Carbonoffcast.com Blog

In the wake of the worst financial crisis since the great depression, some trends are emerging in the areas of clean technology venture funding and voluntary carbon offsetting. While on the surface funding for clean technology companies seems to be the bright spot in an otherwise dismal period for venture capital, the people and companies on the bleeding edge innovation will suffer the most.

Recent reports draw a dour picture for venture funding over the last quarter and project it into the future, especially in the software, internet and industrial sectors. According to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers MoneyTree report, investments in internet companies dropped 36% last quarter. The title slide of the now infamous slide deck from Sequoia capital to their portfolio companies says enough: 'RIP Good Times'. It then goes on to tell its startup company portfolio that it will be a long road ahead, and it will take a lot of slashing/burning to stay alive.

The reported increases in investments for renewable energy (90% according to Dow Jones VentureSource) and clean technology (14% higher according to MoneyTree) represent the sliver lining of the clouds right? Well, not so fast. In talking to the venture capitalists investing in the clean tech areas, they're also hunkering down and focusing on the late stage investments closest to a payout. In other words they too are playing it safe. They're doing their best to recoup their investments in the technology that's at least a couple years old and not yet good enough to stand on its own.

Is Carbonoffcast.com a bright spot? Carbonoffcast.com continues to look for those early stage ideas that are not being funded elsewhere; the biggest innovations towards improving how we live and work without polluting.

The Air Car could break through the price and range and speed barriers holding back viable electric and alternative energy transportation.

The name Air Car says it all: this vehicle developed by Moteur Developpment International in France runs on compressed air. According to a report by the BBC recently and picked up by autobloggreen.

This technology represents the sweet spot that's needed to overcome the hurdles to mass adoption that any vehicle not running on petroleum fuel have faced: too expensive and too inconvenient (short range of miles per tank or charge, alternative fuels not offered on every other street corner). Not that it's a shoe-in. There are many hurdles to taking viable technology to manufacturing at a scale for mass consumption, and more hurdles dealing with the political scene of U.S. regulation. And to be a true competitor to gas cars, the technology will have to advance in the common areas of range, speed, acceleration, and the general infrastructure needed to support cars; all while keeping that price point down. But the benefits and relatively quick technology maturation time compared to other alternatives like electric cars keeps us cautiously optimistic on this one.

The stats from autobloggreen and theaircar.com:
Engine: compressed air engine using Compressed Air Technology(CAT)
Fuel: Air
Refilling Cost: 1.5 Euros ($2.30 USD on today's exchange rate)
Range: 124 miles
Top Speed: 68 MPH
Vehicle Cost: 3,500 Euros or $5,160.61 USD

Sounds too good to be true, but we won't know in the U.S. for a while. This appears to be too threatening or risky for American auto companies to embrace or our venture firms to back. If Carbonoffcast.com can help bring this car or idea to the United States, it definitely will.

March 2 2008 update: Business Week reports that the Air Car is indeed comming to the United States in 2010. According to the article, 'Pre-orders for the air car will be taken in early 2008 on the Zero Pollution website, and initial U.S. deliveries for a 6-seater, 4-door, 75 hp, dual-energy MDI Air Car are anticipated for 2010.'

With much fanfare, Sir Richard Branson launched a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to Amsterdam last week with some biofuel in the tank. While this brought some much needed PR, and more needed hope to the plight of making air travel less of an impact on global warming, the PR is about all it was. Let's face it: at 20% biofuel in 1 of 4 engines, the overall 5% biofuel burned amounted to a negligible improvement on GHG emissions from the flight. In fact the only improvement they cite is the reduction in emissions that comes from refining the biofuel rather than refining petroleum.

On another continent, without much fanfare at all, another pioneering flight took place last fall. Green Flight International completed the world's first Jet aircraft flight powered by 100% biofuel on October 2, 2007. Two pilots flew an L-29 Czechoslovakian-made military aircraft rated to fly on a variety of fuels including heating oil. According to their website, "Out of concern for our global environment, Green Flight International was conceived by Douglas Rodante in April 2006 to serve as a platform for future development in the use of environmentally-friendly fuels in aviation and elsewhere."

While the world is awaking to the demands of reducing or eliminating carbon emissions, air travel has proven to be a quandary. Emissions from air travel have been steadily rising, and emissions released in the atmosphere have a much larger impact on global warming. ( The David Suzuki Foundation explains this nicely) In fact, many of the emissions calculators you'll find online for air travel have a 2.7 multiplier to factor in the larger impact of emissions released from planes at altitude. (Carbonoffcast.com's flight calculator does not). And the problem is exacerbated by it's difficulty. There are no obvious efficiency gains to apply to air travel; nor are we going to see electric, hybrid aircraft anytime soon.

The gap between these 2 pioneering flights lies in commercial viability. While on paper a 100% biofuel flight looks a lot more impressive than a 5% one, there's a big difference between flying a 2 person plane for 37 minutes to flying commercial planes on any % biofuel on any regular or occasional basis. Let's hope that seeing a little progress on both sides of the spectrum ignites some innovation in this space to close that gap. Green Flight International is working on it from their end, aiming for a 100% biofueled Lear jet flight series in 2009.

Verdium offers a PC energy management tool that offers the two-pronged value add needed to be a viable carbon Dioxide reducer: save money, and save energy. That ROI of 18 months is going to have to come down a lot before this product and technology will hit the mainstream.

Verdium's Surveyer product works by using the existing energy management features built into personal computers; it's the low hanging fruit. PC power management offers one of the fastest and easiest ways to reduce a significant percentage of elecricity usage (estimates range from 20%-40% per PC) and money. And MS Windows offers some nice features that are very underutilized.

According to the Verdium website : 'SURVEYOR works by intelligently placing PCs into lower power settings when not in use.' This means, that for an office organization of 1,000 PC's that are are never shut down (user habit, or IT enforced to deliver maintenance and updates during off-hours), the energy habits can be controlled from a central location.

Other products in this space:

• Shutdown Vaccine from Horizon Datasys
• NightWatchman from 1E

Carbonoffcast.com: a carbon solutions organization devoted to solving global warming

There's a new kind of carbon offset program out there. With Carbonoffcast.com, consumers and businesses will be able to balance their carbon footprint with contributions that go towards zero emissions solutions.

In an innovative twist to programs that neutralize carbon footprints, Carbonoffcast.com uses the free market economy and entrepreneurship to address climate change. Users (individuals, families and businesses) calculate their carbon footprint with emissions calculators and then contribute towards that amount. Then Carbonoffcast.com invests in zero carbon solutions where the money is needed most; inception to early stage entrepreneurs who often get overlooked by venture capital or other sources of funding.

There are problems with both current carbon offset programs, and with current clean technology investment activities, which Carbonoffcast.com addresses. Other carbon offset programs conduct projects like tree plantings to absorb carbon pollution, or installing solar energy. The problem is that these aren't efficient enough to fully solve the problem. We can't plant enough trees to absorb all the CO2 we pollute, and today's solar technology is ~15% efficient. On the funding side, there's little funding available for the most innovative, early stage companies; those that need less than $3 million, or even less than $1 million. Founder Craig Vigor says, "There's growing awareness of the global warming problem, a real desire in people to help fight it which is tremendous. But the projects being done by the carbon offset programs aren't good enough, and the real zero carbon solutions aren't getting funded in other ways. Carbonoffcast.com is the first program to bring these two gaps together, and let people go carbon neutral in a way that will create the solutions to let us keep our productivity without the emissions."

Through the Carbonoffcast.com website, calculators are available for individuals and families to see the carbon footprint of their driving, flying and home energy use. Carbon footprints for business uses like office building energy, fleets, business travel or manufacturing are calculated with the help of a Carbonoffcast.com representative. Individuals, families and businesses can then contribute towards their carbon footprint. Carbonoffcast.com then invests in the innovative companies that are creating the zero emissions products and services that will solve climate change. Investments come in the form of a small ownership stake in, or a low APR loan to the companies funded.

Future releases of Carbonoffcast.com will add a full range of calculators for business applications, and community building features to connect those looking for solutions with those creating the solutions.