[Editors note: Architect Robert Noble wrote this article with Glenn Croston]

The San Diego area is the home of numerous cleantech businesses that are developing innovative green cars (Aptera, V-Vehicle Co.), developing alternative fuels (GreenHouse International, Synthetic Genomics Inc., Sapphire Energy), finding alternatives to petrochemicals (Genomatica, Verdezyne), and providing renewable energy and energy efficiency solutions (KEMA, Kyocera, Envision Solar).

Assisting our growing cluster is a network of non-profits, trade groups, government agencies, universities, and investors who share a common interest in cultivating a green economy. These groups collaborate on many projects, strengthening our vision for more green businesses, jobs, and investments in cleantech innovation. But while they share common goals, local green groups are also distinct in many ways and often compete for money, members, and media; their varying perspective, focus, message, membership, and goals can be confusing. If you’re an entrepreneur, how can you find support for the green innovations you hope to commercialize? Where do investors look for opportunities and advice? Where can founders find the resources they need to move their ventures forward?

We’ve compiled a listing of these groups to help San Diego entrepreneurs and others find the resources they need to grow green, and to help San Diego’s green economy grow.

—The California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE) is the cornerstone in developing San Diego’s green business cluster. As a non-profit, the CCSE works to advance the adoption of renewable energy, green building design, clean transportation options, and energy efficiency by providing workshops, information, and training.

—Cleantech San Diego is a membership-based non-profit industry association that sponsors events for businesses, investors, and others working in the cleantech cluster. They summarize their mission on their website, saying, “Cleantech San Diego advocates for new sources of investment capital, workforce development, international trade, federal and state research funding, targeted regulation, and sustainable land use planning and development.”

—San Diego Clean Enterprise Program, which is administered by Cleantech San Diego through a partnership with the City of San Diego and the mayor, which provides interest-free financing for energy efficiency improvements for small businesses. Cleantech San Diego also is working with the rest of the green community to support funding and grant applications, such as the effort to win $260 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) for local solar projects.

—San Diego Gas & Electric committed to develop a distributed solar power generation system in the San Diego region in 2008. So it’s no surprise that …Next Page »

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[Corrected 7/1/09]

The atmosphere at last Wednesday’s XSITE energy breakout session was electric—clean electric, that is. The topic of the hour was the future and feasibility of wind, solar, and other alternative energy industries in New England. Rob Day, president of the Renewable Energy Business Network, moderated the panel, which included Jay Fiske (a VP at solar firm Wakonda Technologies), Daniel Goldman (EVP and CFO of GreatPoint Energy, a developer of coal gasification technology), Gerry Haines (EVP and chief legal officer at biofuel firm Verenium), and Roger Freeman (president of wind power firm Solventerra Energy).

The energy industry is staring down the barrel of heavy government involvement in its affairs. The Waxman-Markey bill, which at the time of the panel was still being debated in the House of Representatives, poses both potential opportunities and potential headaches for the clean energy industry. The new emissions regulations aimed at the largest polluters, intended to force large energy companies to develop cleaner fuels, may provide a huge boost to smaller cleantech firms. “The problem with Big Oil is, even with incentives given to work on alternative fuels, they’re not really in the tech development business, so we work with them,” said Haines.

Waxman-Markey’s detractors, however, say that the stricter federal standards for controlling carbon emissions leaves less room for companies, especially smaller ones, to adjust to local conditions. The costs that are more easily absorbed by large oil or coal interests may prove more challenging to a small cleantech company.

When asked how startup energy firms could cope with more stringent government regulation, GreatPoint Energy’s Goldman noted that utilities, for the most part, have always been regulated, and that “we have to accept that we work in a regulated industry, and that government policy plays a very significant role.” On the other hand, he said, most companies “can’t afford time to sit in Washington influencing members of Congress.” He advised that smaller cleantech companies not try to lobby for policy changes on their own, but to piggyback onto the efforts of larger companies. “Figure out how your company’s interests align with, say, GE, and leverage off their focus.”

