Bob Nelsen had a front-row seat to history on Election Night. The Republican managing director of Arch Venture Partners in Seattle was literally at the front of the rally in Chicago’s Grant Park on Tuesday as Democrat Barack Obama was elected as the nation’s first African-American president.

“I was 20 feet from Obama, and about five feet from Jesse Jackson,” Nelsen told me on the phone this morning. Nelsen and his wife were right there on millions of TV screens around the world with some of Obama’s VIP supporters, including Oprah Winfrey and the Black Eyed Peas.

Nelsen, who normally votes for Republicans, has raised a few eyebrows among his venture capital pals for switching sides this year for Obama. Back in May, we noted that Nelsen believed he was the only Republican on Obama’s national finance committee. “Some people still think I’m nuts,” he says with a laugh.

The experience was unforgettable, Nelsen says. “The most profound part for me was watching a guy who I disagree with on a number of things, Jesse Jackson, essentially being real. He was not playing for the cameras. He stood there, for an hour, not saying anything, just literally taking in the moment, with tears streaming down his face.” He added that it was great to see so many older African Americans in Chicago “who thought they’d never live to see the day,” that a black man could be elected president.

We also chatted a few minutes about what this means for governing in the critical months ahead. The crowd was able to watch a telecast of John McCain’s concession speech, which Nelsen said he also appreciated as “powerful and real.” Since the problems facing the country are so big, he’s hopeful that leaders will be able to set aside partisan differences to work together. We both surmised that Obama will probably be able to move ahead with a serious alternative energy push, but probably won’t be able to advance the kind of health care reform he sought in the campaign. Alternative energy has serious potential to create jobs, an environmental benefit, and a national security imperative. Health care, Nelsen pointed out, “Has been messed up forever.” (Update: In a follow-up e-mail, Nelsen said he thinks Obama can still deliver health care reforms but maybe not right away. Health care is “much more controversial and tricky, and may take longer to implement,” he says.)

“It’s really a new chapter for the country,” Nelsen says. “Hopefully Obama will write his own chapter.”

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Okay, it’s an election-day stunt, but it’s one of the more imaginative ones we’ve seen. Cambridge, MA-based outdoor-communications startup LocaModa, working with a grassroots group of Barack Obama fundraisers called An Obama Minute, is providing the software behind a system that will display text messages in support of the Presidential candidates on a Times Square Jumbotron.

The Obama Minute display is located at 49th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. The text-messaging system, which was switched on this afternoon, will display any message sent to the short code 25622 with the format “@minute messagehere.” Messages texted to the Jumbotron will also show up in an embeddable Web-based widget (see below).

While the display is sponsored by a group of Obama supporters, messages in support of Republican candidate John McCain will not be censored, according to LocaModa director of community Jayne Karolow.

“The only things moderated would be curse words, racial language, or slurs of any kind,” Karolow says. “People can text support for whomever they want as long as it meets outdoor standards.”

Karolow adds, however, that Obama Minute is seeking only supportive messages for either candidate—so, no last-minute mudslinging and negative campaigning allowed. “Positive messages across the board is what’s getting through,” she says.

From watching the Web-based version of the display for a brief time this afternoon, however, it seemed that far more Obama supporters than McCain partisans were using the system.

 

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Last week the organizers of the Fourth Conference on Clean Energy, coming up November 18 and 19 at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, asked me to host a panel discussion on the funding climate for new clean-energy ventures. In a teleconference recorded October 28, I asked four leaders from the local venture capital and public-financing communities—all members of the conference’s investor advisory board—to talk about the challenges facing energy entrepreneurs in today’s unsettled economic climate, and about how the funding picture for alternative-energy ventures might change under an Obama or a McCain administration. Now we’re publishing the recording as a podcast (about 28 minutes long), which you can listen to using the orange player below.

The guests whose voices you’ll hear include:

• Jerry Bird, vice president, Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation, Boston.
• Dennis Costello, managing director, Braemar Energy Ventures, Boston.
• Sissi Liu, industry investment and development manager, Renewable Energy Trust (part of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative), Westborough, MA.
• Jim Matheson, general partner, Flagship Ventures, Cambridge, MA.

You can also download an MP3 of the podcast and listen to it on your iPod or any other mobile media player.

Clean Energy Investing Podcast Download

Instructions: Right-click (control-click on a Mac) on the link above. Select “Save link as” to save the file to your hard drive. To listen to the podcast on your iPod or iPhone, open iTunes, click on File > Add to Library, find the saved MP3 file, add it to your iTunes library, and then sync your device.

I’d like to thank the conference organizers, including the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center and the Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, for inviting me to host the podcast. Lois Paul & Partners, which is handling public relations for the Conference on Clean Energy, took care of the podcast logistics, recording, and editing.

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A who’s who of the Boston-area life sciences scene (including MIT Institute Professors Robert Langer and Philip Sharp) turned out at Harvard Medical School yesterday for the first Boston Biotech R&D Conference. It was a good place to be for anyone aiming to network with biotech-focused venture capitalists, fund managers, executives, academic luminaries, and industry officials.

At my makeshift office on a seat outside one of the meeting rooms, I could feel the pulse of the local life sciences sector from the banter. Much of it about the hurt put on biotechs due to the stormy financial climate. “It’s a great time to have a portfolio full of illiquid assets,” said one venture capitalist (whom I won’t name because he didn’t know that he had an eavesdropping reporter sitting behind him). I also chatted with Christoph Westphal, CEO of Sirtris, the Cambridge, MA-based biotech firm. Westphal, one of the chief organizers of the event, said the mood was surprisingly optimistic at the conference, despite the financial crisis.

“The economic meltdown hasn’t affected all the great science that’s going on, all it has done is worked its way into the system where it’s harder to bring money into companies,” Westphal said. “My overall view is that this is a more optimistic and positive meeting than I could have hoped for and I think it’s because we’re doing it at Harvard Medical School instead of in New York or in a financial setting.”

There were certainly lighter moments. During a session with a panel of fund managers and analysts focused on life sciences investments, someone from the audience asked the panelists which of the candidates for U.S. President would be best for the life sciences industry. Most of the panelists didn’t think it mattered, yet investment analyst Andrea Bici of London-based Schroder Investment Management told the audience that Sen. John McCain’s more favorable tax policy for large corporations would leave large drug companies with more capital for R&D purposes.

