VentureBeat

With the market for hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) finally starting to heat up in earnest, several companies are making big bets on advanced rechargeable battery technologies. One of these is PowerGenix, a San Diego, Calif.-based startup that makes nickel-zinc (NiZn) batteries.

Another is ZPower, a startup that hopes to oust lithium ion as the dominant technology by developing advanced silver-zinc (AgZn) batteries. While they offer greater power density, AgZn batteries haven’t been used much because they allow for far fewer recharges than lithium ion batteries. ZPower has now succeeded in increasing the number of times its batteries can be recharged to be competitive with the latter.

NiZn batteries are smaller, lighter and more powerful than competitor technologies, such as nickel-cadmium (NiCd) and nickel-metal hydride (NiMH). Because they contain no toxic materials, they are environmentally safe and easy to recycle. PowerGenix’s CEO, Dan Squiller, said his company’s batteries are 50 percent cheaper than lithium-ion and 20 percent cheaper than NiMH. Not only that, they also offer a major power boost over the latter: 30 percent more — which, for HEVs, could translate to a 30 percent mileage increase.

Squiller believes his firm’s consumer AA batteries could grab a large share of the roughly $400 million rechargeable battery market. Unlike its rivals, whose batteries’ output typically peaks at 1.2 V, PowerGenix’s rechargeable batteries boast a 1.65 V output — even higher than standard throwaway batteries’ 1.5 V output. The company plans on inking several distribution agreements within the next 2 - 4 weeks.

Though he was coy on the details, Squiller told me PowerGenix had already secured over $40 million in supply agreements with several major power tool companies in Asia and the U.S. When I asked him what his game plan was to take on the industry’s heavy-hitters — companies like Sanyo, Panasonic and Johnson Control — he readily admitted that he didn’t foresee PowerGenix competing on the same plane anytime in the near future.

PowerGenix’s business strategy is two-fold: It plans on licensing its D-cell battery pack technology to OEM partners for the HEV market and, for all other device applications, will manufacture the batteries itself. One benefit of this strategy is that it avoids the need for PowerGenix to invest a lot of money in its own costly manufacturing processes: Because NiZn batteries are designed to use exising NiCd and NiMH processes, the firm will rely on its partners to build the batteries and incorporate them into a range of devices.

Squiller gave a blunt assessment of the battery industry’s future landscape, predicting prices for lithium ion batteries would rise and deeming most emerging technologies, including nanowires and supercapacitors, still too early for commercial-scale production. Though he commended A123 Systems‘ decision to switch to a nanophosphate lithium ion technology for safety reasons, he said the move had come at a performance cost for its batteries.

He predicted his company would reach full-scale production by the second half of 2009. PowerGenix plans on raising a fourth round of funding this summer and is seeking another $15-20 million to help it scale up its production capacity. It will start the round in early June and expects to wrap it up by the end of September. Squiller said he was looking for one lead investor with experience in the cleantech sector. PowerGenix has raised $31 million so far and has received support from Angeleno Group, Advent International, Technology Partners, Granite Ventures, OnPoint Technologies and Braemar Energy Ventures in the past.

His ultimate ambition is to replace all NiMH batteries with NiZn batteries — a decision he says makes sense from both a performance and financial perspective. Not too shabby for a technology that last saw its heyday in Thomas Edison’s time.

A new study published in the journal Science has poured cold water on a proposed scheme to alter the planet’s climate by injecting sulfate particles into the stratosphere. The unorthodox strategy, boosted by several prominent scientists, including Nobel laureate Paul J. Crutzen, was meant to simulate the effects of a volcanic eruption: Sulfur particles released from aircraft or large balloons high in the stratosphere — like the soot and sulfur dioxide ejected by volcanoes — would scatter incoming sunlight, reducing its absorption by the planet and producing a global cooling effect.

Opponents of the scheme warned that the problems it created would far outweigh any perceived benefits: They cited records of past eruptions to show that it could result in a series of crippling large-scale droughts. The Science study, led by two researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO, determined that pumping sulfur particles into the atmosphere would further weaken the Earth’s fragile ozone layer by sparking a number of destructive chemical reactions. The consequence, they concluded, would be to set back the ozone layer’s slow recovery by 2 decades.

These findings will no doubt help bolster the arguments of those who have argued against the use of human technologies to tinker with the Earth’s climate — a set of proposals collectively known as “geo-engineering.” Detractors criticize the schemes as being too short-sighted and largely untested. Furthermore, they insist, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to verify their success; this, in addition to their unknown risks and potential downsides, should preclude any further consideration of their use

Those that do support further research object to the involvement of profit-seeking companies or outside backing — arguing that future trials should be devoid of any commercial motivation.

Proponents of geo-engineering, both academics and scientists who’ve made the leap to the private sector, counter that corporations have long been valuable allies in advancing research, particularly in medicine and engineering, and that to deny them a seat at the table — and a potential financial incentive — would be self-defeating.

One of the few schemes to have gained some traction over the past year is iron fertilization — currently championed by San Francisco, Calif., based Climos, which recently raised $3.5 million from Elon Musk and Braemar Energy Ventures, and previously by the now-defunct Foster City, Calif., startup Planktos. Climos’ funding will fuel an initial demonstration cruise that will be led by a team of independent oceanographers.

The objective of this cruise is to show that fertilizing iron-limited areas of the oceans can result in a drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide — and its eventual sequestration in the ocean’s depths. The strategy is relatively straightforward: Adding iron sulfate to carefully selected regions will lead to massive phytoplankton blooms, which, through photosynthesis, will take up large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Climos’ hope — and the missing piece, from a scientific standpoint — is that once the phytoplankton die, they will sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying the excess carbon dioxide with them. If that effect were to be demonstrated empirically, Climos could begin selling carbon credits and finance other cruises.

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Stion is one of the now dozens of companies saying it is developing a more efficient solar power technology.

The Silicon Valley company (Menlo Park, Calif.) has raised $15 million in a second round of financing, saying its new material (the company won’t disclose which material it is) for manufacturing cells and modules will have a lower installation cost than all its competitors. Significantly, the company says it will be able to market its product without public subsidies, which so far have been required to prop up the solar industry.

While its material will be as cheap to make as the new materials being used by other companies, such as CIGS and Telluride, it will be more efficient than those others at converting sun to power, it said. (See our past coverage on the problems plaguing existing start-ups). It uses a so-called “thin-film” technology that several other companies also use. Chet Farris, the company’s chief executive, said its efficiency will be 25 to 30 percent, which is notable because it is much higher than the efficiency of silicon solar cell technologies produced by existing public companies like SunPower. Stion will produce both the cells and the modules (panels).

We previously wrote about Stion here, when it went by former name NStructures.

Farris said his goal is to provide electricity at a ten to twenty cents per kilowatt hour, or at an installed cost of $3/watt — which would be competitive with today’s utility electricity rates. Half of the $3 cost would come from installation costs, and the other half from the actual cost of the module technology.

There’s a big catch: The company will only finish development in 2009, and build a factory by 2010.

The financing was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and included General Catalyst Partners and existing backers Khosla Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and Moser Baer Photovoltaic.