When asked to comment on the difficulties that energy startups face in acquiring venture funding, Solventerra’s Freeman, the former managing director of the nonprofit Citizens Energy Corporation, said that the lack of potential for a big—or bigger than expected—payoff was the problem. “Energy is a tangible business. You put x amount in and get x amount of energy out. You can measure the risk pretty successfully, so it doesn’t attract as much venture investment.”

“It’s not Web 2.0,” said Day.  “You have to actually make something.”

Fiske noted that in the current economic climate, investors might be cautious, but alternative sources of funding for cleantech have never been more abundant.  Cleantech can always look to “SBIR grants, competition winnings, and of course, the three Fs—friends, family, and fools.” [Editor's note: this quote was originally misattributed to Daniel Goldman. We regret the error.]

Day asked the panel to describe some of the barriers in New England to the success of cleantech. Freeman said that Boston’s deeply engrained parochialism means navigating a maze of regulation for even the simplest matters. Major additions and infrastructure changes can only be that much more of a headache. “It took my friend two years to get a permit to build a deck. How long do you think it takes to get one for a wind turbine?”

“The good thing is, we have a forward-thinking administration here in Massachusetts,” said Goldman. The Patrick administration, he says, is a staunch supporter of cleantech innovation.

Wakonda’s Fiske said that Massachusetts could be doing more to capitalize on its intellectual resources, and that universities in particular could better support spin–offs and the commercialization of their research. The panelists all concurred that the concentration of both high-level research institutions and scientists was New England’s greatest advantage.

“Intellectual capital,” said Haines, “is our best resource.”

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Steve Ihnen knows to the minute when the clouds will arrive. From the Redmond, WA, office of his company, SolarCasters, he keeps an eye on weather conditions around the world with satellite data. Then, using complex mathematical modeling software, he collates cloud-cover, humidity, and other factors to calculate how much sunlight will reach the ground in a given spot in the next day, hour, or even minute.

SolarCasters is a “weatherman for the solar power industry,” among other roles, says Ihnen, the chief technology officer and only full-time employee of SolarCasters. Besides forecasting when the sun will come out, the company provides information and consulting to solar power companies about where best to build their plants, what kind of solar panels they should use, and how much electricity they can expect to produce. Based on criteria like how much the sun shines in a given area and what the relevant weather is like there, Ihnen can recommend the best options in placement and design to his clients.

Knowing how much solar energy is available minute-to-minute is vitally important because unlike nuclear, coal, or other types of power generators, solar power cannot be as easily controlled and managed. “The supply of electricity must precisely meet demand at every instant,” Ihnen said. Generally, large-scale power suppliers, whether public or private utilities or independent system operators like the California ISO (a power grid operator), share and move power about, buying and selling electricity as needed to keep supply and demand levels equalized. Solar power plants thus need to know in advance how much power they will generate in order to replace or buy power from another power plant as necessary. Ideally, Ihnen said, power systems together “operate almost as if they were one organism.”

Although not heavily used in America yet, solar power is a rapidly growing industry in places like Europe and Australia. SolarCaster’s clients are located all over the world, but non-disclosure agreements prevent Ihnen from revealing who his clients are, or even how many he has, since he began taking on clients last fall.

Ihnen founded the company in January 2008 after spending two years developing …Next Page »

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[Updated with comments from Kelly Jo MacArthur on page 2]
In recent years, we have seen an explosion of alternative energy devices, yet most of these technologies remain out of the reach of the average homeowner. To outfit your roof with solar panels, you’d probably be out $10,000 to $20,000 as an initial investment. Clarian Technologies, a brand new, three-employee Seattle startup, wants to change all that. With its products slated to hit the market in 2010, the company aims to bring affordable wind and solar energy devices to the masses. I spoke with Clarian founder Chad Maglaque to find out more.

The two products that he hopes are coming to stores near you soon are the Jellyfish (wind turbine) and Sunfish (solar panels). Maglaque’s vision is that an ecologically-minded but not necessarily wealthy homeowner could pick up one of these at Home Depot, Best Buy, or Costco, set it up on their roof or in the garden, plug it into a regular power outlet, and start generating electricity—without having to bring in a contractor, electrician, or inspector.