David Sinclair, the scientific co-founder of Sirtris and a professor at Harvard Medical School, gave a tutorial on his discovery of drugs to treat diseases of aging called “Finding Anti-Aging Drugs for Dummies.” In talking about the ability of Sirtris’ drugs to mimic calorie restriction, he noted that he once met a set of people who try to get the same benefits from actually eating less. “I’ve met these people,” he said, “and they’re perpetually hungry.” He even acknowledged that he tried their diet but gave it up after a week because he was so hungry. Good thing his company’s drugs have the potential to let people eat normally while their cells act as though were dieting.

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Whether it’s John McCain or Barack Obama, what should the new American president do to promote technological innovation and global competitiveness? Computerworld asked a collection of tech luminaries from around the country for their advice, and published their thoughts today. Here are contributions from three info-tech experts in Xconomy cities.

Rick Rashid, senior vice president at Microsoft and head of Microsoft Research, writes, “Over the past 10 to 15 years, there has been a retreat from the successful research investment strategies of the past—strategies that created modern computing and the Internet.” Rashid advises that the new administration “work toward restoring a balanced system of support for long-term basic research in science and technology with a goal of ensuring the future competitiveness of the U.S.” Specifically, he advises that the administration “work with Congress to eliminate or limit [noncompetitive] earmark funding for science, restore the ‘long-term risk-taking’ parts of DARPA to its 1970s/1980s form, and fund the American Competitiveness Initiative.”

Ed Lazowska, professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Washington (and former chairman of the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee), gives a five-point plan that begins with restoring integrity to U.S. science policy. “It is essential that federal policy benefit from the most complete, accurate and honest scientific and technological information available,” he writes. Lazowska also advises doubling federal investment in fundamental research over the next 10 years, making a “national commitment to science education at all levels,” making the R&D tax credit permanent, and using technology to address the critical challenges of the 21st century. That includes energy independence, climate change, global hunger, national security, and urban infrastructure. “None is optional,” he says.

Victor Zue, director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (and advisor to the U.S. Department of Defense and National Science Foundation), writes, “Advances in information technology and computer science…are the primary force that powers our economy.” Achievements like the Internet, mobile communication, and user interfaces “typically originated from university research and often took more than a decade to realize a $1 billion market.” So Zue says the new administration should “significantly increase its budget for long-term, fundamental research, e.g., by doubling the NSF budget annually for the next four years. We must invest in educating the next generation of [information technology] professionals.”

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The New York Times published an extensive look today at the presidential candidates’ platforms and records on high-tech innovation in the United States, with a focus on what the two men would do as president to protect and restore the country’s competitive edge.

It’s interesting reading. Despite their parties’ conflicting ideologies, Senators McCain and Obama are in broad agreement about the importance of innovation and a strong technology sector to the overall economy. But they differ on many details, especially when it comes to the role the federal government should play in encouraging basic research and the training of more young scientists and engineers.

Experts interviewed by the Times worry that in light of the current financial crisis, measures that will strengthen the U.S. economy over the long term are getting short shrift. “The problem is that [strengthening innovation] takes an immediate investment that won’t pay immediate dividends, and people are looking for an instant fix,” said retired New York congressman Sherwood Boehlert, the former chair of the House science committee.

And former MIT president and current National Academy of Engineering president Charles Vest faults both candidates for saying too little about innovation policy on the campaign trail. “I understand the immediate pressures and vicissitudes of elections, but I’d like to see them raising the discussion on this, which is absolutely fundamental to the future of jobs and the economy,” Vest told the Times.

A few of the article’s other highlights:

* Obama wants to double federal financing of basic research in physics, life sciences, mathematics, and engineering over the next10 years. McCain, by contrast, favors encouraging private spending on research through tax breaks and deregulation.

* McCain, while generally supporting trade liberalization measures that clear the way for greater American technology exports, has reversed himself in cases where he saw national security at stake. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation from 1997 to 2005, he pushed for restrictions on technology exports to China that, experts say, ultimately pushed the Chinese to accelerate home-grown efforts in areas like computing and space exploration, at the expense of U.S. suppliers.

* In 2007, Obama co-sponsored a bill implementing the recommendations of a 2005 National Academies report on strengthening technological competitiveness. The bill, designed to finance scholarships for math, science, and engineering students, increase basic research budgets, and establish low-cost broadband access nationwide, passed the Senate 88 to 8; McCain abstained. (President Bush signed the bill, called the “American Competes Act,” but Congress hasn’t yet funded it; it’s projected to cost $43 billion over three years.)

* Obama and McCain would both restore the role of the presidential science advisor; make R&D tax credits permanent; overhaul the U.S Patent and Trademark Office; expand research on human stem cells; and allow more foreign engineers to work in the United States.

* McCain says it’s not the government’s role to choose which technologies have the most potential to succeed. He has proposed a $300 million prize to encourage entrepreneurs to develop electric-car technology. But at the same time, he has proposed a freeze on discretionary federal spending that would include research spending. And he has frequently attacked research projects such as a United States Geological Survey study of endangered grizzly-bear populations as examples of wasteful federal spending.

* The McCain campaign has no formal structure for obtaining science and technology advice; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, is the campaign’s “point man” on science, climate, and space policy. Obama’s campaign has a science advisory committee headed by Harold Varmus, former director of the National Institutes of Health and president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The campaign says that 61 Nobel laureates in science have endorsed Obama for president.

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Washington’s economy is one of the most technology-intensive in the nation. Software. Precision agriculture. Aerospace. Biomedicine. E-tailing. New media. Alternative energy. Public and private research institutions. Even narrowly defined, the technology sector is responsible, directly or indirectly, for nearly 50 percent of the jobs in Washington. East to west, north to south, we are driven by innovation. It benefits all of our citizens. It defines our future.

That’s why this year’s Presidential election, and tonight’s debate, are so important to Washington. There are stark differences between how John McCain and Barack Obama would steer our nation’s science and technology enterprise and how those differences will affect our economy.

More than 60 American Nobel Laureates released a letter on Sept. 25 urging support for Senator Barack Obama. Here is part of what they said:

“This year’s presidential election is among the most significant in our nation’s history. The country urgently needs a visionary leader who can ensure the future of our traditional strengths in science and technology and who can harness those strengths to address many of our greatest problems: energy, disease, climate change, security, and economic competitiveness. We are convinced that Senator Barack Obama is such a leader, and we urge you to join us in supporting him.”

