1) Smart grids/meters will take the world by storm. Annual global spending on the technology will jump to $33 billion by 2014 vs. $12 billion in 2008. That could increase electricity grids' efficiency two-fold and reduce consumers' energy consumption by 30%.

2) Oil-producing countries (particularly in the Middle East and North Africa) will become hotbeds for renewable energy. Close proximity to European markets, abundant cash to invest from oil revenues, and ideal weather conditions, especially for solar power, could pay off in a big way.

3) Sector-specific carbon cap-and-trade systems, say for the shipping or aviation industries, may take precedent over unwieldy national, regional, or global plans. Under the schemes, companies, wherever they're based, would agree to binding targets, then trade carbon credits between themselves.

That sounds all well and good, but I'm not sure I agree with all the predictions.

1/ This week a universal cell phone charger was adapted by the International Telecommunication Union, the industry's standards setting body. Sounds boring? Well imagine how many chargers the world would save if spares could be carried over from an old phone to a new one. GSMA reckons that every year, 51,000 tons of this sort of redundant chargers are made every year. The new standard also promises to cut standby power draw by 50%...

2/ Using technology from France’s Alstom, a 29-year-old power plant operated by American Electric Power in New Haven, W.V. became the first coal-fired power plant in the U.S. to capture a share of its greenhouse gas emissions and store them underground...

3/ And the Pew Research Center released authoritative survey data showing that sharply fewer Americans see solid evidence of global warming. Reasons for the shift remain unclear -- especially since other recent polls have found no such change -- but could it be that recession has soured voters' willingness to address uncertainty of any type?

As part of the 2009 Global Green Challenge, a driving duo has set a new distance record by going 311 miles on a single charge in a Tesla battery-powered car. That’s nearly 30% farther than the vehicle’s official specs.

Drivers Simon Hackett and Emilis Prelgauskas aren’t your everyday drivers. They set the record in Australia as part of the Eco Challenge, an 1,860-mile green car contest that includes vehicles powered by a variety of green fuels, from commercial diesel and hybrid cars to exotic solar-powered buggies built specifically for the race. Hackett and Prelgauskas told PC Authority that they kept the car at a constant, fairly low speed, averaging around 34 mph, to squeeze the most distance from the car’s 6,800 lithium battery cells.

Last week, I caught up with Martin Eberhard, co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors. At a manufacturing conference sponsored by Siemens in Minneapolis, Minn., Eberhard talked about the challenges of bringing Tesla from concept to showroom. Check out our chat below:

Siemens Thought Leadership from mabel lau on Vimeo.

"The Arctic is a special and fragile place on this planet,” said Jane Lubchenco in the release. She is under secretary for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. “Climate change is happening faster in the Arctic than any other place on Earth — and with wide-ranging consequences. When I visited the northern corners of Alaska’s Arctic region earlier this year, I saw an area abundant with natural resources, diverse wildlife, proud local and native peoples — and a most uncertain future. This year’s Arctic Report Card underscores the urgency of reducing greenhouse gas pollution and adapting to climate changes already under way,” she added.

The 2009 report card highlights a number of changes:

· A change in large scale wind patterns affected by the loss of summer sea ice,
· The replacement of sustained multi-year sea ice by first-year sea ice than melts and reappears yearly,
· Warmer and fresher water in the upper ocean linked to new ice-free areas,
· A continued loss of the Greenland ice sheet,
· Less snow in North America and increased runoff in Siberia, and
· The effect of the loss of sea ice on Arctic plant, animal, and fish species.

Check out the whole report card at http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard

1. York University, Schulich School of Business, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
2. University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, Ann Arbor, Mich., US.
3. Yale University, School of Management, New Haven, Conn., US.
4. Stanford University, Graduate School of Business, Palo Alto, Calif., US.
5. University of Notre Dame, Mendoza School of Business, Notre Dame, Ind., US.

For the full listing of the Global 100, and deeper details on each program, click here:
http://www.beyondgreypinstripes.org/rankings/index.cfm

And find more on this over at BW's MBA blog, "Getting in".