The cost? The starting price for the Jellyfish is $399, and the Sunfish is $899. Clarian is already talking with Costco about stocking the devices, Maglaque said.

In currently available wind and solar technologies, a device called the inverter is a big cost hurdle, Maglaque said. That’s the part of the technology that converts DC to AC current that can be used in your home, and adds at least $3,000 to $4,000 to the price tag. “We wanted to tackle that with the view that smaller is better,” Maglaque said.

So Clarian’s products don’t actually need the inverter. This isn’t a new concept, Maglaque said. Large industrial wind turbines don’t use inverters either.

When Maglaque explains how few obstacles there are to a plug-and-go wind or solar energy generator, it seems like there’s a huge hole in the alternative energy market. The existing plugs in your house are coded to take an appliance up to 1,500 watts. But a 1,500 watt solar panel array would normally cost $15,000 to $20,000, Maglaque said. “There are not many people who can afford to do that,” he said. “That’s where there is this disconnect in the market.”

Enter the Jellyfish, which is three feet tall and can be mounted on a roof …Next Page »

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It was a relatively light week for deals in the Northwest, perhaps owing to the holiday weekend. But there was still action in biotech, marketing software, and alternative energy.

—Kennewick, WA-based Infinia raised $14.1 million in debt financing out of a $50 million offering. The company, which is backed by Vulcan Capital, Khosla Ventures, and other investors, develops solar power generation technology that uses free-piston Stirling engines and power systems.

—Luke reported on the story behind Vulcan Capital’s investment in BiPar Sciences, the Brisbane, CA-based cancer biotech firm that was recently sold to Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis for $500 million. Vulcan led the seed financing round for BiPar back in 2005, and pumped $13 million in capital into it through its lifetime. The sale will earn Vulcan more than $100 million in cash, which managing director Steve Hall says has helped put the firm in the top 10 percent of all U.S. venture funds over the past five years. BiPar’s drug, BSI-201, could be a fundamental advance against breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and other tumors.

—Bellevue, WA-based Visible Technologies, a startup that makes software for online brand reputation management and customer service, raised $6 million in debt financing. Visible Technologies was founded in 2003, and is backed by Bellevue-based Ignition Partners and New York-based WPP.

—Seattle-based Survey Analytics, a marketing and customer relations software startup, scored a partnership with the White House to power the Open Government Dialogue website, which seeks to solicit ideas from the public on how the government can be more transparent, participatory, and collaborative. Financial terms of the deal were not given. Survey Analytics, which has been bootstrapped since 2004, has developed a software platform for hosting and managing feedback communities called IdeaScale.

—Luke reported that Seattle-based Uptake Medical, which is developing minimally invasive technology to treat emphysema, raised $3.1 million in a debt financing. Uptake makes a device that seals off access to diseased parts of the lung where air gets trapped. The technique does not leave an implantable device behind. The latest funding adds to the $3 million bridge financing the company raised for its clinical trials in December.

—HealthUnity, a Bellevue, WA-based maker of software for connecting healthcare IT systems, raised $2 million out of a $4 million equity financing, Luke reported. The company was founded in 2004 and is led by CEO Prem Urali, a former group manager in the BizTalk Server division at Microsoft.

—Luke also reported that Oncothyreon, a Seattle-based developer of cancer drugs, received commitments from several investors to buy new shares and warrants for $11.1 million. The deal was underwritten by Boenning & Scattergood. Oncothyreon (NASDAQ: ONTY) has been diversifying its pipeline, and has gotten renewed interest from investors in its cancer immunotherapy program, since Seattle-based Dendreon has had recent success in that field.

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Kennewick, WA-based Infinia, a maker of solar power generation technology which uses free-piston Stirling engines, has raised $14.1 million in debt financing, according to a regulatory filing. The financing looks to be part of a $50 million offering. Infinia is backed by Vulcan Capital, Khosla Ventures, and others.

