According to ECOtality’s first report of financial information since the grant award, released yesterday afternoon, the company saw revenue drop to $1.9 million during the three months ending September 30, down from $2.9 million in the same period last year — a change that ECOtality attributes largely to “the effect of the slowing economy and the focusing of resources on securing the DOE contract.” Meanwhile, operating expenses for the quarter jumped to $11.4 million, up from just $1.9 million a year earlier — an increase the company attributes primarily to bonuses paid to three executives after eTec snagged the DOE award.

The DOE grant this summer, allocated under the battery funding program created as part of the stimulus package, came toward the end of a somewhat grim period for ECOtality. The company describes some hard hits as a result of the economic downturn in 2008. ECOtality’s plans for growth “did not adequately capture the magnitude nor the speed of the economic down turn and its subsequent impact in even the alternative energy field,” the company writes. “These external forces restricting growth and access to capital simultaneously resulted in our financing options being very limited and expensive.”

For the first three quarters of this year, as in the second half of 2008, ECOtality has missed its growth targets and seen lower-than-expected revenue from manufacturing and sales of consulting services. Still keeping its eye on expansion — and the initial requirements of the DOE project — the company has recently filled its coffers with the DOE grant, $8 million from the California Energy Commission for the stimulus-funded infrastructure project and $15.5 million in equity financing, in addition to a conversion of $9.1 million in corporate bonds to equity. ECOtality also announced in September that it has formed two joint ventures with China’s Shenzhen Goch Investment in order to manufacture, assemble and sell EV charging equipment in China (SGI is slated to contribute $15 million for the effort).

During the next year, ECOtality expects to add “significant numbers” of employees to carry out the stimulus-funded project, although it also plans to outsource some research, development and production activities.

ECOtality and eTec (other subsidiaries have maintained a lower profile) are riding high these days, serving as a poster child of sorts for the Obama Administration’s commitment to electric vehicles (ECOtality CEO Jonathan Read joined the 40-person delegation accompanying Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke for a clean energy roundtable organized as part of President Obama’s visit to the country). We’ll be interested to see how the company evolves over the course of the three-year, government-supported project, and what type of competitor will emerge at the end of the stimulus tunnel.

GE has announced two deals related to rail this morning, including an agreement with China’s Ministry of Railways to advance partnerships that would allow the company to pursue high-speed rail projects in the U.S. with manufacturing provided by a Chinese partner (GE doesn’t currently manufacture locomotives for these types of projects). And it’s formed a joint venture with CSR Qishuyan to develop, build and service GE’s most fuel-efficient line of diesel locomotive engines, the Evolution Series, in China and eventually other countries as well.

Beyond rail, GE announced it has formed a joint venture with Shenhua Group Corp. to research and develop lower-cost “cleaner coal” technologies. The U.S. Trade Development Agency will finance the “initial steps” toward a coal power plant in China using GE’s “integrated gasification combined cycle,” or IGCC, technology.

GE already has a significant presence in China, running 36 wholly owned or joint venture companies and employing more than 13,000 people. But as the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report notes, GE’s latest deals (including yet another joint venture, this one to produce software systems for airplanes, with the state-owned Aviation Industry Corp.), reflect a larger trend:

“Whether it’s autos or high-speed train locomotives, China’s markets are the only ones in the world still growing strongly. That puts China’s industrial state planners…in the driving seat as they negotiate with companies from the U.S., Germany and Japan who come knocking at the door. The trade is market access for technology.”

GE’s announcements coincide with President Obama’s visit to China this week and a set of agreements between the two countries on energy and transportation. This morning, President Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao announced plans to cooperate on electric vehicle standards and demo projects, cleaner coal technology development, renewable energy planning and other projects.

Since its founding last year, Porifera has been focusing on applications using carbon nanotube membranes — tiny, ultra-slippery, hollow arrangements of carbon atoms that allow gases and liquids to flow through at a rapid pace, while blocking larger molecules — for desalination. And just last week, the Livermore lab announced that Porifera has secured an exclusive license for the technology, which members of Porifera’s executive team helped develop.

But now the company is also digging into carbon capture applications, since Porifera — in partnership with the Livermore lab and UC Berkeley — has snagged a federal grant for the work under the Department of Energy’s program for high-risk green energy technologies.

