responsible for 30 percent of the nation’s carbon emissions.

Most of the projects will support efforts by local universities and agencies to help industrial facilities conduct assessments on how they can become more energy efficient. The biggest share of the money, however, will go to nine projects that will generate heat and power needed for industrial processes on-site. The $150 million awarded for these projects will be matched by $634 million in private funding. The projects will save an estimated 14 trillion Btu per year in energy.

— ACBJ Wire Service

Chamber: Cut capital gains for startups

The state should do more to guard its higher education sector’s advantage over other states in lucrative innovation, avoiding taxes on university endowments and cutting capital gains taxes on startup companies, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce said last week. Saying the state’s higher education schools have been threatened by the economy and global competition, the chamber pushed the state to encourage so-called patient capital by reducing the long-term capital gains rate from 5.3 percent to 3 percent for startups held for three years or longer.

Because the holding requirement would kick in after passage of the new rate, state tax revenue would not fall off as a result, the chamber argued in a competitiveness scorecard released last week. The chamber also recommended boosting connections between higher education and businesses to develop talent. Massachusetts ranked first in the country per capita for the number of patents that higher education institutions produced, and third in the nation for number of startup firms created from university research and development.

— State House News Service

Comments

If you are commenting using a Facebook account, your profile information may be displayed with your comment depending on your privacy settings. By leaving the 'Post to Facebook' box selected, your comment will be published to your Facebook profile in addition to the space below.