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Konarka Technologies, a Lowell, MA-based maker of flexible plastics that convert light into energy, says that it has landed a $5 million loan from the Emerging Technology Fund of Massachusetts Development Finance Agency and the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust’s Business Expansion Initiative. The loan is related to the October 2008 opening of Konarka’s manufacturing facility in New Bedford, MA. (Konarka’s success in raising money landed the firm on our list of 2008 cleantech deals of the year.)

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The United States will have a new president in four days. But if it were you, how should science and technology guide you in making key decisions in areas like energy, the environment, and fighting terrorism? Should we invest heavily in solar power or electric cars? What is the real potential of nuclear technology—either as a terrorist weapon or as a clean energy savior? How much do we really have to worry about global warming, or do we really even know yet?

These are just some of the issues that will be addressed in our San Diego site’s first Xconomy Forum: Physics for Future Presidents—which will be held on Feb. 9 at 4 p.m. on the University of California, San Diego campus. The speaker is renowned U.C. Berkeley physicist and MacArthur “genius” grant winner Richard A. Muller, author of a best-selling new book of the same name. The book, in turn, is based on his course for non-science students, which was voted the most popular class on the Cal campus.

Rich is an old friend of mine; I first met him when working on a cover story for Time magazine about how an asteroid or comet might have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. He was one of the core team, along with Luis Alvarez and others at Berkeley, who advanced that theory and changed our view of our planet’s history. Rich is one of the world’s most original, and provocative, science and technology thinkers, and we are pleased to have him join us for our debut San Diego event.

And if you think you already know the answers to some of the questions posed above, be prepared to be surprised, even amazed, by Rich’s arguments—this is a man who doesn’t put much stock in conventional wisdom or the party line. All of which could—and we hope will—make for some lively debate during Rich’s talk, which begins at 4 pm (doors open at 3:30) in the Hojel Auditorium in UCSD’s Institute of the Americas Complex. And you’ll have ample chance to continue the discussion, and to meet fellow members of the San Diego innovation community, during a networking reception in the adjacent Arango Foyer that will begin immediately after the talk.

You can find more details and registration information here; tickets are going fast, so act quickly. Xconomy San Diego editor Bruce Bigelow and I look forward to seeing you there, future presidents.

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California’s major utilities have been scrambling to meet a state mandate that requires using renewable energy sources to generate 20 percent of the electricity they supply by 2010. So San Diego’s Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE) had good reason to bask yesterday as it announced its Sempra Generation subsidiary has completed the company’s first solar energy project, a 10-megawatt photovoltaic facility about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas, NV.

Except that electric power from the new solar plant is going to Pacific Gas & Electric to help the San Francisco regional utility meet its renewable energy requirement. PG&E says it has signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement for electricity generated by the solar plant. At peak production, Sempra’s new El Dorado Energy Solar facility can generate enough electricity for about 6,400 homes.

San Diego Gas & Electric, the utility owned and operated by Sempra Energy, currently generates about 6 percent of its total electric power from renewable energy sources. PG&E was at 12 percent—before Sempra completed its solar project in Nevada.

SDG&E has plans to develop its own sources of renewable energy, but the utility concedes it may not meet the state’s 2010 deadline. Meanwhile Sempra Generation, a more free-wheeling (i.e. unregulated) business unit, developed the solar project next to its 480-megawatt gas-fired power plant near Boulder City, NV.

Sempra says its new solar plant is the largest “thin film” solar power installation in North America. Construction began five months ago, and required installing more than 167,000 solar modules across 80 acres of Nevada desert. Sempra also plans to expand the El Dorado solar plant to 60 megawatts. First Solar, (NASDAQ: FSLR), of Tempe, Ariz., provided the thin-film solar panels, and led engineering and construction of the project.

The California Public Utilities Commission still must approve PG&E’s contract with Sempra for electricity generated by the plant.

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Seattle-based 3Tier Group has raised $10 million in venture financing to drive its quest to help developers and financiers spot the best places in the world to build renewable energy facilities. Good Energies led the venture round, which will be used to establish offices in Europe and Asia, as first reported this morning by John Cook at TechFlash.

