By: Business Wire
22 Sep 2009
10:00 AM ET Text Size SAN FRANCISCO, Sep 22, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Project FROG (www.projectfrog.com), leading manufacturer of smart building systems, announced today that Ann Hand has joined the company as Chief Executive Officer. She will provide strategic leadership as Project FROG seeks to capitalize on the high growth market for green buildings with its innovative high performance building systems.
"I am delighted that Ann has decided to join the Project FROG team," said founder Mark Miller. "I look forward to working closely with her to develop our next generation of green building products and accelerate our growth. Ann has a great track record of building scalable businesses with sustainability as a cornerstone." Ann is a highly experienced executive within the clean energy sector and comes to Project FROG from BP where she was Senior Vice President of Global Brand Marketing and Innovation with responsibility for driving operational performance across 25,000 retail gas stations. Prior to that role, she was CEO of BP's Global Liquefied Petroleum Gas business unit and oversaw 3,000 employees in 15 countries. Before BP, Ann held marketing, finance and operation positions at Exxon Mobil and McDonald's Corporation.
"I believe in the mission of this company, the quality of its people and the potential of our technology to transform the building industry," said Ann. "I was fortunate to have the satisfaction of making things 'a little better' at BP, and am compelled by the opportunity at Project FROG to change how buildings are built and redefine standards for how they perform...we can make construction a lot better." Chuck McDermott, a Project FROG board member and General Partner at RockPort Capital Partners says, "Ann is a very dynamic executive who understands how to create vision and build brands. We're confident that she will provide important leadership as Project FROG diversifies products that grow markets and monetize its game-changing innovation." About Project FROG Better, Greener, Faster. Smart. Project FROG makes the most technologically advanced, energy-efficient building systems on the planet. Employing innovative clean technology across the construction spectrum, Project FROG aims to transform the building industry by creating new standards for healthy buildings that significantly reduce energy consumption and construction waste. Venture funding from Rockport Capital facilitated entrance into education and governmental markets in California, New England and Hawaii. Near-term plans include expansion into new geographies and market sectors. Project FROG's smart building systems are frequent recipients of industry awards for their design and performance. For more information, visit http://www.projectfrog.com/.
About RockPort Capital Partners RockPort Capital Partners, www.rockportcap.com, is a leading venture capital firm partnering with clean tech entrepreneurs around the world to build innovative companies and bring disruptive technologies and products to the 21st century. RockPort's investment approach is distinguished by collaboration with management teams to foster growth and create value. Combining domain expertise with policy and international experience, RockPort has a proven track record of leveraging its insights and networks to foster growth and create value.
SOURCE: Project FROG CONTACT: Project FROG Nikki Tankursley, 415-814-8520 nikki@projectfrog.com Copyright Business Wire 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Hawaii Goes Even Greener with Alternative Energy Push
Published: Tuesday, 15 Sep 2009
11:09 AM ET Text Size By: Felicity Barringer
The New York Times: Two miles or so from this tiny town in the southernmost corner of the United States, across ranches where cattle herds graze beneath the distant Mauna Loa volcano, the giant turbines of a new wind farm cut through the air.
Sixty miles to the northeast, near a spot where golden-red lava streams meet the sea in clouds of steam, a small power plant extracts heat from the volcanic rock beneath it to generate electricity.
These projects are just a slice of the energy experiment unfolding across Hawaii’s six main islands. With the most diverse array of alternative energy potential of any state in the nation, Hawaii has set out to become a living laboratory for the rest of the country, hoping it can slash its dependence on fossil fuels while keeping the lights on.
Every island has at least one energy accent: waves in Maui, wind in Lanai and Molokai, solar panels in Oahu and eventually, if all goes well, biomass energy from crops grown on Kauai. Here on the Big Island of Hawaii, seawater is also being converted to electricity.
Still, the state faces enormous challenges in delivering the power to the people who need it. While the urban sprawl around Honolulu consumes the bulk of the energy, most potential renewable sources are far from the city, 150 miles southeast or 100 miles to the northwest.
Each of the state’s six electric grids belongs to its own island and is unconnected to the others. And according to state figures, Hawaii still relies on imported oil to generate 77 percent of its electricity, a level of dependency unique in the United States. Coal-fired power provides 14 percent, and 9 percent comes from renewable sources like the wind or the sun.
Hawaii’s governor, Linda Lingle, a Republican, has resolved to throw off the yoke of oil dependence and harness the state’s potential.