These Nobel Laureates support Senator Obama with good reason. We need strong leadership to implement the kinds of changes that will drive the science and technology industries of our nation and our state. To that end, Senator Obama has promised to appoint a highly qualified science advisor who will report directly to him. That position was abolished under George W. Bush. Senator Obama has also pledged to appoint the nation’s first chief technology officer. Senator McCain, on the other hand, has made no such commitment to ensuring that he will seek the best science advice available.

When Senator Obama was looking for science advice to guide his campaign, he called upon the experts. It was recently revealed that three of his top science advisors have Nobel prizes: Peter Agre in chemistry, Robert Horvitz in medicine, and Harold Varmus, the former head of the National Institutes of Health, in medicine. The McCain campaign, despite being asked many times by the press, has declined to identify its science advisors.

Our nation’s economic future depends upon continuing to be the best place to develop innovative products and services and the best place to build new businesses and jobs around innovation. Senator Obama has laid out detailed plans to ensure continued leadership in research and for giving American producers the incentives they need to get ideas into the market.

Consider, for example, energy. Senator McCain claims to have a plan for getting the nation off of fossil fuels, but a close look reveals that he is banking on more oil drilling, developing new nuclear plants, offering a prize for developing more advanced batteries – and he chose a running mate who doubts the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming. Senator Obama, on the other hand, has offered a detailed set of programs including increases in research, a balanced set of energy options, and strong incentives for implementation of new energy ideas.

Never has it been so critical that we have a President who understands science, technology, and innovation – critical to America, critical to the State of Washington, and critical to you and your children. I urge you to become informed on these issues, and to give them appropriate weight in your decision on November 4.

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Obama Addresses Questions About Science

The British science journal Nature posed 18 questions related to science and policy to the two presidential candidates, but received written answers only from Democrat Barack Obama. Nature prints his answers, along with statements on the topics from Republican John McCain when they could be found from other sources. Among the issues, appointing a science advisor, how to address climate change, and what to teach children about evolution.

Google to Fund World-Saving Ideas

Google has announced a project to solicit ideas that can have a positive impact on humanity, and to fund those it deems most promising. The project, dubbed 10^100 (10 to the hundredth power), will dole out up to $10 million to the winning idea or ideas. As CNN reports, Google is open to any sort of idea that helps people in some way, from providing food and shelter to promoting clean energy.

Gluing the Internet to Everything

Craig Mundie, Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer, says the next step in the online evolution is to “glue the Internet platform to the evolved client platform.” In other words, he tells Technology Review, he wants everything from desktop PCs to mobile phones to car dashboards to provide the same Web-based services.

Nanotech Could Help Fight Drug-Resistant Tumors

Cancers that grow resistant to drugs pose a problem for patients, but identifying the genes responsible for the resistance is offering scientists new ways to combat the problem. The Discovery Channel reports that one scientist at Pennsylvania State University is using basketball-shaped nanoparticles to target resistant cells. The particles carry small snippets of RNA that can turn off the genes, making the cells once again vulnerable to drugs.

Push Toward Hydrogen Cars Continues

Mass produced cars fueled by hydrogen will not be widely available to the public for at least 10 years, but automakers are increasing their efforts to develop the vehicles. The New York Times reports that Honda is planning to lease about 200 custom-made FCX Clarity cars in California over the next three years, and Shell and other companies are installing hydrogen fueling facilities at some gas stations. Other car companies are working on prototypes, but all are facing the chicken-and-egg problem of creating a market for the cars while building a fueling infrastructure to support it.

First U.S. Carbon Auction Held

A group of 10 Northeastern states is holding the first U.S. auction of rights for power plants to emit carbon dioxide. Reuters reports that the results of Thursday’s auction will be given to the bidders on Monday, and released to the public in October. The auction is offering 12 million permits to emit one ton of carbon per permit. Plants that cut emissions can sell their permits to other plants for a profit.

System Will Track Groups that Try to Help

There are plenty of organizations, both non-profit and for-profit, that strive to fight poverty and improve health around the world, but it can be hard for donors or investors to tell if they’re really doing any good. Now a group of foundations has come up with an online database, the Portfolio Data Management System, that focuses on these “social entrepreneurs” and tries to measure what they do. BusinessWeek reports that the idea is to provide for these private groups the same information regulatory filings provide for publicly traded companies.

Rhode Island Looks to Offshore Wind for Power

Rhode Island has selected a New Jersey firm, DeepwaterWind LLC, to build a wind farm off its coast. The Associated Press reports that the project, which will cost between $1 billion and $2 billion, could generate 15 percent of the state’s energy needs in the coming decade. If the project ultimately receives regulatory approval, it could be the first offshore wind farm in the United States.

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Suniva Promises Cheap, Efficient Solar Cells

An Atlanta, Ga-based startup, Suniva, says it can make solar cells that are more efficient than existing devices and do it much more inexpensively. Technology Review says the company’s solar cells convert about 20 percent of sunlight into electricity, almost as much as the best solar cells on the market. But their manufacturing process, which resembles silk screening for T-shirts, and the fact they use less pure silicon, could bring costs down significantly once production is scaled up.

Wireless Costs Are All About Control

Yesterday we linked to a BusinessWeek story saying that costs for wireless access are going up because of bandwidth limits. A writer at GigaOm takes issue with that conclusion, and argues that the real reason is that wireless carriers want to maintain control over the services their users enjoy. If the carriers can control the distribution of services for music, photo sharing, and social networks, they could potentially make a lot more money, she writes.

Blogs Make Money, Report Finds

The average blog that runs ads is actually making money, according to a report from Technorati. The report found that mean annual revenue for blogs is $6,000, well over the mean annual cost of $1,800. As TechCrunch tells us, with a note of skepticism, blogs that draw 100,000 or more unique visitors each month are earning $75,000 and up.

Will the Volt Jolt the Car Industry

General Motors unveiled the Chevy Volt last week, and a columnist at Salon wonders if it will wind up as the new new thing or the Edsel reborn. Though he quotes one reviewer who calls the electric car “the 1984 Apple McIntosh on wheels,” he also cites skeptics who don’t like the design and worry that the price will be too high.

Multicore Chip Increases Computing Power

Instead of always striving to make processors faster, computer chip makers are also improving performance by putting more, slower processors on a single chip, creating multicore chips. While Intel and AMD are still offering four-core chips, a San Jose, CA-based startup called Tilera has just introduced a 36-core chip. CNET News reports the company already had a 64-core chip, which it updated, but wanted the less expensive, smaller device to broaden into markets such as video conferencing and network and security applications. By running programs, such as image processing software, in parallel on slower processors, the multicore chip accomplishes tasks faster than chips with fewer cores.