Chief Technology Officer Olgica Bakajin (pictured at left), who joined Porifera this summer, headed up the research team that first demonstrated at Livermore the behavior of liquids and gases flowing through a carbon nanotube membrane (suggesting the potential for a cheaper, more efficient desalination tech). She described the basic discovery in a release from the lab back in 2006 as: “This is like having  a garden hose that can deliver as much water in the same amount of time as a fire hose that is ten times larger.”

In an interview on Monday, Bakajin explained how Porifera has prioritized its work, starting first with desalination and now expanding into carbon capture: “With desalination, if you can lower the price and energy use, everybody wants it. If you can make the membrane we think we can make, the market issues are not as big a deal.”

Carbon capture, by contrast, remains unproven at commercial scale. So without funding under the DOE’s high-risk fund, ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy), Porifera would not have been venturing into that nascent market at this early stage, said Bakajin. “It’s a little more difficult on the market side.” So why not request ARPA-E funds for the desalination tech Porifera already had in the works? “From our read,” said Bakajin, “we did not think desalination fit in with the solicitation focused on energy.”

Porifera is not the only company trying to commercialize the carbon nanotube membrane research from Livermore. Porifera has the license, and several members of the original research team, but another San Francisco Bay Area startup — NanOasis — has recruited one of the principal investigators on the Livermore project, Jason Holt, and won an ARPA-E grant to help accelerate its work on a carbon nanotube membrane for desalination applications.

Desalination may present fewer hurdles than carbon capture at this point, and Porifera has already secured a $3.3 million grant from the Defense Department’s DARPA program to develop a more efficient desalinator, but both companies still have a long climb ahead on the road to commercial-scale deployment of desal tech.

As NanOasis founder and President Christopher Kennedy commented earlier this month, desalination projects are “particularly capital intensive” and can encounter political opposition (especially in California, where groups have raised concerns about damage to aquatic life, coastal wetlands and other environmental impacts) in addition to the high energy demands and high costs that the two startups hope to address with their more efficient technology.

In addition, a more efficient desalination system will require a lot more than superior membranes. “Salt removal is just one little piece,” said Bakajin. For the DARPA project, meant to produce a small, affordable water desalinator within three years, she said Porifera is working with partners and, “taking three or four new technologies,” each of which represents its own breakthrough, “and putting them together in one device.”

According to Bakajin, at least two other entities were competing for the license from Livermore, which she said came through in June, about a month before Bakajin joined Porifera. “Broad knowledge was gathered — the initial IP and subsequent filings. Somebody was going to license this,” she said.

That somebody wasn’t NanOasis. “The bottom line for us is that what was done at Livermore proved the concept,” Kennedy told me in an email, explaining why the company chose not to license. “But one cannot follow the processes developed at Livermore to make a commercial product except for possibly some very narrow, niche applications.” In other words, it lacked special sauce. That’s part of what these startups are racing to create.

Graphics courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Lab

As Chin explained to me for an article on GigaOM Pro this week (our subscription-based research service), the MoD concept involves a comprehensive system in which city residents would be able to rent an electric car, scooter or bicycle when and where they need it in order to bridge the “last mile” gap in many public transit systems (e.g. getting between the subway station and your final destination).

Rather than having to return a vehicle borrowed from a car-sharing network to the station where you picked it up (two-way car sharing, which is what ZipCar offers), you’d be able to drop it off at a station close to your destination (one-way car sharing), and likewise for bikes.

Daimler has a pilot program called car2go in Germany and Austin, Texas, in which registered members can rent a Smart Fortwo car by the minute, hour or day, and then return it to any unoccupied parking space within a set operation area, and there are also examples of MoD-type services run by advertisers through public-private partnerships, explained Chin.

But we have yet to see a company do for MoD, what Zipcar, U-Haul, Hertz and other companies are now doing for 2-way car sharing: build a lasting business out of it, and push it toward the mainstream.

Here’s where the algorithm comes in: Google won the search business by building a better engine than anyone else. The company that outperforms competitors in MoD — always having a vehicle available within a reasonable time, using the least number of vehicles for the largest number of users — said Chin, will be the one that “builds a better engine based on historic and current data than anyone else.”

As we move into the era of Car 2.0 — in which vehicles are connected to the power grid as well as communication networks — an unprecedented amount of data will be collected regarding about where, when and how we drive, fuel up and get around. The trick is to analyze and manage that data, and turn it into something useful.