“Sembra” went on to hold a Q&A session, elaborating on the Chamber’s purported new position. But suddenly, Eric Wohlschlegel, the Chamber’s real press person, burst in through the back door of the Press Club’s Zenger Room. “This press conference is a hoax,” he said. “I don’t know who these people are, but they don’t represent the Chamber!”

Wohlschlegel had heard about the event just a few minutes before, when a reporter mistakenly turned up at the U.S. Chamber itself looking for the press conference. Press conference? What press conference? Hearing what it supposedly was about, Wohlschlegel rushed over to the Press Club to confront the imposters. A number of the 'reporters' in the room were also not real reporters.

It was too late for at least one media outlet. Reuters had already run a story on its webpage with the news of the Chamber’s reversal—and the story had been also picked up by the New York Times web page. Reuters ran a hasty correction. CNBC also was taken in.

Who was responsible for the hoax? My first thought was Greenpeace. After all, it was a well-organized, not inexpensive stunt. The hoaxers rented the room at the Press Club, created their own Chamber of Commerce stationary and website, and even had a phone number which led to voice mail saying “you have reached the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

But while a Greenpeace staffer was impressed by the stunt, he said his organization was not invovled. Instead, the imposters came from a prankster group called the Yes Men. In the past, they’ve been successful at impersonating everyone from a Dow Chemical spokesman (and appearing as such on BBC news) to ExxonMobil representatives.

From the first flight at Kitty Hawk, it took about 50 years to engineer the switch from spinning propellers to more efficient jet engines. Now wind technology could be about to make a similar design leap, barely a decade after the commercial industry’s birth in the U.S.

Using features drawn from jet engine design, FloDesign Wind Turbine (shown above in an artist's rendering) has developed a prototype that is three times more efficient at turning the wind into electricity than today’s towering, three-bladed models, according to CEO Stanley Kowalski III. Carefully shaped cowlings channel air into patterns that create spinning vortexes – like miniature tornadoes – as the currents exit the device. This trick accelerates the air as it pass through.

The technology could transform the commercial wind business with units that are easier to install, longer lasting, and more adaptable to a variety of environments. Today’s wind turbines can top out at 300 feet or taller, requiring a train of tractor trailers to haul tower sections and blades that are as a long as a football field. FloDesign’s new approach fits on a single rig.

Because its blades are lighter and smaller, the design starts spinning and making energy at lower wind speeds and is more tolerant of volatile wind patterns, making it a natural for windy niches where big turbines can’t fit, such as in cities, on ridgelines and beaches.

Scaled down blades also spin faster, reducing the need for the costly gear boxes that today's windmills must use to connect slow-moving rotors to a high-speed generator kits. With fewer gears and other moving parts, the company claims it can reduce the parts count in a turbine by up to 75%, thereby boosting reliability, too.

The Wilbraham (Mass.)-based company, which has also received funding from the Energy Dept., is hunting for another $25 million to deploy full scale test rigs. Last year, it landed two start-up awards from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, including cash grants of $300,000. Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers committed $6 million in venture capital in an initial funding round in 2008.

Check out more here:

That's a sizeable amount of cash, though Soros didn't specify where the $1 billion would be spent other than saying 'stringent conditions' will be used to evaluate potential investments. And in an ironic twist, Soros, who made a sizeable chunk of his fortune through currency speculation, put his support behind carbon taxes, not cap-and-trade systems. His reason? Financial investors can too easily manipulate carbon markets.

Soros is wise to keep his cards close to his chest. With so much money on the table, potential deals could be given a 'Soros premium' if the billionaire focuses on a too-narrow clean energy brief. But some of his likes/dislikes are already known. Soros, for instance, has invested in clean coal technology, including Portsmouth (NH)-based Powerspan Corp that specializes in carbon capture technology.

Yet before we start speculating too much on where Soros will spend his cash, a word of caution is merited.