3Tier’s star has been on the rise this year as the price of oil surged over the summer, rekindling interest in alternatives. Even with oil dropping to less than $40 a barrel, this company clearly has something the world still wants. 3Tier Group is all about using high-powered computers to crunch data that can help governments and energy companies find the most efficient place to put a wind farm, solar panels, or hydropower turbines, as I wrote in a company profile of 3Tier Group last month.

The company, founded in 1999, has grown to about 85 employees based at the Westin Building in Seattle. About one-third bring expertise in atmospheric science, one-third are software programmers, and the rest are in business, said CEO Kenneth Westrick. Their task is to use computing models to forecast the ebbs and flows of wind, solar, and hydro at different times of day and different seasons, for example. This is supposed to give investors more confidence in the reliability of the source of renewable power, over decades, that is needed before they will plunk down hundreds of millions of dollars for a new facility, Westrick said.

Some of 3Tier’s growth has been driven by big customers like General Electric, the Spanish utility Iberdola, Houston, TX-based Horizon Wind Energy, and Seattle City Light. Westrick told TechFlash that the dropping price of oil has “taken a little bit of the wind out of the sails in the short-term,” but he believes that will be offset by a new push for renewables from President-elect Obama.

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Most Americans are depressed about the economy. But if we pull back and try to rise above the clouds, there are real reasons for hope.

The combination of a “Yes We Can” administration headed to the White House, along with our country’s established leadership in innovation, has us standing at the crest of a trail that could ensure we never enter this chasm again. Let’s get back on our feet and remember what we are made of.

America is the world’s leading innovator in medicine, energy, information technology, and almost every discipline. Our research, patents, startups, and venture capital, all show a country driven to innovate, to create, and to dream the big dream for a better future.

United States’ innovation drives our everyday lives. The light bulb. The transistor. The PC. The Internet. The human genome. An innovator’s spirit cannot be doused by a few rain showers, and thrives on adversity. We are amazed by modern day dreamers and historic visionaries, including Thomas Edison, Jonas Salk, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and others. They, like most Americans, possessed an innate disrespect for the status quo. They defied conventional wisdom and created new industries.

America succeeds where others fail because we value creativity over conformity. We respect the hope and naïveté of the young, because sometimes they are right. We seek risk, because it makes us stretch and break new ground. We support a free market for all good ideas, and welcome the best and brightest from distant shores.

We learn from failure and don’t punish it automatically, but we do not tolerate poor performance either. We reward the risk-takers.

Try that in Germany, or Japan, or China.

We must stay on the trail of innovation, in spite of adversity. Be aware that the trail is prone …Next Page »

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Today marks the opening of what will be North America’s largest solar-cell manufacturing plant. And it’s right here in the Northwest. SolarWorld, based in Bonn, Germany, is launching a new solar facility in Hillsboro, OR. On the docket this morning is a ribbon-cutting ceremony and a tour of the sprawling, 480,000 square-foot facility. Expected to be in attendance are some prominent Oregon officials, including Governor Ted Kulongoski, Congressman David Wu, and Senator Ron Wyden.

It’s a big deal for the local economy, and for solar energy. By 2011, SolarWorld’s Hillsboro plant is expected to employ 1,000 people and produce enough solar-cell material to generate 500 Megawatts of electricity per year—enough to power roughly 80,000 U.S. homes, in theory. SolarWorld acquired the Hillsboro facility from Japan’s Komatsu Group in March 2007 for $40 million. Komatsu had planned to use the site to manufacture silicon wafers, but it didn’t pan out, because of weak demand for chips. Now SolarWorld, which was founded in 1977 and had its IPO in Germany in 1999, says it is investing more than $400 million in the Oregon facility.

Solar power is a big piece of the renewable energy and cleantech puzzle. Annual revenues in the solar industry are predicted to triple in the next three years, from $13 billion to $40 billion, according to the investment banking firm Piper Jaffray. Yet the problem has always been that solar cells are very expensive to produce. If they have large enough scale and efficiency, manufacturing facilities like SolarWorld’s could play an important role in making solar energy more mainstream. “SolarWorld…is helping to bring real alternatives to market through a strategy focused on high-volume manufacturing. The new Hillsboro facility is our most shining example of this strategy in practice,” said SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck in a statement.