With processing power in the arsenal, a company could find itself holding a valuable technology for not only consumer transit networks, but also, we’ve explained over on Pro, corporate fleet managers, electric vehicle charging infrastructure providers and even smartphone app developers.

Some of the 10 green picks on the list of 50 inventions, like the YikeBike electric bicycle and the World First Formula 3 race car design that uses materials derived from carrots and cashews, seem unlikely to have much impact long term. But others, such as the solar shingle from Dow Chemical, the energy dashboard from EnergyHub (or similar devices from competitors) and NASA and Cisco’s “Planetary Skin,” show 2009 has been a powerhouse year for a range of green innovations.

The best part of Time’s list? You can interactively rank the inventions yourself on the site on a scale of 1 (not important) to 100 (very important). How would you rank these 10 green innovations?

Philips L Prize LED (#3): Philips Electronics has developed a light-emitting diode (LED) bulb said to produce as much light as a 60W incandescent bulb using less than 10W, and lasting 25 times as long.

EnergyHub Dashboard (#4): Technically, EnergyHub’s high-end energy dashboard wasn’t invented in 2009 (the company was already developing a pilot trial last December). But the device contains enough computing power to provide detailed Google-style spreadsheets for programming your energy usage, and offers features such as comparing your home’s energy usage to that of other EnergyHub users or week-to-week energy consumption.

Princeton’s Personal Carbon Footprinting (#12): Researchers from Princeton University suggest measuring carbon emissions at the individual, rather than national, level. After all, writes Time, “It’s the well-off people of the world — in Indiana or India — who are responsible for most carbon emissions.”

Dow Powerhouse Solar Shingle (#13): Dow Chemical introduced a new roof shingle this year that incorporates thin-film solar cells. It can be installed alongside regular asphalt shingles, and double as a solar panel — at at a price 10-15 percent cheaper than existing solar panels.

YikeBike Electric Bicycle (#15): It folds, runs on a lithium phosphate battery, weighs about 20 pounds and can zip you around town at up to 12 MPH. Yes, it’s the YikeBike, priced at €3,500-€3,900. I’ll stick with my lighter-weight and much cheaper regular bike, thanks.

Valcent Hydroponic Vertical Farming (#16): Texas-based Valcent has developed a high-density hydroponic farming system for growing food plants using a stack of rotating trays. The company claims it will use 5 percent 95 percent less water than conventional agriculture, increase crop yields 20-fold for the same amount of land, and eliminate pesticide and herbicide use.

NASA and Cisco’s Planetary Skin (#17): NASA and Cisco plan to release a prototype next year of a cool data gathering tool that Time describes as “a global ‘nervous system’ that will integrate land-, sea-, air- and space-based sensors, helping the public and private sectors make decisions to prevent and adapt to climate change.”

Nissan LEAF Electric Sedan (#25): After a series of delays, name changes, deals and design tweaks over the last two years, three automakers (Tesla Motors, Coda Automotive and Nissan) have unveiled their visions for a first generation of all-electric family vehicles in recent months. Time picks the 2010 Nissan LEAF, calling it “the first fully electric vehicle built for mass production for the global market.”

Schneider’s Packing Algorithm (#37): Want to pack more goods in fewer containers? If your goods are discs of different sizes, then Johannes Schneider is your man. His research team at the University of Mainz has developed an algorithm that’s “better at detecting false starts and backtracking when it hits on an inelegant configuration,” and could help shipping companies pack more efficiently.

World First F3 (#40): A Formula 3 race car developed at the University of Warwick runs on a mix of chocolate and vegetable oil, has a coating on its radiator that converts ozone emissions into oxygen, and components made with carrot fibers, potato starch and cashew shells.

Graphics courtesy of the companies and universities; footprint photo courtesy of Flickr user JoJo Johnson

According to a new report out this week from technology and consultancy giant Accenture, one or more — but almost certainly not all — of a dozen low-carbon transportation fuels now under development could transform that market (which accounts for about half of global primary oil consumption and up to 30 percent of global carbon emissions) within a decade.

What will make a fuel technology disruptive? According to Accenture, it will have to: reduce hydrocarbon fuel demand by more than 20 percent (in other words, scale up) by 2030 and result in at least 30 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions compared to the conventional fossil fuel it’s replacing. It will also have to be within reach from a business standpoint, meaning it will be commercially available within five years and be competitive with oil priced at $45-90 per barrel.