Apple’s brand power is a new factor here. In withdrawing from the Chamber, Apple is turning the brightest light yet on a growing divide in corporate America over climate policy. Apple is the first highly-visible consumer brand to pull out, so will gather more attention than the outflow of other companies that have lately split from the Chamber.

Charges that Apple's vocal stand amounts to greenwashing are likely inevitable. After all, the move caps a recent green push by the company. Last week, Apple unveiled ambitious goals for greening up its internal operations and products. CEO Steve Jobs granted BusinessWeek a rare interview on the topic, arguing that it should be granted credit for the energy efficiency gains of its computer products. And on Oct. 5, following years of bad press for lagging on green IT initiatives, Apple finally some kudos from an environmental group.

If charges that Apple is acting on self interest surface, keep in mind what’s at work at the Chamber. Having failed to undermine the scientific underpinnings of climate change, opponents of climate policy, including the Chamber, have moved on to an argument that it amounts to ruinous economic policy, despite studies to the contrary. Yet many of the most vocal champions of this line –- particularly Big Oil –- have earned decades of super-sized profits selling carbon-rich products. They don’t make for very sympathetic victims of a move towards climate policy. Their argument deftly shifts concerns to those of public interest, away from an underlying animus of protecting profits at the cost of the environment. At it’s worst, this is a far more cynical work of spin than green washing.

Taking this line, Big Oil and Big Coal risk public and political backlash in the event of another catalyzing environmental disaster – think of a Hurricane Katrina on Long Island. Public concern after New Orleans was leveled ratchetd-up a level, and has stayed high. Future climate-related disasters will boost public anxiety and raise frustration with companies seen as obstructing environmental protection.

Apple has a way of a drawing lightning to issues, merely because of its cultish brand power, and even if it's not the first. Apple's move follows similar pullouts by three utilities, Exelon (EXC), Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and PNM Resources (PNM). General Electric and Johnson & Johnson have also gone public with their disagreement with chamber policy, but have stuck around. And Nike has pulled out the chamber’s board, but hasn’t withdrawn completely. Whether this move sparks more corporations to follow suit remains to be seen.

Apple's announcement stands out also because of the starkness of its statement. Apple vice president of government affairs Catherine Novelli wrote three curt paragraphs to Tom Donohue, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce:

"We strongly object to the Chamber’s recent comments opposing the EPA’s effort to limit greenhouse gases… Apple supports regulating greenhouse gas emissions, and it is frustrating to find the Chamber at odds with us in this effort… we have decided to end our membership immediately."

Full text here: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/business/apple-chamber.pdf

More importantly, third-quarter investment fell 10% compared to capital raised between April and June, 2009 (see graph below). Europe pulled in the lion's share of cash ($8.8 billion of asset finance), vs. just $1.2 billion for the U.S.

"The structure of the U.S. stimulus program effectively brought project finance to a halt as developers waited to ensure they qualified for grants or debt guarantees," Michael Liebreich, New Energy Finance's chief executive, said in a statement. "Now that there is an infrastructure in place to disburse funds, we expect investment activity in the U.S. to accelerate sharply in Q4 and into 2010."

For sure, cash is expected to start flowing. New Energy Finance reckons over $37 billion will be invested in the fourth quarter of the year alone. That would be the largest quarterly influx of cash into the sector since the end of 2007. It would also take total annual clean energy investment to at least $105 billion this year.

Yet surpassing the $100 billion figure isn't a sign green energy has recovered to the pre-credit crunch norms. Last year, for instance, total industry investment topped $155 billion. It'll still be some time before the sector reaches those levels again.

These estimates are notoriously unreliable, however, because it’s very difficult for economic models to take into account innovations that might occur as the result of a cap on carbon emissions. In fact, the reassuring lesson from history is that new regulations, such as the 1990 rules on acid rain, usually spur enough clear ideas to both reduce costs below predictions and deliver greater benefits.