Support for Tidal Power Swells

The pursuit of power generated by the movement of tides has faced obstacles, such as the wave power machine that sank off the coast of Oregon last year. Despite such setbacks, the New York Times reports that ocean power companies are making a new push to develop the technology. The paper says there are roughly 100 small companies around the world that hope to turn the tide to electricity.

Candidates Agree and Disagree on Climate Change

Both candidates for U.S. president agree that climate change is important for the country to address, and both support emission cap-and-trade systems, private sector involvement, and an international approach to tackling the problem. The Wall Street Journal reports that surrogates for Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain debated the issue during a panel on climate change in New York. Where’d they disagree? The Republican wants the federal government to oversee emissions rules, whereas the Democrat likes programs that have been started by California and 10 northeastern states.

People Follow Parties on Global Warming

Where you stand on global warming can be predicted by your political affiliation, a study in Environment has found. Scientists looked at data from the Gallup poll over the past decade and found that Democrats and Republicans diverged in their beliefs about climate change, Science News reports. For instance, in 1997, 27 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of Republicans thought global warming was exaggerated. In 2008, the percentage dropped to 17 percent among Democrats, but rose to 59 percent among Republicans.

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Simple Process Converts Biomass to Gasoline

Several companies are trying to engineer microbes that will turn biomass into hydrocarbon-based fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Now scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison say they’ve come up with a process that sidesteps the microbes. Technology Review reports that the researchers use catalysts at high temperatures to do the conversion thousands of times faster than microbes can.

Infrared Light Might Illuminate Lies

Police and courts don’t like to rely on polygraph tests because they’re notoriously inaccurate. New Scientist reports that a researcher at Drexel University has come up with a lie detector that he thinks is much better at spotting falsehoods. The device shines infrared light through a suspect’s skull and measures how much is reflected by oxygen in the blood. That tells him, he says, how active the brain is in certain areas, which in turn shows if the suspect is lying.

McCain Budget Would Freeze Science Spending

If John McCain is elected president, he’ll place a one-year freeze on discretionary domestic spending, including money for science, a senior advisor to his campaign says. Ike Brannon told a coalition of scientific and professional societies the freeze would allow McCain to evaluate every program to see if it were worthwhile, ScienceNOW reports. Aides to Barack Obama told the same group he would aim to double spending on science over 10 years.

Technology Frees the Mind, Writer Argues

We’ve mentioned an article in the July issue of the Atlantic that posed the question, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” People have been debating the issue ever since, and a writer in the New York Times weighs in with his opinion that new technology doesn’t dumb us down, but frees our minds. He argues that most technologies have been feared when first introduced.

Doctors Perfecting Scarless Surgery

Surgeons are working on new experimental techniques to avoid of scarring by working with the openings that already exist in the human body. The Washington Post says doctors have started using flexible endoscopes to, for instance, remove gallbladders through the mouth, and are experimenting with appendectomies and stomach surgery. Some, though, question the need for new procedures, when there are already safe and minimally invasive practices in use.

Candidates Brand Each Other in Online Searches

Here’s yet another way the presidential campaigns are using new technologies in their quest for the White House. Both campaigns are using Google’s AdWords program to link their ads to particular searches, says Wired. For instance, the McCain campaign bought the term “Joe Biden” so that users searching for the Democratic vice presidential candidate will see an ad that links to a video of Biden criticizing Barack Obama. The Obama campaign, meanwhile, linked “economic crisis” to an ad that criticizes McCain as being “out of touch.”

As Wireless Demand Goes Up, Providers Clamp Down

With the growing popularity of wireless devices such as the iPhone, wireless service providers are raising their data fees. BusinessWeek says this may be just the first step the companies take to try to moderate consumers’ use of wireless services, as they struggle to keep up with the demand for bandwidth. Companies are also starting to place monthly limits on how much data mobile phone users can download.

Microbe Could Help Recycle Plastic

All those billions of plastic bottles you’re drinking your designer water and energy drinks out of could be recycled into a biodegradable plastic that could replace the cellophane in food packaging, Science News reports. The trick is to heat the plastic so it breaks down into constituent parts, including an acid. Feed the acid to the right kind of microbes and they turn it into a new, biodegradable plastic.

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National Academy Advises Candidates on Science

The National Academy of Sciences has issued a report advising the presidential candidates on how to deal with science-related issues. According to Ars Technica, the NAS says that most major issues for government, including climate, healthcare, and intelligence gathering, have some science and technology components. The group is calling for the next president to appoint a personal science advisor in his early days in office.

Obama Reveals Science Advisors

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is right on top of the science advisor issue. The campaign told Wired that the candidate is getting science advice from five noted scientists, including Nobel laureates Harold Varmus and Peter Agre. The magazine says Republican nominee John McCain has ignored repeated requests to identify his science advisors.

Software Teases Out Campaign Spin

Obama is a master of political spin, while McCain gave it to them straight during his convention speech, according to a computer scientist who claims his software can detect spin in political speeches. New Scientist reports that David Skillicorn of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, has developed an algorithm to analyze word usage in a speech. Among his assumptions: “I” is more honest than “we” and action verbs tend to indicate greater levels of spin.

FDA Issues Rules on Genetically Altered Animals

The Food and Drug Administration is issuing regulatory guidelines on the genetic engineering of animals, which experts say should help spur development in a potentially huge field. The Washington Post says the rules will let biotech companies know what the FDA expects to know about the development of bioengineered animals, from which snippets of DNA are being inserted into their genome to what is done with their bodies when they die. Biotechnologists hope to improve animals for food, as well as use them to produce medically useful substances.

Rural America Lagging in Broadband Access

Individuals and businesses in rural parts of the country are stuck with slow dial-up connections to the Internet because access providers don’t find it economically feasible to provide broadband access in sparsely populated areas, BusinessWeek reports. Only 38 percent of households in rural America have high-speed Internet connections, compared to 57 percent in cities and 60 percent in suburbs. Now a group called Connected Nation is trying to boost broadband availability, following the model of old rural electrification programs.

U.S. Exports Harmful E-Waste, Report Finds

Your old computer monitor may be contributing to pollution in Asia, according to a report from the federal Government Accountability Office. The GAO report found that many U.S. electronics recyclers are shipping cathode ray tubes overseas in violation of Environmental Protection Agency rules, and that other potentially toxic electronic waste is not even regulated, PC World reports.