These 12 technologies are “in play,” although government policies will have a significant effect on which ones emerge as winners in coming years.

• Next-generation internal combustion engine
• Next-generation agriculture
• Waste-to-fuel
• Marine scrubbers
• Synthetic biology (sugar-cane-to-diesel)
• Butanol
• Bio-crude
• Algae
• Airline drop-ins
• PHEV/EV/electrification engines
• Charging
• Vehicle-to-grid (V2G)

The shift that Accenture expects to arrive as a result of these technologies is not just from one fuel to another, but also from a market that relies primarily on fuels derived from hydrocarbons to one with more variation from country to country. The firm explains:

“Although most technologies will be widely available, local conditions will determine different weightings, with Brazil focusing on sugar cane-based fuels, South Korea and Japan on electrification, and China and the United States on all fuel options.”

For companies developing new transportation fuels, Accenture has four recommendations. Scientists and engineers should hold leadership positions, the firm advises — and not just for the sake of tech development. They can also help influence regulations and government policy.

Companies also need to have strong connections and improved cooperation, says Accenture, across multiple sectors — as auto companies, battery developers and utilities are starting to do for plug-in vehicle technology and infrastructure.

And of course the firm, which provides project management, supply chain optimization and risk management services, advises fuel developers to focus on these three management areas to get an edge.

Gas pump photo courtesy of Flickr user Mingo.nl; charts courtesy of Accenture

Silver’s appointment to the role of executive director of the loan programs comes as part of an effort, the DOE says, to “strengthen and streamline” the agency’s operations. Having left the Washington, D.C.-based firm Core Capital Partners (where he was the managing general partner) last year, Silver will now oversee the application process, analysis and negotiation for loans and guarantees under the two programs, as well as staffing. According to a release from the DOE, he will also manage “the full range of the Department’s alternative energy investments.”

This week’s announcement comes two years after then-Senator Obama’s energy plan called for the government to invest in green technologies in a similar way to venture capital firms, by pooling a venture fund and doling out funding tranches (an idea criticized by New Energy Finance as showing a “certain naivete“). It also comes less than a year after New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman gave voice to the notion that the feds should provide capital to VCs themselves (a scheme soundly rejected by Benchmark Capital partner Bill Gurley).

Silver’s appointment, however, is hardly a case of D.C. turning to Silicon Valley for guidance. Silver is very much a man of the beltway. In addition to working in private investment (you can read more about his background here), he served as an adviser to the Secretaries of Commerce, Interior and Treasury during the Clinton administration, and as Forbes noted in a 2006 profile, Core Capital “counts its Washington expertise as a defining specialty,” although it doesn’t explicitly seek to invest in companies selling to the federal government. (The firm focuses on Series A and B rounds for alternative energy, advanced manufacturing, telecommunications and software companies.)

Silver told Forbes that Core would typically select as few as 8-10 investments from up to 4,000 pitches each year. For the popular and competitive programs he’s now overseeing, that experience searching for gems should come in handy.

Founded by Ed Maklouf, who also created a text messaging startup called Siine, Taxi2 is partnering with Virgin as part of the airline’s UK government-backed VJAM program. It’s not a total solution, but Taxi2 could provide a piece of the puzzle for reducing emissions from transportation by offering an alternative to airport shuttles, personal vehicles and solo cab rides for travelers.

Here’s how Taxi2 works: If you’re open to sharing a cab with someone between the airport and your hotel, for example (in either direction), you register on the Taxi2 web site. You’ll then get suggestions for “suitable traveling companions,” (women can opt to be paired only with other women) as Virgin puts it, and then you can decide whether to agree to one of the matches and arrange to meet up, via anonymous user names and email addresses. The site also provides maps to compare destinations, instructions for the taxi driver in the local language and three options for how to split the cost.

The idea of connecting strangers with online tools to share cab rides is not in itself new. Startups including Ride Amigos, CabEasy.com and Hitchsters also match passengers for shared taxi trips and rides. And earlier this year, New York City approved a pilot program to outfit 1,000 “share cabs” with LED screens and new meters to display a passenger’s destination, so others can hail the cab and hop in if they’re going in the same direction.