Under an agreement reached last year with the federal government and the dominant local utility, the Hawaiian Electric Company, Hawaii plans to generate 40 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. The state’s six grids will be connected by cables, and planners hope that conservation steps like reducing the air-conditioning load at high-rise hotels will cut Hawaii’s energy consumption by nearly a third. “The goals are very, very aggressive,” said Debra Lew, a senior project leader for the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Three decades ago, Hawaii mapped out a similar vision, if in less detail, that came to nothing. But this time, planners say, failure is not an option. “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Ted Peck, the point man for the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, overseen by the State Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Even if the state were indifferent to the environmental costs of burning oil and gas, including carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, it would have to embrace renewable energy sources, said Robert Alm, a vice president of the Hawaiian Electric Company. “Our hedge won’t be buying oil futures, it will be buying wind,” Mr. Alm said.
Heavy reliance on imported oil has proved economically perilous. When oil prices hit $147 a barrel a year ago, electricity rates approached or briefly exceeded 50 cents per kilowatt hour on Maui and Kauai, about five times the national average.
The spike in prices lent urgency to the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which Governor Lingle unveiled in January 2008.
The technical and political obstacles have since become clearer.
Hopscotching around this brightly colored archipelago by plane, a visitor gets a vivid sense of Hawaii’s essentially rural nature and the scope of the challenge.
The biggest priority is laying undersea cables between the outer islands and Oahu. Once those connections are made — first with cables stretching from Molokai and Lanai, the islands nearest Oahu — the capital will get power through them.
Then there is the daunting challenge of feeding fluctuating wind and solar power into the small electric grids on the individual islands while devising backup systems to keep the energy output smooth and reliable.
On Maui, for instance, General Electric [ Loading... () ] is working on ways to modulate demand and store energy for later use either in electric batteries or by pump storage — filling an elevated reservoir in low-demand periods to produce hydropower when needed. “The whole trick is making the system work in the right way, like conducting an orchestra,” said Bob Gilligan, G.E.’s vice president for transmission and distribution.
On the financial side, the state must attract developers with enough financing to help underwrite their own wind, solar, wave or other renewable projects, carry out the required environmental reviews and secure local approval. Addressing local concerns can be especially challenging. As in any state with a rural-urban divide, residents of Hawaii’s less populous outlying areas are wary about being pushed around by planners in Honolulu.
The outer islands have higher concentrations of Native Hawaiians who are well versed in a local history of exploitation, from the American overthrow of their monarch in 1893 to environmental costs of sugar plantations and tourism.
Some have formed groups like the Pele Defense Fund, which sprang up here in the 1980s to protect religious gathering rights in the rain forest on the Big Island. The fund seeks to prevent desecration of Pele, the native goddess of fire and volcanoes, and finds geothermal energy projects sacrilegious.
One avenue for developers, utilities and state officials is to offer outlying communities support or financing for needs that the local population identifies, like fish conservation. “We’re asking the small islands to be significantly burdened on behalf of Oahu, so Oahu needs to do well by them,” said Mr. Alm, the utility’s vice president.
For all the optimism, planners studiously remind themselves of the detritus of past failures, like the dismembered and rusting wind turbines of a defunct wind farm near the southern end of the Big Island. “This transformation is going to take a generation,” said Ted Liu, director of the state economic development department. “There are no short-term easy solutions.”
11:09 AM ET Text Size By: Felicity Barringer
The New York Times: Two miles or so from this tiny town in the southernmost corner of the United States, across ranches where cattle herds graze beneath the distant Mauna Loa volcano, the giant turbines of a new wind farm cut through the air.
Sixty miles to the northeast, near a spot where golden-red lava streams meet the sea in clouds of steam, a small power plant extracts heat from the volcanic rock beneath it to generate electricity.
These projects are just a slice of the energy experiment unfolding across Hawaii’s six main islands. With the most diverse array of alternative energy potential of any state in the nation, Hawaii has set out to become a living laboratory for the rest of the country, hoping it can slash its dependence on fossil fuels while keeping the lights on.
Every island has at least one energy accent: waves in Maui, wind in Lanai and Molokai, solar panels in Oahu and eventually, if all goes well, biomass energy from crops grown on Kauai. Here on the Big Island of Hawaii, seawater is also being converted to electricity.