Chemists Promise Photosynthesis in Lab as Fuel Source

Chemists are working on an artificial version of photosynthesis that could be used to split water into oxygen and hydrogen, which could then be used to power fuel cells. Nature says they’re optimistic—one MIT professor guarantees he’ll have a device for cheaply producing hydrogen in less than five years. A cheap source of hydrogen could revolutionize energy supply the professor, Dan Nocera, claims.

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Berners-Lee Creates Web Foundation

The man who invented the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee, has launched a new foundation to promote open and expanded access to the Web. Ars Technica reports that the World Wide Web Foundation has $1 million in seed funding from the Knight Foundation. Specific goals of the project have not yet been announced.

DNA Machine Advances Personal Genomics

One of the hopes for the revolution brought about by the sequencing of the human genome is that doctors will one day be able to customize medical care to individual patients’ based on their genetic makeup. Technology Review reports that a Menlo Park, CA, company, Pacific Biosciences, has developed a machine for quickly and cheaply sequencing DNA. The company hopes to make the process fast and inexpensive enough that sequencing can become a routine procedure in doctors’ offices.

Chamber of Commerce Decries Carbon Regulations

Regulation of carbon dioxide would affect more than 1 million businesses and could stifle economic innovation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says. Reuters tells us that the Chamber is releasing a report claiming that any business that spends more than $70,000 a year on oil or natural gas would be affected by proposed regulations. But a spokesman for the Natural Resources Defense Council calls the report an attempt to stir up anti-regulatory hysteria.

Engineer Demonstrates Robot Prius

Tired of the stress of stop-and-go driving? An engineer in San Francisco has a proposed solution, a robot-driven car that makes the decisions for you—speeding up, braking, staying in the lane all on its own. CNET News reports that the engineer, Anthony Levandowski, demonstrated the system he built into a Toyota Prius by having the car navigate its own way through San Francisco last week.

Comparing the Candidates on Science Issues

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has answered a series of questions posed to him by a group called Science Debate 2008. The New York Times summarizes his positions, along with those of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, who answered them in late August. Not surprisingly, Obama’s answers stress the role of government while McCain focuses on business in addressing some of the nation’s main science-related challenges.

Link Found Between Plastics, Heart Disease

A chemical used in some food and drink containers may increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study found that people with the highest levels of bisphenol A in their urine were three times more likely to have cardiovascular disease and 2.4 times more likely to have diabetes than those with the lowest levels, Nature reports. The story cautions that the study does not prove that the chemical causes these diseases, but quotes an epidemiologist as saying that it “puts a scientific question mark” over the substance.

U.S. Losing its Lead in IT

The United States still has the world’s most competitive information technology industry, but that lead is slipping, according to a new study. BusinessWeek says the Business Software Alliance ranks 66 countries in six areas, including the availability of skilled labor and friendliness to innovation. The U.S. ranked number 1 in only three categories, and had an overall ranking lower than last year’s.

Google Goes to Sea

As if Google’s dominance in cyberspace weren’t enough, the company is now thinking of taking its mainframes to the bounding main. The Times Online reports that the company is considering placing the supercomputers that power its search engine on barges anchored up to seven miles offshore, where it could use wave energy to run and cool the machines. Let’s just hope the data doesn’t end up in Davy Jones’s locker.

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Software Could Aid in Hurricane Evacuations

Researchers at MIT are testing new software that uses vast amounts of information to guide officials in planning how and when to evacuate a city if a hurricane is coming. After Katrina, officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency started using software that estimates how long it would take to evacuate a city. But according to Technology Review, the new MIT computer model goes much further, combining information about current weather conditions and projected hurricane paths with data on how many elderly, hospital patients, and tourists have to be moved, and makes recommendations based on those inputs.

White Roofs Could Combat Global Warming

One simple way to counter the warming effects of greenhouse gases would be to paint a certain percentage of roofs white, reflecting sunlight back into space, says a researcher from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Physicist Hashem Akbari told the Climate Change Research Conference that he’s quantified the effect for the first time, and that changing a 1,000-square-foot roof—the average on an American home—from black to white would offset 10 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. The Los Angeles Times reports that, if the world’s hundred largest cities painted their roofs white and replaced asphalt with more reflective concrete, the cooling effect would be massive.

Campaigns Trade Barbs on Stem Cell Research

The public policy debate on what research, if any, to perform with embryonic stem cells is heating up. The New York Times reports that Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden is going on the offensive against a Republican Party platform that opposes any form of such research, even that approved by the Bush administration. The McCain campaign accuses Biden of using the issue to attack vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whose youngest son was born with Down syndrome.

Cell Phone Pics Can Help Fight Crime

The New York Police Department has upgraded its 911 emergency system to allow it to accept pictures and video from cell phones or computers, CNET News reports. Now 911 callers can tell dispatchers that they’ve got an image to go with their complaint, and a detective will call back and have them upload the data. The system also allows non-emergency hotlines to get images of other city issues, such as potholes.

YouTube Videos Led to RNC Arrests

Anarchist groups that were raided by police just prior to the Republican National Convention came to the attention of authorities when the groups posted a video suggesting they were planning to disrupt the convention. Ars Technica reports that, according to police affidavits, another video, this one appearing to highlight protest targets, also piqued police interest. Police also targeted a group that uses video to monitor the interaction between police and activists during protests.

Techies Split on Obama vs. McCain

A survey of information technology professionals finds that 43 percent of them think the outcome of the presidential election will affect the decisions their companies make about IT. For instance, the Wall Street Journal says, stricter environmental policies might lead to spending on more energy-efficient systems, while immigration policies will affect their ability to hire foreign workers. Asked who they preferred as president, 28 percent said Obama, 28 percent said McCain, and 22 percent said neither.

Online Dating Could Aid Endangered Species

Biologists worried about some rare species dying out have a new tool to help them match breeding pairs, even in zoos far removed from one another, CNN reports. Taking a cue from online dating services, more than 200 zoos are using a website that contains information on an animal’s sex, age, and weight, and even lets zookeepers add information about an animal’s personality that might help them find the right match. No word on whether the gay penguins in the Central Park Zoo will be allowed to create profiles.

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Solar Power Provides Enough Energy for Everything, Expert Argues

Solar power has the potential to provide for all the world’s energy needs, the research director of a Paris-based institute told a European energy conference, according to Agence France Presse. Daniel Lincot, research director for the Institute for Research and Development of Photovoltaic Energy, says solar energy is so far providing only a negligible contribution to the global energy supply, but there’s enough sunlight striking the Earth to cover all the planet’s needs. Scientists at the conference called on governments around the world to speed up the deployment of solar power.