Pulling profit out of these free services presents hurdles, however (CabEasy says it might offer premium paid accounts with extra features in the future), so Taxi2’s pairing with Virgin — a company trying to brand itself as a cooler, more social way to travel — could be a wise bet.

An important component missing from the Taxi2 service at this point is the ability to log in, update preferences and travel information (a flight delay for example) on the go through your phone. According to Maklouf, who says in today’s release that he’s hoping for a worldwide rollout, that’s the next step. He’s now working on a version of the service for mobile devices.

That’s the picture being portrayed in solar earnings reports, and the conference calls to discuss them this week. Real Goods Solar said on Thursday that its revenue in the third quarter rose 122 percent compared with the same period last year, including the addition of companies it’s acquired in the past year. Excluding those acquisitions, revenue still grew 41 percent. John Schaeffer, Real Goods Solar’s president, said a lot of the increase came from homeowners. In a statement, he noted that the company saw “the return of strong demand for residential solar” during the third quarter.

Real Goods, whose stock rose 12 percent Thursday, is a relatively small company in the solar industry, with $60 million in revenue expected this year. But it’s one of the bigger players in the highly fragmented market for selling and installing solar systems, which offers it a good perspective on overall demand, supply and pricing.

In Real Goods’ earnings call Thursday, executives said that manufacturer prices had plunged 35-40 percent in the past year. Smaller solar installers bent on increasing volume have added fuel to the price drop. Real Goods maintains that it kept its margins higher than competitors, helping it to snap up other solar installers who priced themselves into losses.

Even so, margins dropped at Real Goods to 21.8 percent from 27.2 percent for the same quarter a year ago, partly because it acquired lower-margin companies. But as module manufacturers clear out their inventories, CEO Erik Zech said:

“It’s beginning to stabilize, and we are beginning to slow down [the dropping of] our prices as well. We’re not trying to race to the bottom as some smaller companies out there are doing. We’re trying to keep [average selling prices] up higher to benefit from margin expansion. But we are beginning to get to pricing bottom for the next three to six months, and what happens after that is anyone’s guess.”

In fact, Real Goods has shifted from a just-in-time strategy with suppliers such as Sharp and SunPower — which has cut its inventory in half in the past nine months — to rebuilding enough of a backlog that its installers can draw from it. “Supply and demand in the market has radically changed,” Zech said.

That should come as somewhat good news for solar module manufacturers, but not all are feeling so good. Evergreen Solar saw its stock rise 9 percent as it beat analyst expectations. But the company had to reassure investors that it had “significant cash to meet our operating needs” — which is like reminding someone you have enough blood to keep your heart going.

Evergreen also said it cut manufacturing costs by 17 percent to $2.24 per watt in the quarter. And it plans to do so further by outsourcing more of its work to Chinese manufacturers. But some analysts worried whether it could cut costs as fast as prices were falling.

Photo courtesy of Real Goods Solar

The pair announced plans last week (h/t Green Car Congress) for MIT to collaborate with three universities in Singapore to develop models and tools for planning and operating an urban transportation system using networked computing, controls, advanced simulations, devices for gathering and analyzing real-time information and other technologies.This new project comes as the fourth and latest initiative of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre. While high-tech transportation research is hardly new ground for MIT, the university notes in its announcement that the project “will be a significant increase in the scale” of the transportation research that MIT students and faculty now have in the works.

“When addressing issues today, especially those affecting the climate, it is not sufficient to take complex problems apart and merely investigate incremental improvements to their components,” so collaboration on this scale is necessary, MIT Dean of Engineering Subra Suresh said in the project announcement.

The heart of the Singapore project will be a simulation platform called SimMobility, which models factors such as land and energy use, environmental impacts, and commercial activities related to transportation systems, according to MIT. Using data generated by networked computing and control technology, as well as “new analytical tools that harness real-time information and management systems,” the researchers plan to design and evaluate mobility systems for Singapore at first, but eventually have a global reach.

Ultimately, this kind of research fits into the larger system surrounding what we’ve called Car 2.0 — a transportation system for the digital age, in which vehicles are connected to the power grid as well as communication networks.

As Amedeo Odoni, MIT professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who will lead the project, said, “Can we bring together the extraordinary recent advances in information technology and transportation science and increase the capacity and efficiency of urban transportation systems to provide high-quality service to urban travelers?” MIT and its collaborators aim to find out.

