Turning cow manure into fuel wouldn’t exactly connote the word “clean” to most people.
But “clean technology” is being used nationally to classify a wide array of processes and inventions that create energy using renewable resources that don’t pollute the environment.
San Diego-based BioRenewable Projects is testing “anaerobic digestion,” where dung from cows is mixed with food garbage to initiate an anaerobic digestion by bacteria that produces methane and carbon dioxide, which can be “cleaned up” and used to fuel industrial vehicles. Anaerobic digestion is the breakdown of organic matter by anaerobic organisms in environments lacking oxygen.
The six-employee startup, co-founded recently by San Diegan Jerry Foster, which is also developing techniques for solar and wind technology, is just part of the recent local surge in green technology.
Leaders at Connect, a local high-tech and biotechnology networking and tech-transfer group, said they have gotten so many clean tech proposals for their thrice annual venture capital round-tables, where inventors meet with investors, that the group is dedicating a session exclusively to the topic in February.
Lot of Vibrations
“There’s a lot of vibration in this space,” said Terry Orion, Connect’s chief operating officer. “There’s so much interest from (venture capitalists) in nanotech and clean tech. Some very well respected investors are interested in this.”
But while Los Angeles and Silicon Valley have already seen investors sink money into these types of firms — such as Altra Inc. in Los Angeles or Palo Alto’s Nanosolar — those who scope out new technologies and companies here say they haven’t seen San Diego teams based around clean technologies that are close to market.
San Diego’s many research institutions and universities could be playing a role, in that most clean technologies being developed here seem to be early stage.
“There’s tons of talk — announcements about contests, seminars, competitions, specialized VC funds,” Orion said. “But I haven’t seen a company we can sink our teeth into.”
Nationally, investment trendsetters such as Paul Doerr, a founding partner of Menlo Park-based Kleiner Perkins Caufield Buyers, and Vinod Khosla, also a Kleiner Perkins partner who backed Santa Clara-based Sun Microsystems Inc., as well as co-founders of Microsoft Corp., Bill Gates and Steve Case, are all investing in green technology. In February, Kleiner Perkins announced a $100 million effort to back marketable clean technologies.
Bio-Clothes
Clean tech, sometimes called green tech, was all the rage at the Biotechnology Industry Organization international conference in Chicago this spring — complete with presenters on bio-fuels and a fashion show that featured clothes made from corn.