Obama, McCain Compete on Who’s Greener

Both the Democratic and Republican nominees for president have made energy security and environmental issues part of their campaign, leading Reuters to ask who is best equipped to turn the White House green. Barack Obama, who wants higher fuel efficiency standards for automobiles and calls offshore drilling a stop-gap measure, has the endorsement of most environmental groups. John McCain wants to develop technologies that reduce American dependence on foreign oil, and told his party’s convention last week, “We will drill new oil wells off-shore, and we’ll drill them now.”

Google Grows into an Enormous 10-Year-Old

Google turned 10 on Sunday, and in the past decade it has grown enormously, from performing 10,000 searches a day in 1998 to an estimated 235 million daily searches now. It’s also grown into a company with $16.5 billion in annual revenues, allowing it to buy a number of other businesses. Forbes takes a look at how a tiny company grew into an Internet king.

TI Introduces Energy-Efficient Chip

Energy efficiency is widely seen as a cost-effective step for combating the pollution that leads to global warming. Texas Instruments is introducing a line of microcontrollers that it says will provide more sophisticated control of power usage in a wide variety of electronics, from battery-driven cars and solar panels to LED lighting and home appliances, CNET News reports. For instance, TI says an air-conditioner with a variable fan speed controlled by its microchips could be 30 percent more efficient than current models.

Spooks Sign On to “Facebook for Spies”

Social networking could be a useful tool for intelligence agents to share information and opinions in a way they never have before, say bosses at the FBI, CIA, and National Security Agency. According to CNN, the agencies are encouraging their analysts to use A-Space, a new site being launched for the intelligence community this month. The hope is that crucial data will be shared more widely by the people who need to see it, but no one will be able to use it without the proper security clearance.

Companies Twitter to Reach Out to Customers

People who use Twitter to comment about Kodak or General Motors might be surprised when the companies Twitter back at them. BusinessWeek reports that those businesses, as well as others such as JetBlue, Dell, Comcast, and Whole Foods, have started to monitor the microblogging service for mentions of their companies. When they see a mention, their customer service departments respond to the sender, asking if there’s anything they can do to help.

How Much for R&D in Clean Energy?

How much should the government spend on research and development for clean energy technologies, asks Earth2Tech. Dan Kammen, director of the Renewable Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, and an advisor to Barack Obama, is calling for $150 billion over 10 years. A group backed by the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council argues that committing to $100 billion would create 2 million jobs in just two years.

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Comcast Sues FCC Over Bandwidth Cap

Comcast is suing to overturn a ruling by the Federal Communications Commission, Ars Technica reports. The FCC ruled in July that Comcast could not slow down the Internet access of users who share files over peer-to-peer networks. The dispute is part of a growing controversy over whether the Internet faces a data traffic jam and what service providers can do about it.

Is Geoengineering a Good Idea?

A number of ideas that go far beyond cutting down greenhouse gas emissions have been floated to combat the effects of global warming, such as seeding the atmosphere with reflective particles or placing giant mirrors in space to divert sunlight from the planet. The International Herald Tribune reports that some scientists say such plans could have unintended negative effects, while the Royal Society, a British scientific body, says they might become necessary regardless of how risky they are.

PCs Rapidly Infested with Bot Software

The number of PCs infected with software that can turn them into “bots,” remotely controlled by criminals to send out spam or denial-of-service attacks, has jumped from about 100,000 to 400,000 over the past three months, says the Washington Post. The estimate comes from a group of volunteers, called Shadowserver, who monitor such activity. The Post says the real number of infected PCs is probably much higher.

McCain Being Googled More Often, Data Show

As the presidential campaign heads into its final two months, the number of people doing Google searches on Republican nominee John McCain is gaining on the number searching Democratic candidate Barack Obama. TechCrunch charts the data coming from Google Trends and finds that McCain spiked in searches when he announced Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. There’s no knowing, of course, whether this increased online attention translates into votes.

Candidates Differ on Plug-in Cars

It’s probably the first presidential campaign this has come up in, but both Barack Obama and John McCain have staked out positions on plug-in electric vehicles. CalCars takes a look at where the two stand. Obama would support more tax credits for plug-ins and switch the White House fleet to all plug-in vehicles. McCain wants to offer $300 million for developing more advanced batteries and has specifically supported Chevrolet’s electric Volt.

Startup Promises Power from Dirt

A company in Cambridge, MA, is working on fuel cells that use the metabolic processes of bacteria to generate power. Technology Review says the company, Lebone Solutions, realizes the process only produces small amounts of electricity, but thinks it will be enough to meet some needs in developing countries with populations living off the grid. The developers recently completed a pilot study of the technology in Tanzania.

Computer Makers Try to Get Greener

Computer manufacturers are looking for ways to make PCs more environmentally friendly, the Wall Street Journal reports. Dell, for instance, has introduced a machine built with recycled parts. Other companies are developing software to make computers use less energy, or building chips that are more energy efficient.

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Carriers Upgrading Long-Distance Networks

Telecommunications carriers are upgrading their networks by replacing equipment designed to carry 10 gigabits of data per second with 40 gigabit equipment. GigaOm reports that 23 companies have purchased 40-Gb equipment since Nortel started selling it in April. The need to upgrade the core is being driven by the increase in high-bandwidth fiber closer to homes and more demand for high-bandwidth services such as high-definition video.

Floating Farms Could Replenish Fish Supplies

Conventional fishing is predicted to wipe out commercial stocks of fish by 2050, leading researchers to consider fish farms to replenish the stock. As New Scientist reports, researchers worry that placing a giant fish cage in one spot would cause a build-up of fish feces, and leave the cages vulnerable to strong storms. So an MIT scientist is developing self-propelled mobile fish farms that wouldn’t stay in one place long enough to cause environmental damage and could drift with storm waves.

Measles Vaccine Does Not Cause Autism, Study Finds

Public health officials are hoping that a new study will encourage parents to get their children vaccinated against measles, which has seen a resurgence this year. The Columbia University study found that there is no link between the measles vaccine and autism; a fear of such a link has led parents to refuse to vaccinate their children, says Scientific American. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 131 cases of measles in the first seven months of 2008, more than double the annual number of cases in 2001 through 2007.