Stedman didn’t give more details about what those new growth objectives might be, but the company is clear about the value proposition of its wastewater treatment technology. The company says its system operates on 80 percent less power, has as little as half the capital costs and is physically smaller (important for space-constrained real estate developers) than competing technologies. The filtration system is also modular, with individual systems treating between 250,000 and 1 million gallons per day, offering flexibility and the ability for clients to scale up as demand changes.MicroMedia’s technology is a combination of physical and chemical processes that are managed by a computer-control system. Wastewater passes through a screening process to remove solids and is then filtered, where a coagulant captures contaminants before they are removed through washing. The treated water can then be discharged into nearby water bodies, such as by a municipal water treatment center, or used for irrigation by a real estate development, for example. The latter could become increasingly popular since the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system encourages reuse of water on-site.

There has been growing recognition among the investment community that the treatment and delivery of clean water offers plenty of opportunities, but so far venture capitalists have been hesitant to make bets in the space. Venture heavyweight Kleiner Perkins, for example, hadn’t made a single water investment until July this year when it backed Applied Process Technology. And U.S. water tech companies raised only $62 million, about 1.2 percent of all cleantech investing, in 2008, according to Dow Jones VentureSource figures.

This latest announcement marks SAIL Venture Partner’s second funding of a water tech company, the first being Irvine, Calif.-based WaterHealth International, which develops decentralized water purification systems largely targeted for the developing world. Interestingly, both MicroMedia and WaterHealth are fairly mature firms, with the latter having reorganized in 2004 (though originally founded in 1995). SAIL appears to be placing its water bets in companies with proven technologies.

Photo courtesy of MicroMedia Filtration

Chu has called for focus on (and investment in) carbon capture before, telling an audience of energy ministers at the Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum earlier this month that an “aggressive timeline” for developing the technology is needed to address climate change. At that event, in London, he said the tech needs to be ready for “widespread, affordable deployment” within 8-10 years.

This morning Chu said that carbon capture and storage technology as it exists today would increase the cost of generating energy from coal by about 80 percent. “That is too high,” he said. “We have a road map of how to get down to 20-25 percent, which is tolerable.”

Among the possible routes to that goal, he said, are “some really new, high-risk ideas.” The ARPA-E program, designed to fund exactly those kinds of ideas through crucial phases of development, is supporting five carbon capture projects in the first round of 37 awards announced today.

In the long run, however, Chu expects many more technologies to find a niche in a carbon capture boom. Asked if he sees a role for “carbon recycling,” or if emissions captured from power plants will necessarily be buried underground, Chu gave a nod to algae-based solutions. “There are strains of algae being bred” that thrive with exposure to carbon dioxide. Ultimately, he said, “We don’t know what’s really going to take hold. But we do know that several dozen things need to happen.”

As analyst Mark Bunger, who heads up Lux Research’s Biosciences division, told us recently, algae fuel developers — a fertile area for entrepreneurial activity these days — could gain new interest from investors and potential buyers who see the international carbon capture buildout as proof that there’s a market for recycling the carbon emissions from power plants.

According to Chu, the benefits could go both ways, with “economic use” of carbon dioxide helping to promote deployment of carbon capture technology more quickly.

But the quarter wasn’t all about the smart grid. Battery companies — focused both on vehicles and consumer electronics — fared well, drawing attention from venture capitalists, the government and larger companies looking at batteries as a good business to be in. A123 Systems’ IPO was the big story in batteries this quarter, and it actually exceeded expectations. Lithium-ion batteries — the technology of choice for the upcoming generation of electric vehicles — have gained enough momentum to spark concerns about limited lithium resources.

Talk of going “beyond lithium” began in earnest this quarter, too. As companies race to bring down costs and boost the performance of li-ion, others are looking ahead to other technologies (such as the experimental lithium-air tech discussed at IBM’s conference).

Stimulus funds also gave a big boost to plug-in electric vehicles this quarter as several hundred million dollars were allocated for charging infrastructure projects, and new smart charging technologies were unveiled. Meanwhile, Big Oil was going nuts for algae, with Exxon, Chevron and BP all making major investments in algae-based fuels. Biofuels in general seem to be coming back from the dead a bit; in addition to all the algae interest, several venture firms made funding announcements this quarter tied to the space.

While everyone’s a little concerned about what happens “beyond stimulus,” solar and wind have the most to worry about: When federal funds and state grants leave town, there’s still no one standing there willing to take on the financial burden of project financing for large-scale renewable energy projects.

A more in-depth look at these trends and others is available in the latest Quarterly Wrap-ups in our five focus areas — NewNet, Mobile, Green IT, Connected Consumer, and Infrastructure. These quarterly reviews are available to GigaOM Pro subscribers, along with dozens of detailed research briefings and in-depth articles on specific topics in each of these areas. You can subscribe here.

At the World Food Prize in Des Moines, Iowa today, Gates announced that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded $120 million in nine new grants to organizations and research partners (including $15 million for the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa), to work on the effort, focusing primarily on small-scale farming in sub-Saharan Africa. In his speech Gates called for an end to the ideological division over the future of agriculture: “Productivity or sustainability — they say you have to choose. It’s a false choice,” he said. Rather, we need farming techniques that are both environmentally responsible and highly productive, and technology will help bridge the gap, he said.

Today’s grants are being awarded for projects including distribution of legumes that fix nitrogen in the soil and pest-resistant sweet potatoes, training for African governments to “draw on as they regulate biotechnologies,” help for women farmers in India to manage land and water resources sustainably and programs to deliver information to farmers via radio and mobile phones. The awards come as part of the $1.4 billion that the Gates Foundation has committed so far for agricultural development efforts — promoting techniques such as no-till farming (explained in the video clip below), rainwater harvesting and drip irrigation.

The Gates Foundation has drawn criticism, as the Seattle Times points out today, for focusing too strongly “on technology solutions and higher yields, a path that risks repeating the mistakes of the original Green Revolution.” But a growing number of firms, including startups and small companies, are working on a new wave of agricultural tech that could play an important role in a real green shift.

Climate change is raising the stakes for agricultural tech as the world population grows and the amount of arable land shrinks. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, farmers will have to deal with “increased potential” for extreme events like droughts, floods and heat waves,” and “enduring changes in climate, water supply and soil moisture could make it less feasible to continue crop production in certain regions.” More mouths to feed, plus less arable land and changing rainfall patterns, means growing demand for tech that lets farmers do more with less.

Venture capitalist David Anthony, founding partner of 21Ventures and a frequent co-investor with Quercus Trust, thinks that “aeroponic farming,” or farms in urban environments that use technology like LEDs to grow crops, will find a growing market. His firm invested in Aero Farm Systems, a New York-based startup that develops tech-heavy urban farming processes. In general, Anthony thinks that advanced farming techniques are an under-invested area where his firm sees promise.

A slew of companies are also working on smart water management technology, and some of them could extend to agricultural applications. PureSense, for example, uses soil moisture sensors and sends data via wireless networks to irrigation control systems.

Other companies are helping small-scale farmers bring their surplus foods to market using technology and the broadband age. Take FarmsReach, a California startup that won the audience choice award at our Green:Net conference in March. The 2-year-old company has developed a web marketplace to make it easier for buyers, such as restaurants, hospitals and schools, to order produce from nearby farmers, and for farmers to manage their sales and deliveries.

FarmsReach has been designed with the U.S. food system in mind, but other iterations — perhaps utilizing mobile devices for areas without ready computer or broadband access — could be useful elsewhere. Gates spoke to that need today, urging food companies to “buying power to provide markets for small farmers,” although, “the logistics might be more complex at first.”

Of course, the farmers and communities that the Gates Foundation is seeking to serve with these grants need low-cost solutions, and much of the technology emerging from startups right now still has a ways to go on the cost curve. As Pacific Institute co-founder Peter Gleick put it at this year’s Clean-Tech Investor Summit, “It’s entirely possible to create brilliant water technology that the places that need it the most can’t afford.” So we second the call from Gates for a “greener” revolution, with an extra nudge for startups to  put technology to work for small farmers and the planet.

Photo credit Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

While some of the findings shouldn’t astonish — solar, smart grid and biofuels are three of the fastest expanding cleantech sectors — others like the 15 hottest U.S. metropolitan areas for clean-energy jobs and a listing of median salaries for a range of cleantech work provide interesting insight.  