There are already many hints of such innovations, from more efficient solar cells to new ways to tap geothermal power. But consider just one area—carbon dioxide. If emissions curbs are enacted, many powerplants and factories will be forced to capture the carbon dioxide now coming out of their smokestacks. That’s a fairly costly process. And there are thorny questions about how and whether that carbon dioxide can be safely stored, such as by pumping it into the ground.

But the economics and prospects start to look better if valuable uses can be found for that CO2 – and a number of interesting ideas are beginning to emerge. Carbon Sciences in Santa Barbara, Calif, envisions using catalysts to turn the carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. Scores of algae companies plan to bubble the CO2 through vats of algae to make oils, chemicals, and biofuels. In a recent deal, Dow Chemical partnered with Algenol Biofuels to experiment with using some of Dow’s CO2 to make ethanol as an alternative feedstock for chemicals. “It’s a way to capture the value of the carbon,” explains Rich A. Wells, vice president for energy, climate change, and alternative feedstocks at Dow.

The biggest potential use, though, may be an ironic one—boosting production of oil. Carbon dioxide is already pumped down into old oil fields to push up more petroleum—a process called enhanced oil recovery. If more carbon dioxide becomes available, this practice can be greatly expanded. J. Wayne Leonard, CEO of New Orleans-based utility, Entergy, points out that his region is carpeted with old wells that are no longer producing oil. “We have people knocking on our doors” looking for carbon dioxide, he says. “They say, ‘we own so much property with so much oil that we’d like to get, and we just need some CO2 to get it back up.’” That means revenue for utilities that capture their CO2 emissions, helping them offset the costs of capturing it in the first place.

It also means more domestic oil production. How much? According to government estimates, as much as 40-60 billion barrels of oil could be made accessible with enhanced oil recovery approaches. Tapping into that oil could put a huge dent in imports of foreign petroleum, now running between 11 and 13 million barrels of oil per day. “U.S. production could go up by 5 million barrels of oil per day, making Americans more secure,” says Dan Lashof, director of NRDC’s climate center.

Toss in more fuel efficient cars (including plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles) and it’s possible to imagine cutting U.S. oil consumption by another 4-5 million barrels per day. That would virtually eliminate the need to import any oil at all—and would keep the $300 billion spent each year on imported oil at home.

Now, the Europeans are at it again. According to news agency Reuters, the EU will soon select 25 to 30 cities across the continent to become test beds for eco-friendly technologies. The selected few will invest in renewables, energy efficient products, and so-called smart grids to reduce their overall emissions. The goal, according to internal EU documents seen by Reuters, is to 'promote hi-tech solutions to climate change to give European businesses a head start as the world switches to low-carbon energy.'

Focusing on the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad, Kirkland shows how big rail carriers, who have done well hauling coal from the plains states, are already having trouble funding expansions in coal regions because of worries that coal use will fall if a fee is placed on emitting carbon. From this perspective, railroads have reason to fight any carbon policy.

Yet, just such a charge is likely to help the railroads in most other markets. Once the cost of diesel fuel goes up, more shippers will switch away from long-haul tractor trailers, and onto more fuel-efficient railroads. This is a good reason for the rail executives to pushing for charges on carbon. Kirkland writes,

But for many [rail carriers], the outlook is mixed, as well. Long-term investments in new and upgraded rails and depots will depend on how mandatory carbon reductions hit electric utilities, chemical makers, steel makers, car companies and manufacturers. Part of the coal business might get derailed, but the cost of hauling goods could push an increasing number of trucks off of congested highways and shift their cargo onto train cars, which use far less fuel to haul a ton of goods.

Read more here: "Big Coal Carriers Navigate a Risky Climate Track"

* Cleantech Leader of the Year: Mossadiq Umedalyan, chairman of BC Hydro.

* Cleantech Pioneer Award: Stanford Ovshinsky, chairman & CEO of Ovshinksy Innovation LLC and Jorgen Mads Clausen Clausen is the Chairman of Danfoss.

* Most Promising Technology: Ener-G-Rotors Inc, for a system that converts heat directly into electricity.

* Cleantech Emerging Enterprise of the Year: SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG.