Green Prophet » United States

Cleaner Cookstoves for a Cooler Planet

Laurie Balbo — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 21:45:45 +0000

Nearly 3 billion people lack safe and efficient cooking gear. It’s time to make the problem in the kitchen sexier.

Half the world’s households prepare their meals over open fires or with jerry-rigged cookers fueled by scrap wood, coal, combustible waste and dung. Fatal burns are common and foraged fuel dangerously degrades indoor air quality. The World Health Organization reports that toxic smoke from inefficient stoves is the fifth biggest health risk in the developing world, killing 2 million people annually. This shocking statistic puts unsafe cooking nose to nose with HIV/AIDS on the global killing field, with women and children most vulnerable. Who knew?

For decades, aid advocates insisted that more efficient stoves using cleaner fuels could eradicate the problem in underdeveloped communities where electricity was unreliable and fuel supplies scarce. Now safe-stove news is popping up relative to refugee camps and “Occupy Wall Street” outposts. In the ‘90s, American inventor Peter Scott helped design low-cost portable “rocket stoves” which run on electric, gas or solar power and include powerful filters to limit harmful smoke. The New Yorker christened Scott the movement’s Thomas Edison, adding, “The average cooking fire produces as much carbon dioxide as a car, and a great deal more soot. Cleaning up these emissions may be the fastest, cheapest way to cool the planet.” But why isn’t this idea selling?

Could be that home cooking just ain’t sexy. Or maybe the market’s too fragmented to profitably produce and distribute the stoves.

Perhaps the project – like any new A-list eatery worth its salt – just needed some high-caliber patrons and a dishy face to front it.

Enter US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In 2010, she introduced the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, a public-private coalition aimed at getting 100 million cookstoves out to the developing world by 2020. Next Julia Roberts stepped up as the Alliance’s global ambassador. The Alliance stresses that clean stove roll-out can significantly reduce childhood death from pneumonia, and Roberts notes the broader benefits, “The impact goes beyond people’s health. Burning these fuels produces carbon dioxide, methane and black carbon, which contribute to climate change. Cutting down trees for fuel causes natural habitats to dry up, forests to disappear and soil to erode.”

Smartly linking the initiative to climate change opens the possibility of using carbon tax as a means of financing investment. Global aid agencies could also promote the use of efficient cookstoves by direct-delivering units alongside humanitarian food aid. USAID already supports the project, pledging $50 million over the next five years.

Radha Muthiah, executive director of the Alliance, predicts that the emergence of middle-income countries such as the Next Eleven (N-11) will invigorate this sustainability movement. The N-11, which includes Egypt, Iran and Turkey, was identified in 2005 by Goldman Sachs as having a high potential of becoming the world’s largest economies in the 21st century.

To read more about the program, and to get directly involved in igniting this critical change, visit The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves website.

Top image via ethiovision

Nanosolar’s Ultra Thin Solar Panels Could Go East

Maurice Picow — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:39:31 +0000

By being longer, Nanosolar’s solar panels are less costly to install

Advances in solar energy panel technology is reaching a stage where it is now possible to purchase DIY home kits to create solar powered electricity on the roofs of your home. And solar array panels are even being installed on the roofs of chicken coups to provide electricity for agricultural use. Solar energy cells are also becoming less expensive due to mass production in countries like China, and thanks to the materials in which the solar cells are being produced. Such is now the case of an American company, Nanosolar, which is producing solar energy cells using an ‘industrial’ printing process to coat CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenium) and nanoparticle inks on low-cost aluminum foil in order to enable the world’s thinnest solar cells and lowest-cost solar panels.

A Nanosolar array farm

Nanosolar’s philosophy is to produce solar panels that are not only as thin as possible, but cost-effective too. The company also is striving to reduce the environmental impact caused by the production of the solar cells, in order to be more friendly to the earth.

One of the ways this is done is by recycling as much of their production wastes as possible, as well as recycling their office waste such as paper and used toner cartridges.

Nanosolar’s utility panel is made to be longer than other types of solar panels, two meters instead of 1.2 meters, which reduces costs of panel cabling and assembly labor. The panel incorporation of glass and glass laminate together with steel frames make the panels more durable. And being certified for higher electrical wattage, the panels are much more efficient in solar conversion to electricity.

One of Nanosolar’s customers is the large French renewable energy company EDF Energies Nouvelles. Energies Nouvelles is involved in solar energy and wind energy projects all over France other parts of Western Europe, as well as in Turkey.

With the use of longer, more efficient solar panels. Nanosolar’s uniquely designed solar panels may also soon be part of solar energy projects in the Middle East as well.

::nanosolar

More on solar energy in the Middle East:
Kibbutz Recovers from Killer Forest Fires by Going Green

Home Kits to Capture the Sun From Roofs and Private Homes

Saudis to Maintain Energy Hegemony With Postage Stamp Size Solar Cells

Suntech to Sell Home Solar Panels in Israel

Newton Becker, a Bright Source for Solar Thermal Energy, Dies at 83

Green Prophet — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 04:36:40 +0000

Considered by some as the father of solar thermal electricity generation, Newton Becker, was the founding investor and Chairman of the Board of Luz International – the company that went on to become what BrightSource is today. He died Monday in LA at age 83.

Back when, Luz became the largest solar company in the world by building solar electric generating power plants. From 1984 to 1991 Luz (which was founded in Israel) built and sold nine solar energy nine plants (SEGS I-IX) with 350 MW of capacity, enough to supply the residential needs of 540,000 people in the Los Angeles area.

Newton also invested in and was a chairman of the Board of Directors of “Electric Fuel” during its start-up period 1993-5. Electric Fuel made Zinc Air Batteries for Electric Vehicles – about 400 miles for the EV1 and about 250 miles for a Mercedes Van – and could be refueled with new zinc plates in about 10 minutes. He also made huge inroads for chartered accountants everywhere.

Cellular Phones, WiFi and Bee Collapse? Israeli Bee Boss Not Buying It

Karin Kloosterman — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:18:46 +0000

Bee colony collapse disorder is a worldwide phenomenon decimating bee colonies worldwide. Bees, you see, are pretty important. Without them much of our food can’t be pollinated. And the true reason why America lost about one third of its bees last year is largely unknown. Some believe it’s because there is lack of pollen as crops producing nectar decline. Some others say conventional pesticides, while more recently European researchers are blaming cellular phone antennas and WiFi connections (which is also now linked to male infertility). But Israeli bee scientists aren’t buying the “radiation” link.

Israel’s Honeybee Council head Herzl Avigdor is skeptical of the link, reports Haaretz covering a honeybee conference in Israel. He says it is climate change, and viruses attacking bees’ weakened immune system. Knowing nature and the delicate balance it maintains, the real cause might be all of the above.

Whatever the reason, colonies are still collapsing. Israel has reportedly lost 30 percent of its bees, and the UK about 50%. Worldwide honey production is down 20%. This is scary stuff -– enough to get every day people starting bee colonies in their backyards and on their roofs.

Israel has ancient roots in beekeeping. Some answers might lie in the Holy Land: Read Miriam’s journey on how Israeli beekeepers are breeding bees back to their ancestral size.

::Haaretz

Image via orinrobertjhn

GE Energy Shows MENA Region How to Reduce Gas Flaring

Susan Kraemer — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 00:46:49 +0000

GE Energy demonstrates its Jenbacher gas engine at the Gas Arabia Summit 2011 in Oman today.

The extent of the global problem of gas flaring can be seen in this satellite photo of North America, that is quite bewildering at first sight. On the right we see the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul Minnesota, but the much larger spread-out bright light on the left is out in the middle of nowhere, in the almost unpopulated states northwest of Minnesota. What on earth is that light there? Has some new city sprung up in those deserted lands, unknown to the rest of us?

No. These are gas flares from the recently discovered Bakken formation of North Dakota. The U.S. Energy Information Administration animated map of Bakken drilling activity between 1985 and 2010 shows the rapid exploration and exploitation of the region’s gas resources. The Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership estimates that at least 150 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas is flared worldwide every year.

The MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region flares about a third of the gas flared globally. So – on Gas Flaring Reduction Day in Oman today, GE Energy is making a presentation of its technology to solve it. But shouldn’t the US company fix matters at home first?

While this image of gas flaring shows just one example of the environmental ravages of gas flaring, in the US, the Middle East and North Africa account for a third of global gas flaring, a problem that GE in the Middle East is addressing.

Sami Kamel, General Manager, Regional Marketing, Middle East and Africa for GE said: “GE Energy has a long track record in working with governments and national and international oil and gas companies on gas flaring reduction. We have executed several projects and established intimate knowledge of this high-specialty sector and gained solid experience in identifying, structuring and developing power generation projects based on gas flaring reduction.”

Unlike oil, natural gas cannot be trucked to the nearest gas plant for processing. A gas-gathering pipeline and processing plant infrastructure must be in place to condition natural gas for retail use. Producers sometimes decide it is not economically feasible to to build a new pipeline into an area of ongoing development, or to connect a well to an existing pipeline. Excessive line pressures or mechanical problems can also cause intermittent flares, even once the gas well is connected to a pipeline.

As the world depletes its traditional oil supplies, the unconventional (read: uneconomic until oil is no longer accessible) deposits of shale gas are now being exploited. Now that we are scraping the bottom of the barrel in our desperate last-ditch digging for the last of the fossil energy to be had, it is more important than ever that we don’t waste the last of this precious resource.

GE Energy offers a solution. It has devised its Jenbacher gas engine to capture and utilize onsite the gas flares that would otherwise go to waste. Instead of hauling diesel generators onsite for the electricity needed for drilling, the Jenbacker engine burns the natural gas fuel itself for this purpose; which lowers carbon dioxide emissions, compared with diesel.

GE Energy currently has more than 325 Jenbacher gas engines installed in 15 countries producing up to 470 Mega-Watts (MW) through capturing associated petroleum gas and using it as feedstock for power generation.

But with such problems in the US, as the satellite image shows; why does GE Energy have to look abroad for business? The lack of climate legislation in the US is a key reason. Other nations require better carbon reduction, and husbandry of our natural resources, because of better environmental policies than the US, when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions.

Most US environmental policy was written before the oil industry got a stranglehold on US political decision-making. In 1999, North Dakota flared only 3% of its gas production. In 2007 the state produced over 70 billion cubic feet of natural gas and nearly 20% of that production was flared.

GE Energy must look abroad, where policies have more potential to make their invention appreciated.

“With climate change mitigation now high on top of the agenda of many national governments, we are seeing increasing commitment from governments to reduce gas flaring,” said Kamel.

Read more on natural gas:
Qatar’s Petroleum Industry Going Into Eco-drive?

Cyprus Researcher: Protect Sea from Natural Gas Drills

Cyprus Fears Environmental Impact of Undersea Gas

World’s Worst Coal-Funding Bank Just Saved the Biggest US Rooftop Solar Project Ever

Susan Kraemer — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 04:32:51 +0000

At a time when banks could hardly be more unpopular, one of America’s most despised has just saved the biggest solar rooftop project in US history.

It is not just the Occupy Wall St protesters who are angry at the behavior of banks. At the Durban Climate Talks this week, NGOs attending the Durban Climate Talks named the three worst banks in the world who have funded the most coal projects since the Kyoto Accord was signed. Funding coal projects is about the worst thing banks can do for the climate. The top three banks in the world for coal project funding are… JP Morgan Chase, Citibank and Bank of America. (All, you might note, US banks).

Yet one of the these three global pariahs (in my opinion) – Bank of America – has just revived the military SolarStrong project, 120,000 solar installations on military housing rooftops that will more than double the total residential solar installations in the US, and be the largest residential solar project in US history.

Confused? Wait, it gets even more strange…

SolarStrong was an ambitious five-year plan by Solar City, a solar leasing company that installs, owns and operates rooftop solar installations, mostly for homeowners, and provides the homeowners with solar electricity at a lower cost than utility power.

They were just about to be approved in September by the US Department of Energy for financial backing to build more than $1 billion in solar power projects for privatized US military housing communities across the country.

The five-year project plan would comprise a combined 300 megawatts of clean, renewable electricity, distributed across 120,000 installations on military housing rooftops. The Obama administration requires all the Federal Agencies to cut their greenhouse gases 28% by 2020. The military, one of the few US agencies that is adequately funded, has been meeting the requirement with alacrity. They needed additional funding to begin, though, which the DOE was on track to provide.

But then one of the other solar companies that the DOE had guaranteed a loan for went bankrupt and Republicans in the US – who work for the 1% and against renewable energy – lept at the opportunity to gin-up a fake scandal over solar funding by the Obama administration.

As Andrew Burger at Cleantechnica puts it:

With the media buzzing about the Solyndra “scandal,” House Republicans launched a campaign to cut and claw back federal funding and financial assistance for clean energy. Caught up in the furor, an anticipated partial DOE Section 1705 loan guarantee fell by the wayside as the DOE notified SolarCity that it would not be able to process the application in time to meet a stipulated program deadline.

The DOE could not meet the deadline because congressional Republicans had added vast quantities of new red tape at the last minute, as Secretary Chu pointed out in an uncharacteristically peevish email to Solar City at the time. So the great project was killed. In the meantime, the Occupy Wall Street movement erupted, spontaneously, worldwide, with its message to banks that the 99% are bigger than you, the 1%.

Bank of America had loaned $4.3 billion for coal projects in just the last year. But that was before the Occupy movement.

With this swift assistance to SolarCity in providing the needed capital for it to invest in the $1 billion 120,000 solar rooftop arrays to revive SolarStrong, BofA is almost a quarter of the way to parity in funding for renewable power for the year. With this surprise move, Bank of America almost appears to be turning its back on the interests of the 1%.

Is there redemption? Perhaps…but this is something that foreigners watching America’s solar business should think about.

Read more on the Occupy Movement:

Middle Easterners Join Movement to Occupy Rooftops

How Israel’s Tent Cities Influenced Occupy Wall Street
Islamic Banking & Why It’s (Theoretically) Good For The …

Image: Mat McDermott

Better Place Electric Car Co. Raises $200 Million

Karin Kloosterman — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 07:48:34 +0000

A pregnant me at the very sunny Better Place visitor center last year.

With the launch of the first nationwide electric car networks rolling out in Israel and with Denmark just months away, the electric car company Better Place today reports that it has secured another $200 million in financing, on top of the $55o million already invested in it. The company which is developing infrastructure for electric cars and thus speeding up the process of getting a quick “charge” needed for electric cars, says it will use the money to expand its business in Western Europe. It will also build on projects in Northern California, Southern China, Japan, Ontario, Canada, and Hawaii.

According to a recent press announcement the company will go fully commercial in both Israel and Denmark early in 2012, although a pilot run of the Better Place charge stations around Israel is supposed to be in effect. By the second quarter of 2012, Better Place expects to go commercial in Canberra, Australia.

“We’ve worked hard over the past four years to engineer and build a technology solution that competes with oil-based transportation,” said Shai Agassi, the founder and CEO.

Investors in the Series C round include General Electric, and UBS AG, among others, with existing shareholders including Israel Corp., HSBC Group, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, VantagePoint Capital Partners, Ofer Group and Maniv Energy Capital.

We get a lot of announcements and updates from the company. Here’s what’s happening on the ground:

In Israel, Better Place has seen a demand from both fleets and consumers, as over 400 corporations, representing a potential of 80,000 employee cars, have signed letters of intent to begin switching their fleets to Better Place as the cars and the service become available.

In Denmark almost 7,000 people have come to the Better Place Center in Copenhagen, opened earlier this year, with 90 percent expressing an interest in buying an electric car in the future. The company has received over 1,000 pre orders from both private and business customers. Better Place also has been successful in reaching agreements with 50 of the country’s 98 municipalities, covering 69 percent of the population, related to infrastructure deployment and fleet transitions.

In Australia, the company’s first large country deployment, Better Place has announced a series of agreements with multi-national companies, including Renault and GE, and leading local companies including ActewAGL, Lend Lease, and the Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV), for the introduction of electric cars and the rapid deployment of an electric car network.

By the end of 2013, Better Place expects to have the largest electric car network in the world in Australia, rivaling other competitive efforts underway in the US and China.

Would I drive a Better Place car? With the roads getting tighter, and air pollution getting worse everywhere, I think that this might be one of the only fully electric car solutions that could work –– at least for the people who are commuting to work and who need to know they can get a quick charge while out on the road. People like myself who drive short distances only would be fine buying an all electric car that can be charged at home.