Given Clean Edge’s consistent bullishness on cleantech, it’s no surprise that the report is broadly optimistic about the sector’s capacity to create jobs in coming years. According to the authors, the current economic crisis could accelerate the transition to a clean-energy economy and major global trends — increasing action on carbon emissions reduction, lessening dependence on volatile fossil fuel prices and supplies, growing government leadership on clean energy — point to “huge potential growth” in cleantech employment. The number of jobs created could be in the “millions” in a wide range of cleantech sectors, but the report does not forecast more specific growth numbers or give a timescale for when those “millions” of jobs might be created. (The Clean Edge report does cite a recent Pew Charitable Trusts report that found cleantech jobs grew 9.1 percent from 1998 to 2007, compared with 3.7 percent growth for all U.S. jobs.)

The top five sectors for U.S. cleantech job activity — based on a combination of job placements, postings, and public and private investments — are solar; biofuels and biomaterials; conservation and efficiency; smart grid; and wind power, according to Clean Edge. But the report lists other key sectors, grouped under four categories, in which cleantech jobs are now emerging (see the chart below, courtesy Clean Edge).

Clean Edge worked with PayScale, a publisher of work-compensation data, to conduct a survey to determine median salary and wage compensation for a range of cleantech jobs. See the report (available for free as a PDF download), for a more comprehensive overview, but a sampling of salaries include: energy auditor for green buildings ($48,500 median pay); mechanical engineer for electric vehicles ($63,600); and solar energy systems designer ($42,600). Interestingly, the highest median salary listed was for project developers of renewable energy ($106,000) and the lowest was for insulation workers ($36,100).

Where are all these jobs being created? Clean Edge evaluated current and historical job postings, early stage and public market investment activity, cleantech job presence, and clean-energy patent activity to come up with the top 15 U.S. metropolitan areas for cleantech jobs (see list below). But the report notes that “the cleantech revolution is a highly dispersed phenomenon” and that no single place or region will control any one cleantech sector. Some “centers of expertise” not a part of the top 15 include Toledo, Ohio, for solar PV manufacturing and St. Louis, Mo., for green building design services.

The report’s authors see five major trends reshaping the cleantech jobs landscape. Those trends include energy efficiency (some related jobs: green building, architect and insulation installer); an aging work force, especially at electric utilities, with rising retirement rates (some related jobs: wind energy technician and solar thermal generation specialist); an increasing number of cleantech educational initiatives with opportunities for students and instructors; the movement of manufacturing jobs closer to end-use markets (some related jobs: solar fabrication technician and wind turbine generator builder); and the smart grid build-out (some related jobs: advanced metering engineer and grid application systems analyst).

The end of the report lists a number of resources, such as books, news sites, conferences, career fairs, job boards, training sites and networking organizations. The accumulation of all this information into one, freely accessible document should be welcome news for any cleantech job hunter.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The next decade represents a “key ‘make or break’ period” for carbon capture and storage technology, according to a 52-page CCS “Technology Roadmap” out today from the International Energy Agency, and it could open significant opportunities for startups. While large established power companies will likely dominate industrial storage projects, startups with novel chemical conversion technologies like GreatPoint Energy, and startups that recycle the carbon, like algae fuel firms like Solazyme, will likely benefit from the intergovernmental agency’s call to arms.

Analyst Mark Bunger, who heads up Lux Research’s Biosciences division, says algae fuel developers in particular could gain new interest from investors and potential buyers who see the international CCS buildout as proof that there’s a market for recycling the carbon emissions from power plants. Many algae fuel developers have built part of their business case around the fact that they are carbon neutral or negative, said Bunger, and some of them may see direct government support as part of the carbon capture push. He added if startups offer a key technology for the CCS process itself, ” there are going to be buyers for that.”

Tanaka’s call today comes on the heels of Energy Secretary Steven Chu calling on forum attendees yesterday to adopt an “aggressive timeline” for rolling out carbon capture and storage technology, which is meant to capture greenhouse gas emissions from facilities such as coal and natural gas power plants, and then bury or “sequester,” the carbon, often underground. Chu urged the London gathering to “make it our goal to advance carbon capture and storage technology to the point where widespread, affordable deployment can begin in 8 to 10 years.”

However, many uncertainties remain for carbon capture, especially when it comes to safely storing the gas long term. As the IEA notes in its report: “The practices in respect to CO2 injection are well-known; however, more experience is needed to improve predictions of CO2 behavior at commercial scale,” and research is needed to locate and characterize suitable storage sites.

Graphics courtesy of IEA