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Green Notes - 27 Nov 08

By Chinthana ⋅ November 27, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

• Clear Standards, a developer of enterprise software for tracking greenhouse-gas emissions, water and energy use, and energy efficiency, has raised $4 million in Series A funding from the venture capital firms Novak Biddle Venture Partners and Kinetic Ventures. Novak Biddle also provided seed funding for the Sterling, Va.-based company last year. With new carbon regulations on the post-inauguration horizon, pressure for companies to get ahead on their environmental impacts has increased. That’s why public carbon markets saw their worth triple in 2006 and are forecast by the World Bank to do so again by 2015. It’s also a big part of why Clear Standards faces a highly competitive field. At stake for companies like Clear Standards, eps Corp. and Planet Metrics is the business of the world’s largest companies, many of whose investors now demand climate change risk assessments and at least 3,000 of which have signed on with the nonprofit Carbon Disclosure Project.
• As solar technology becomes more prevalent, cooler applications keep springing up. A great new example is the Solar Vertical Lamp by Korean designers Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun Kyung Kim, a set of vertical blinds that provide light from solar power. The Solar vertical lamp can give us that and so much more. With the blinds closed during the day blocking the rays of the hot sun, little solar pads are being charged on the back of the blinds and once the sun goes down, your mood lighting shines. The Solar Vertical Lamp is created by Korean designers Yoon-Hui Kim and Eun-Kyung Kim and available in a floor/table lamp or a stylish chandelier. Add one to each window in your home and at night, you have a beautifully lit home and a much lower electrical bill. Frugality and environmental friendliness at its best.
• The head of the UK’s Environment Agency said today that his country needs to produce a comprehensive, long-term strategy for investing in renewable energy, environmental technology, energy efficiency, and carbon capture and storage (hat tip to the Guardian). But building more wind turbines may not be the answer. The UK has set a target to provide 20 percent of the country’s energy from renewable sources by 2020, but according to new research from a University of Cambridge physicist, the government could come up short if it depends too much on wind. Professor David MacKay told the Telegraph that the average energy used per person in the UK is 125 kilowatt hours per day. He said it would take enough wind turbines to cover an area the size of Wales to generate just 20 kilowatt hours per day per person.