::Better Place

America Solar Power Assoc: We’ll be 30% Solar in 20 Years

Maurice Picow — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 08:56:52 +0000

Solar energy is predicted to be important energy source in USA by 2031

The just completed Solar Power International Conference and Exhibition in Dallas Texas painted a bright future for the use of solar energy in the USA, according to Julia Hamm, President and CEO of the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA). Hamm, who addressed the conference a few days ago, predicted that solar energy will become an important of the US utility system during the next 20 years and result of less reliance on fossil fuels. Some of her predictions include a national clean energy policy by 2013 and the majority of cars in America running on electricity by 2022. She also predicted that solar energy will be the largest job creator by 2026 and that at least 30% of the nation’s utilities will run on solar energy by 2031. Is she dreaming or could this really happen? If it does, this means opportunities for Middle East companies and innovators.

More effort needed to make solar mirrors and arrays friendlier to wildlife

Weaning America from dependence on fossil fuels as well as creating jobs are two important issues for development of solar energy, despite some criticism about the “down side” of solar energy due to solar energy array projects creating potential harm to animals in areas designated as nature reserves.

Ideas footed at the conference to help promote the use of solar energy include increasing the price for using fossil fuel generated energy (through government levies and taxes) and creating a national energy policy that will have guidelines pertaining to use of renewable energy in regards to energy investment decisions.

Despite reservations toward wildlife being harmed by large solar array farms, the benefits of solar energy appear to far outweigh any potential harm. The Middle East, one of driest regions in the world, has an abundance of sunshine, which could result in this region benefiting from innovations in solar energy technology, including modular blocks solar energy projects now underway in locations like Arizona, which also has an abundance of annual sunlight.

Regime changes occurring in the Middle East as a result of the “Arab Spring” uprisings may also result in opportunities for more attention towards solar energy projects; especially as fossil fuels become scarcer and more expensive.

The final outcome regarding solar energy could result in more countries following America’s lead, if the world’s highest user of fossil fuels becomes the highest developer of solar energy. If this happens, many other countries, including those in the Middle East, are sure to follow.

More about solar energy in the US and Mid East:
Solar Edge Does Dallas
Arab Spring May Boost Chance for Desertec Solar Power
Solar Energy’s Not so Sunny Side
Working in Blocks, Spin-offs of Arizona Solar Energy Could Benefit Mid East

Photo: Spiegel International

Tax Online Poker and Grow Renewable Energy

Karin Kloosterman — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:23:08 +0000

Can we make online gambling green?

Unlike in most other countries in the world, online Poker in America is illegal. Other forms of online gambling and online casinos are not, but now the Feds in the United States are considering changing the laws so that online poker can be made legal once again. There are billions of dollars in taxable income waiting to be made. Gambling and other mortal vices like cigarettes, booze and gasoline are heavily taxed. The income from online poker could be enormous, argues an article in today’s New York Times. And if done from the Internet, and done legally, millions and potentially billions of dollars of revenues in tax dollars could go to funding renewable energy development, I argue.

Income from casinos beyond Las Vegas have gone to revive First Nations communities in America and Canada. I have family members who spend small fortunes at Casino Rama in Ontario, Canada, with the proceeds going to the Chippewas of Rama, a First Nation’s people. If you think that the joys of Canada’s native people have been one of powwows, potlatch and Sun Dance ceremonies, think again. These practices were banned until the early 1950s. By that time entire native cultures in Canada were effectively being wiped out. Giving them the right to build and manage casinos changed all that.

Unlike America, Canada does not open casinos unless under certain conditions: for charity or for First Nation’s people. The native communities earn this money, which has changed their fate and fortunes. At one point in time they were more than occupied by the Canadian Government. They were forced to change their names, their religions, their language, and were forcibly removed from their villages to adopt Christian western ideals.

Legal or not, people who want to will gamble. Before the online poker industry was shut down in America in 2010, on suspicion of Ponzi Scheme-like operations, Americans were gambling $16 billion a year through such sites, writes PokerScout.com.

If America and other countries, even those in the Middle East perhaps, were looking to control the industry in a way to reign in fraudsters, and illegal operations, it could be done so that these billions or more in tax dollars could go to a green cause, just as lottery ticket sales goes to education and culture.

