Today U.S. President Bush is hosting a summit in Washington with the world's biggest greenhouse-gas polluters in the quest to spur action against dangerous climate change. You can read more about that summit in this BBC online article.
With that summit as background, I thought I would put together a list of 'green' oriented companies that have the potential to help us all change the way we consume fuel.
- Akeena Solar - Akeena Solar is one of the largest U.S. installers of solar power systems
- AltraBiofuels - AltraBiofuels develops, licenses, and/or acquires biofuels technologies and places them into environmentally-sound production. The millions of gallons of biofuel that AltraBiofuels produces today – primarily ethanol from corn – are the first planks in a bridge to a more robust, environmentally-smart, bio-energy future.
- Amyris Biotechnologies: Amyris Biotechnologies is leveraging breakthroughs in synthetic biology to produce a consistent, cost-effective supply of biofuels.
- Bloom Energy (formerly Ion America) Bloom Energy wants to short-circuit electric utilities by building a power plant in every home. This will be a fuel cell that can combine water, oxygen and an energy source, like natural gas or ethanol, to produce efficient power.
- CoalTek Coaltek's proprietary technology uses electromagnetic energy to reduce the moisture, ash, sulfur and mercury in coal and to make it burn more efficiently and cleanly. The coal processed is a stable, high-quality end product that allows power generators to optimize efficiency and increase yields.
- Energy Innovations Energy Innovations is planning to deliver cost effective, grid-competitive solar electric power, so it is working on innovations in both the collection of solar energy and the generation of electric power from it.
- GreatPoint Energy GreatPoint Energy is commercializing a process for converting coal and biomass into high value clean natural gas
- Imperium Renewables IRI is a technology driven producer and provider of biodiesel. The company goal is to develop proprietary technology and processes across the value chain that enable IRI to deliver a gallon of biodiesel cheaper than a petroleum production facility can manufacture #2 diesel.
- Miasole is focused on building mass produced solar cell systems. Miasole's product takes three of the issues that have slowed adoption of solar cells—their cost, relative fragility, and uncertain availability—and eliminates them.
- Nanosolar Nanosolar is on track to make solar electricity 1) cost-efficient for ubiquitous deployment, 2) mass-produced on a global scale, and 3) available in many versatile forms.
- Nanosys Nanosys is working on a new type of solar cell that performs like a traditional solar cell, but can be configured like a light weight, flexible plastic. If successful, this technology has the potential to provide low cost solar power through currently available, high volume and inexpensive manufacturing techniques based on conventional film based processes such as roll to roll manufacturing.
- Pacific Ethanol Pacific Ethanol is producing and marketing low-carbon ethanol. In addition, Pacific Ethanol is working to identify and develop other renewable fuel technologies, such as cellulose-based ethanol production and bio-diesel
- Solaicx Solaicx is developing breakthrough manufacturing technology yielding low-cost, high-efficiency silicon wafers for the photovoltaic (PV) industry. The cost and quality advantages are then passed through the value chain of the entire silicon-based solar cell manufacturing market.
- SunPower SunPower designs, manufactures and delivers high efficiency solar electric technology worldwide for residential, commercial, and power plant applications.
- Synthetic Genomics Synthetic Genomics, Inc., is developing genomic-driven strategies to address global energy and environmental challenges. Recent advances in the field of synthetic genomics present seemingly limitless applications that could revolutionize production of energy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and enable carbon sequestration and environmental remediation.
- Tesla Motors Tesla Motors designs and sells high-performance, highly efficient electric sports cars — with no compromises. There has been a ton of hype around Tesla and the company hopes to deliver on that hype in 2008.
- Verenium (formerly Celunol) Verenium is developing process technology for cellulosic ethanol -- a clean-burning fuel derived from biological feedstocks (such as canes, grasses, hardwoods and softwoods) that are readily available outside the food chain. Processed cellulosic ethanol can lead to clean fuels with dramatically lower energy inputs and net carbon emissions.
- ClearEdge Power. Clear Edge Power is developing a fuel cell that operates on hydrogen that can be produced from any primary fuel, such as propane, natural gas, or bio-fuel.
- UltraCell UltraCell’s fuel cell technology is a high power density fuel cell system for portable electronics applications. The UltraCell system differs from most other micro fuel cells systems with its use of a revolutionary micro reformer, which generates hydrogen from highly concentrated methanol.
- HNNG Development has a proprietary technology for removing nitrogen from natural gas, allowing the company to exploit otherwise unusable natural gas pockets.