Still, the state faces enormous challenges in delivering the power to the people who need it. While the urban sprawl around Honolulu consumes the bulk of the energy, most potential renewable sources are far from the city, 150 miles southeast or 100 miles to the northwest.
Each of the state’s six electric grids belongs to its own island and is unconnected to the others. And according to state figures, Hawaii still relies on imported oil to generate 77 percent of its electricity, a level of dependency unique in the United States. Coal-fired power provides 14 percent, and 9 percent comes from renewable sources like the wind or the sun.
Hawaii’s governor, Linda Lingle, a Republican, has resolved to throw off the yoke of oil dependence and harness the state’s potential.
Under an agreement reached last year with the federal government and the dominant local utility, the Hawaiian Electric Company, Hawaii plans to generate 40 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030. The state’s six grids will be connected by cables, and planners hope that conservation steps like reducing the air-conditioning load at high-rise hotels will cut Hawaii’s energy consumption by nearly a third. “The goals are very, very aggressive,” said Debra Lew, a senior project leader for the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Three decades ago, Hawaii mapped out a similar vision, if in less detail, that came to nothing. But this time, planners say, failure is not an option. “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” said Ted Peck, the point man for the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, overseen by the State Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism.
Even if the state were indifferent to the environmental costs of burning oil and gas, including carbon-dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, it would have to embrace renewable energy sources, said Robert Alm, a vice president of the Hawaiian Electric Company. “Our hedge won’t be buying oil futures, it will be buying wind,” Mr. Alm said.
Heavy reliance on imported oil has proved economically perilous. When oil prices hit $147 a barrel a year ago, electricity rates approached or briefly exceeded 50 cents per kilowatt hour on Maui and Kauai, about five times the national average.
The spike in prices lent urgency to the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which Governor Lingle unveiled in January 2008.
The technical and political obstacles have since become clearer.
Hopscotching around this brightly colored archipelago by plane, a visitor gets a vivid sense of Hawaii’s essentially rural nature and the scope of the challenge.
The biggest priority is laying undersea cables between the outer islands and Oahu. Once those connections are made — first with cables stretching from Molokai and Lanai, the islands nearest Oahu — the capital will get power through them.
Then there is the daunting challenge of feeding fluctuating wind and solar power into the small electric grids on the individual islands while devising backup systems to keep the energy output smooth and reliable.
On Maui, for instance, General Electric [ Loading... () ] is working on ways to modulate demand and store energy for later use either in electric batteries or by pump storage — filling an elevated reservoir in low-demand periods to produce hydropower when needed. “The whole trick is making the system work in the right way, like conducting an orchestra,” said Bob Gilligan, G.E.’s vice president for transmission and distribution.
On the financial side, the state must attract developers with enough financing to help underwrite their own wind, solar, wave or other renewable projects, carry out the required environmental reviews and secure local approval. Addressing local concerns can be especially challenging. As in any state with a rural-urban divide, residents of Hawaii’s less populous outlying areas are wary about being pushed around by planners in Honolulu.
The outer islands have higher concentrations of Native Hawaiians who are well versed in a local history of exploitation, from the American overthrow of their monarch in 1893 to environmental costs of sugar plantations and tourism.
Some have formed groups like the Pele Defense Fund, which sprang up here in the 1980s to protect religious gathering rights in the rain forest on the Big Island. The fund seeks to prevent desecration of Pele, the native goddess of fire and volcanoes, and finds geothermal energy projects sacrilegious.
One avenue for developers, utilities and state officials is to offer outlying communities support or financing for needs that the local population identifies, like fish conservation. “We’re asking the small islands to be significantly burdened on behalf of Oahu, so Oahu needs to do well by them,” said Mr. Alm, the utility’s vice president.
For all the optimism, planners studiously remind themselves of the detritus of past failures, like the dismembered and rusting wind turbines of a defunct wind farm near the southern end of the Big Island. “This transformation is going to take a generation,” said Ted Liu, director of the state economic development department. “There are no short-term easy solutions.”
Upcoming Summit to Focus on Biotechtechnology Tools for The Green Economy
"By: Business Wire 10 Sep 2009 02:04 PM ET Text Size WASHINGTON, Sep 10, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Developing and developed countries across the Pacific Rim are adopting biotech solutions to cut greenhouse gas emissions, efficiently utilize resources, and jumpstart economic growth. The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today announced the sessions and speaker presentations to be delivered at the 2009 Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy, to be held Nov. 8-11, 2009 in Honolulu.
Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO's Industrial and Environmental Section, said, 'The growth and development of clean-tech and green product technologies offer opportunities for sustainable industrial production, new green jobs, and future economic growth. Current talks about the international climate change treaty have focused on possible tradeoffs between economic development and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial biotechnology is a green technology and a proven engine of innovation that can help all countries develop renewable energy and products, transform industrial processes to lessen environmental impacts, and promote economic growth.' Presentations scheduled for the Pacific Rim Summit include: International Developments in Algae Commercialization Monday, Nov. 9, 10:00 a.m.
to 11:30 a.m.
-- Valerie Reed, US Department of Energy -- Patrick McGinn, Institute of Marine Biosciences NRC Canada -- Ravi Shrivastava, DRDO East Meets West: A Comparison of China, Brazil, and U.S. Biofuels Policy Monday, Nov. 9, 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
-- Christina Connelly, Minnesota Department of Agriculture -- Joel Velasco, UNICA Sugar Cane Industry Association -- Dehua Liu, Tsinghua University Global Perspectives on the Bioeconomy Monday, Nov. 9, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m." The full schedule of speakers and sessions is available at http://www.bio.org/pacrim/speakers/breakout/.
BIO also today announced that the 2010 World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing will be held in Washington, D.C., at the Gaylord National Harbor, June 27-30, 2010.
About BIO BIO represents more than 1,200 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of innovative healthcare, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products. BIO also produces the BIO International Convention, the world's largest gathering of the biotechnology industry, along with industry-leading investor and partnering meetings held around the world.
The Advanced Biofuels & Climate Change Information Center presents the latest commentary and data on the environmental and other impacts of biofuel production. Drop in and add your comments, at http://biofuelsandclimate.wordpress.com/.
Upcoming BIO Events BIO Investor Forum October 28-29, 2009 San Francisco, CA Advanced Business Development Course October 30, 2009 Vienna, Austria BIO Europe International Partnering Conference November 2-4, 2009 Vienna, Austria Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy November 8-11, 2009 Honolulu, HI SOURCE: Biotechnology Industry Organization CONTACT: BIO Paul Winters 202-962-9237 pwinters@bio.org www.bio.org Copyright Business Wire 2009
Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO's Industrial and Environmental Section, said, 'The growth and development of clean-tech and green product technologies offer opportunities for sustainable industrial production, new green jobs, and future economic growth. Current talks about the international climate change treaty have focused on possible tradeoffs between economic development and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial biotechnology is a green technology and a proven engine of innovation that can help all countries develop renewable energy and products, transform industrial processes to lessen environmental impacts, and promote economic growth.' Presentations scheduled for the Pacific Rim Summit include: International Developments in Algae Commercialization Monday, Nov. 9, 10:00 a.m.
to 11:30 a.m.
-- Valerie Reed, US Department of Energy -- Patrick McGinn, Institute of Marine Biosciences NRC Canada -- Ravi Shrivastava, DRDO East Meets West: A Comparison of China, Brazil, and U.S. Biofuels Policy Monday, Nov. 9, 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
-- Christina Connelly, Minnesota Department of Agriculture -- Joel Velasco, UNICA Sugar Cane Industry Association -- Dehua Liu, Tsinghua University Global Perspectives on the Bioeconomy Monday, Nov. 9, 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m." The full schedule of speakers and sessions is available at http://www.bio.org/pacrim/speakers/breakout/.
BIO also today announced that the 2010 World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing will be held in Washington, D.C., at the Gaylord National Harbor, June 27-30, 2010.
About BIO BIO represents more than 1,200 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of innovative healthcare, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products. BIO also produces the BIO International Convention, the world's largest gathering of the biotechnology industry, along with industry-leading investor and partnering meetings held around the world.
The Advanced Biofuels & Climate Change Information Center presents the latest commentary and data on the environmental and other impacts of biofuel production. Drop in and add your comments, at http://biofuelsandclimate.wordpress.com/.
Upcoming BIO Events BIO Investor Forum October 28-29, 2009 San Francisco, CA Advanced Business Development Course October 30, 2009 Vienna, Austria BIO Europe International Partnering Conference November 2-4, 2009 Vienna, Austria Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy November 8-11, 2009 Honolulu, HI SOURCE: Biotechnology Industry Organization CONTACT: BIO Paul Winters 202-962-9237 pwinters@bio.org www.bio.org Copyright Business Wire 2009
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