Candidates Have Big Differences on Energy

Republican presidential candidate John McCain opposes subsidies, earmarks, and heavy regulation regarding energy, while Democrat Barack Obama wants a stronger federal role in developing renewable energy, according to a report from the research firm New Energy Finance. CNET News reports that the firm dug through voting records and public statements to determine each candidate’s positions on energy policy. It found, for instance, that McCain wants to scale back the government’s role in promoting ethanol, while Obama would continue it.

Which Cars Will be Hot in the Next Four Years?

Depending on whether John McCain or Barack Obama is the next president, different cars could turn out to be more popular, says TheCarConnection.com, which takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the candidates car preferences. If Obama is president, the site predicts, a Honda Accord biodiesel or a subcompact like the Ford Fiesta would be in line with his energy policies. If it’s McCain, think about buying a Toyota Prius hybrid, a Honda Civic GX that burns natural gas, or Chevrolet’s plug-in hybrid, the Volt.

New Grants Hope to Stimulate Bio Research

The National Institutes of Health plan to dole out $42.2 million in “Eureka” grants to fund “exceptionally innovative research.” The Chronicle of Higher Education says the grants are a response to critics who say the NIH tends to fund only safe research with predictable results.

Small Turbines May Not Pay Back Their Costs

Plenty of people, from Jay Leno to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, are interested in generating local electricity with small wind turbines perched on rooftops. At about $5000 per turbine, the machines may produce so little energy that they’ll never recoup the cost, reports the New York Times. At the same time, big turbines are getting larger and more powerful, and may soon compete with natural gas for cost efficiency.

Algae Fuel Company Wins $3 Million in Funding

Researchers at Arizona State University, who have developed a method of producing jet fuel from algae, have received $3 million to start a company to commercialize the technology. The startup is a collaboration between Heliae Development and Science Foundation Arizona, the Cleantech Group reports. Separately, University of Virginia researchers are developing ways to commercially produce algae more efficiently.

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Conventions Draw Citizen Journalists

It’s not just the presidential candidates who are taking advantage of new technologies in this year’s campaign. As CNET News tells us, citizen journalists are recording and broadcasting events in unprecedented numbers and formats. While some upload raw footage of protests and arrests to websites, others are using a cell phone application called Foneshow to share media clips from the campaigns.

Candidates Offer Answers on Biomedicine Questions

Barack Obama and John McCain have provided answers to 17 questions related to healthcare and medical research posed by a group promoting healthcare as a higher national priority. Science News reports several similarities in the candidates’ responses to questions from Research! America, of Alexandria, VA. Both believe in funding for the National Institutes of Health, support stem cell research, and let in more foreign workers with medical skills. The site links to the complete set of answers, as well as those from third party candidates such as Ralph Nader and Bob Barr.

Foreign Internet Traffic Bypassing U.S.

An increasing amount of the data flowing through the Internet from other countries is being routed around the United States. The New York Times reports that 70 percent of Internet traffic went through U.S.-based routers a decade ago, but that now it has dropped to about 25 percent. In part, the drop is due to concerns that American intelligence agencies were spying on the traffic, a military advantage the country is now losing.

Internet Hasn’t Hit a Traffic Jam Yet

Cable companies, fearful that the growing demand for bandwidth will soon reach the limit of the Internet’s capacity, are talking about ways to control traffic flow. (Comcast has even said it will place a cap on broadband customers’ monthly usage.) But BusinessWeek says there’s little real evidence of any coming traffic jam. Even though there is some congestion on cable systems, technological advances are allowing massive increases in the data capacities of the network, the magazine says.

Boston Turns Out the Lights to Save Electricity

The City of Boston is starting a two-month trial of a program to turn off the lights in 34 skyscrapers as a way to save energy. The city estimates that turning off all the lights above the 30th floor between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. should cut the amount of electricity used for lighting by about 25 percent, according to the Boston Globe. If the program is deemed successful, it could continue year-round.

Does Lack of Sunspots Presage Global Cooling?

The sunspots that usually roil the surface of the sun, and can cause electromagnetic interference with satellites and power grids, have been virtually absent all year. In August, according to New Scientist, only one sunspot was, well, spotted. Long periods of low sunspot activity have been associated with a cooler climate, but the magazine says it’s too early to tell how long this one will last or what its effects will be.

Flurry of Hurricanes May Be Result of Warming, UN Says

With Hurricane Gustav just past and three tropical storms brewing in the Atlantic, the head of the United Nations Environment Program warns that the heavier hurricane season may be a result of global warming. Of course, no one storm can be attributed to global warming, but Achim Steiner of the UN told Reuters that extreme weather events, including hurricanes in the Atlantic and floods in India, “reflect a pattern of change that is in line with projections” by global climate experts.

Blowing Stuff Up Goes Green

Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are working on a new class of explosive materials that improves on conventional explosives by making them more stable, and is more environmentally friendly to manufacture. Daily Tech says the new explosives are based on a class of compounds called molecular crystals, which normally require toxic, non-organic solvents to process. Researchers discovered a class of organic solvents that could reduce the amount of toxins created during manufacturing of the explosives. Somewhere in here, a Dr. Strangelove joke is eluding me.

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Obama Answers Science Quiz

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has responded to 14 questions about science and technology policy, posed by a group that had been calling on candidates to debate science issues. Wired summarizes his answers, which include a promise to increase funding for basic research and to lift the Bush administration’s restrictions on stem-cell research. Republican candidate John McCain has said he will answer the same questions, but has not yet done so.

Candidates Track Voters Online

In an effort to identify more potential voters, both the Obama and McCain campaigns are engaging in online behavioral research, trying to target voters, donors, and volunteers by their individual interests. BusinessWeek says that neither campaign will discuss its strategy in detail, but that the effort is sophisticated enough in its tracking to raise concerns among privacy advocates.

Follow the Campaign on Twitter

If round-the-clock cable channels and blogs that cover both the ideological and credibility spectrum aren’t enough, now voters can keep up with the presidential campaign by follow what others say about the candidates on Twitter. TechCrunch reports that Stephen Taylor, a Canadian blogger and political analyst, has put together a website and a Facebook application called govtweets. The site scrolls a constant update of any tweets mentioning the names of the presidential and vice presidential candidates.

Why You Should Hate Metered Broadband

The bloggers over at GigaOm really don’t like the idea that Internet service providers plan to place caps on how much data their customers can transmit, such as Comcast’s announcement that it will cut off any user who goes over 250 gigabytes in a month. GigaOm offers its list of “10 Things To Know and Hate About Metered Broadband,” including the possibility of a negative effect on innovation and the lack of software to track usage.