Gambling from a religious viewpoint is not allowed for Jews. So Israelis go out to sea to gamble. And drinking is not allowed for Muslims. Those that want to will find a way resulting in lost income taxes from both these demographics. There could be a way however to tax gambling where it is legalized with funds going to renewable energy developments and innovation, so that the world could benefit from these inevitable vices. These billions of dollars wouldn’t go into the hands of a few: they would benefit the masses, and the future of this planet.

I am not the first to come up with this idea apparently. After I wrote this post, I Googled “green gambling” and found other writers coming up with similar ideas. Smartplanet.com links to the Smart Bet website which plans on donating a huge chunk of its income to funding renewable energy projects, including our favorite DESERTEC and DESERTEC University. An idea worth betting on, perhaps.

::NY Times

Image via ssanyal

HCL Clean Tech Finds Sugar for Ethanol in Mississippi Woods

Karin Kloosterman — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:46:16 +0000

Karin speaks with HCL Clean Tech CEO Eran Baniel (above) about wood to sugar developments in Mississippi.

It’s not every day that an Israeli company based on the science of a Nazi collaborator wins a huge US contract. But HCL Clean Tech, which offers a process to turn wood chips into biofuel, just received a $100 million bond package from the Mississippi state legislature to build plants in Grenada, Booneville, Hattiesburg and Natchez for products in the cosmetics, pet food, and lubricants industries.

The plants will take wood chips from region, where there is a surplus of pine trees, and begin processing them in 2012 in Grenada. Three bigger plants will be opened in 2015, 2017 and 2019, according to the deal. Most of the funding will go toward building the facilities, while $5 million is earmarked for infrastructure and training.

The new project is expected to create about 800 new jobs, with the average salary not too shabby at $67,500 plus benefits. Backers of the bill, which was approved almost unanimously, believe these jobs — some 200 new positions in Natchez alone — will be readily filled by locals.

Behind all of this is the father-son team of 93-year-old chemist Prof. Avraham Baniel and businessman Eran Baniel. The father arrived in Israel with his family before World War II. HCL Clean Tech was founded in 2007, basing its technology on experiments by accused Nazi collaborator Friedrich Bergius, who shared the 1931 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Carl Bosch for innovating a process for producing synthetic fuel from coal. The goal was to make biofuel from wood chips for military vehicles, but the process had several flaws.

This was the starting point for Avraham, who’d heard about the problems of using food sugars as a feedstock for biofuel. Sources like corn and sugarcane are highly volatile in the market, and they also compete for food sources.

When age is an advantage

Having more than a few decades up on other entrepreneurs has its advantages, Eran tells ISRAEL21c.

“The idea came from a ‘young’ startup guy now aged 93, who happens to be my father,” says Eran. “He is one of the forefathers of Israel’s industrial chemical research. And he remembered that there was a German process [for] taking wood chips and hydrolyzing them to sugars and making ethanol from them.”

Thinking he could solve the problems of the earlier attempt, he asked his son to rent a lab so new trials could be carried out. But first he had to find a source of low-cost cellulosic sugars, the most common basis for biofuels and bio-products, says Eran. The answer was wood chips and wood waste.

Using unique extraction and separation methods aided by the powerful chemical hydrochloric acid, Avraham was indeed successful in coaxing sugars from the tough cellulose material made by trees, without breaking the chemical bonds of the sugar.

It’s pure chemistry

Eran explains that the process of extracting valuables from the wood is “pure chemistry.” The separated sugar “comes out clean from the [concentrated hydrochloric] acid. It is usable for customers at the lowest possible cost and best quality.”

The company’s leaders aim to build production facilities around the world, and while they have started with wood, they can use the same process for extracting sugar from any kind of cellulose material — even bagasse, a waste material from sugarcane stalks.

The company now has a staff of 27, with research and development mostly concentrated in Herzliya, and a pilot site demonstrating the technology in Durham, North Carolina. About to announce a fourth major investment round, bigger than the total sum of the $15.5 million raised to date, HCL has support from Khosla Ventures and a $9 million grant from the US Department of Energy on top of the Mississippi deal.

Eran explains that the Department of Energy grant is focused on the “wood basket” in the southern United States, where wood used to be processed for paper. “Paper is not so popular anymore, and so the wood and forestry industry in the States is struggling. The paper guys extracted value from wood and that’s what we are doing in another way,” Eran concludes.

This story was first printed on ISRAEL21c - www.israel21c.org