Multiple Tissue Transplants See Growing Success

Transplants involving multiple types of human tissue, such as hands and faces, are seeing increased success and could transform treatments for people who have lost limbs and other body parts. The Los Angeles Times reports that such surgeries, impossible just a decade ago, are growing in popularity. The downside is that they’re still risky and expensive, and may possibly shorten the life of recipients.

Company Plans 8 Geothermal Plants

Geothermal energy, which relies on heat harvested from the Earth’s crust, may turn out to be profitable for at least one company. Raser Technologies, of Provo, UT, has nearly finished a plant that it says will be providing electricity to 9,000 homes in Anaheim, CA, by the end of the year. Daily Tech reports that the company expects to complete seven more plants next year.

Forget Carbon, What About the Nitrogen?

Attempts to cut carbon emissions into the atmosphere by doing things like growing more corn for use in biofuels may be ignoring other factors that contribute to global warming, scientists warn. Growing more biomass generally involves using more nitrogen-based fertilizer, and that can lead to the production of more nitrogen trifluoride, which is about 17,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide when it comes to warming the atmosphere. The New York Times reports that several scientists who study nitrogen are urging that it be used more sensibly.

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Was the Convention All That Green?

Democrats had been boasting that the Denver convention would be the “most sustainable” in the history of conventions, and in some ways they may have accomplished their goal. CNET News says there were certainly separate trash containers for recycling waste, including biodegradable drinking straws. On the other hand, there were plenty of SUVs idling while waiting to ferry delegates around, and recycling all those signs is going to take energy.

McCain Campaign Relaunches Networking Site

The McCain campaign has certainly learned that it needs a cyber presence to reach out to voters, and has relaunched its McCainSpace with a new design. According to TechCrunch, John McCain hasn’t been doing as well as he might hope with the online crowd. On Facebook, he has only 226,000 supporters, as compared to 1.4 million for Barack Obama.

McCain Tech Policy Assessed

John McCain has released his policy position on matters related to technology. Law professor Lawrence Lessig evaluates the policy and dubs it “faith-based.” Lessig, an Obama supporter, notes that the U.S. dropped from fifth in the world for broadband penetration to number 22 over the course of the Bush administration, and doesn’t see anything in McCain’s proposals to reverse the trend.

Metered Broadband Should Include a Meter, Writer Argues

Comcast has announced its intention to place a limit of 250 GB of data transfer per month on its customers, beginning Oct. 1. At GigaOm, writer Om Malik argues that if the company is going to place such limits, complete with a threat of shutting off customers who exceed them, it ought to give customers a way to see how much bandwidth they’re using.

U.S. Company is Major Source for Cybercrime

A report by several security researchers identifies Atrivo, a network provider in Concord, CA, as a major host for web services that make it easy for even novice hackers to commit cybercrimes. According to the Washington Post, the company has long been a source of spyware, adware, viruses, and fake antivirus programs. The company’s founder tells the paper that he can’t control the content on servers, although he’s trying to clean up the company’s image.

Texas Approve Biomass-Burning Plant

A $2.3 billion biomass-burning plant in East Texas has won approval from the Austin city council. Earth2Tech says the 100-megawatt facility will burn woody waste, such as sawdust and tree trimmings, and sell the power to Austin Energy.

New Technique Could Neutralize Greenhouse Gas

Chemists at Brandeis University in Massachusetts have found a way to separate fluorine from carbon compounds, opening the door to eliminating one of the most potent types of greenhouse gas. Science News reports that, so far, the scientists only have a proof of their concept, but hope to develop it into a practical process for breaking up hydrofluorocarbons. The volume of HFCs is much lower in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, but they trap more heat and do not break down easily.

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Barack Obama probably doesn’t have to worry much about the cleantech vote. A handful of renewable energy entrepreneurs couldn’t say enough good things about the Democratic presidential candidate in a press conference this morning at the Propel Biofuels station in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood.

The cleantechies gave me a series of blank stares when I asked if they know a single soul in the renewable energy industry who’s supporting Sen. John McCain, the Republican candidate. They were brought in to the event by the Obama campaign, which is advocating a 10-year, $150 billion plan to boost alternative energy. The plan includes a goal of getting 1 million plug-in hybrid cars on the road by 2015, and aims to generate one-fourth of the nation’s electricity comes from renewable sources by 2025.

“I’m an independent, I’ve voted for Republicans and Democrats in the past,” said Michael Weaver, CEO of Redmond, WA-based Bionavitas, a developer of algae-based biofuels. “I think the key issue this election is energy security, both in terms of the economy and the military. The strongest candidate is clearly Senator Obama.”

Before the event started, I chatted with Imperium Renewables CEO John Plaza, who has been pretty tight-lipped about recent struggles with his own company, including layoffs. He didn’t want to say anything more about that situation, but he livened up on the subject of Obama’s energy plan.

“You and I have never seen an aggressive, forward-thinking perspective on energy like this from a presidential campaign,” he says. “I just turned 43, so I’ve been following politics for 20 years. You look at Reagan, he took the solar panels off the White House. The first Bush never talked about alternative energy, it was about securing petroleum. Clinton talked about it, but oil was at record lows of $15 to $20 a barrel in the 1990s. Now we realize we have a real problem.”

During the press conference, Plaza turned a bit more combative, saying with McCain, “all he gives are platitudes and generalities.” He criticized the Arizona Senator’s support for more offshore oil drilling. (Nobody mentioned that Obama also is willing to support some more offshore drilling, in addition to conservation and investment in alternatives.)

There was some irony in the setting of the press conference, too. It was hard to hear many of the speakers, who stood at a podium between a pair of biodiesel pumps. They were drowned out by the noise coming from a lot of conventional diesel-powered dump trucks rumbling along Valley Street to construction sites.

Just when I started wondering if high prices of renewable fuels are sinking consumer demand, and possibly dragging down enthusiasm for Obama’s energy plan, a sign emerged. Just as I was interviewing Propel Biofuels CEO Rob Elam about how business has gone since the station opened in June, a customer in a Mercedes SUV pulled up for some biodiesel.

After some brief chit-chat with the customer, Elam pointed out that his 20 percent biodiesel blend fuel, called B20, was selling for $4.78 a gallon, about a dime cheaper than a conventional diesel station nearby. He didn’t disclose sales figures, but said they are climbing every week. I bet Obama’s people are keeping their fingers crossed that the trends stay that way through November, which will make it a little bit easier to fuel the American public’s fire for a big new alternative energy plan.

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