Why Oregon? SolarWorld is certainly not alone in setting up manufacturing facilities there. Companies like SpectraWatt (spun out of Intel), Solaicx, Peak Sun Silicon, XSunX, PVPowered, Mr. Sun Solar Enterprises, and Wacker, to name just a few, have all set up solar-cell factories in Oregon. The main reasons are probably the state’s business energy tax credit, and its large talent pool of tech workers, especially in the semiconductor industry. Also, there is plenty of cheap hydropower, and being close to California, the nation’s largest solar market, can’t hurt either.

“The Pacific Northwest possesses a hotbed of talent in both silicon manufacturing and clean-technologies. Oregon is the obvious choice for where to undertake this new level of solar cell manufacturing, said Boris Klebensberger, SolarWorld’s chief operating officer, in a statement. Klebensberger is coming off a panel appearance (entitled “The great crystalline silicon debate”) earlier this week at the Solar Power International conference in San Diego, CA.

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FDA Approves Intel Health Guide

Microprocessor-maker Intel is getting into the high-tech health business: its Health Guide has won approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The device records vital signs and allows for videoconferencing with doctors or nurses in remote locations. Daily Tech says Intel is marketing the device to nursing homes and care centers, and also expects that chronically ill people who live in their own homes might purchase the Guide.

Organic Dyes May Lead to Cheaper Solar Panels

In an effort to make solar cells more affordable, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a set of organic dyes that can be coated onto glass to concentrate sunlight for photovoltaic cells underneath. Technology Review says the dyes help collect sunlight and channel it to the cells, much like a fiberoptic cable directs light. The lead researcher, Marc Baldo, says this technique could lead to solar power that is cheaper than coal.

Whales’ Tails May Produce More Wind Power

Studying the mechanics of the fins and tails of whales and dolphins could lead to better-designed wind turbines, Discovery Channel tells us. Researcher Frank Fish of West Chester University in Pennsylvania has been modeling the aerodynamic properties of fins. He finds that adding bumps to a turbine, like those along a humpback whale’s fin, allows it to capture more wind without stalling.

Nanotubes May Make Artificial Photosynthesis Possible

Scientists would love to be able to emulate what plants do so easily – turn sunlight into chemical energy. Now, New Scientist says, researchers have found that carbon nanotubes can mimic an important step in the process, involving the transport of multiple electrons, that scientists haven’t been able to replicate. Artificial photosynthesis could be used to efficiently produce hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles, and even to remove some carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

FCC to Test White-Space Devices

High-tech companies would love to use portions of the electromagnetic spectrum that are set aside for television broadcasts (but not being used) for various mobile communication devices. The Federal Communications Commission has yet to issue regulations for this so-called white space. But according to CNN, the FCC says it will begin testing prototype devices from Microsoft, Motorola, and Philips next week.

GOP Seeks to Build its Platform on Facebook

The Republican Platform Committee has launched a website and a Facebook application to solicit public input on its party platform. TechCrunch points out that this may just be a ploy to collect email addresses and solicit donations, but that if the group is sincere, they could start a real public dialogue. No word on whether their Facebook presence will allow you to hug, tickle, or throw a sheep at John McCain.

IBM Wants to Promote “Smart-Grid” Applications

IBM is in the process of creating communications protocols and data formats for so-called “smart grid” devices, inventions designed to make the public electrical grid more flexible and reliable. For instance, a homeowner may have a device connected to an air conditioner that turns up the temperature setting if power demand on the grid becomes too great. CNET News reports that IBM is hoping a common set of standards will make the creation of such devices easier for startup companies.

Mini Cooper Goes Electric

BMW has announced it will start producing an electric Mini Cooper. Motor Trend reports that testing of the vehicle will take place over the next 12 to 18 months. The automaker has not announced what kind of electric engine the Mini Cooper will use.

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Call Out for Next-Generation Web Standards

The OpenAjax Alliance, an industry group trying to promote standards for the future of the Internet, is asking its members to vote for their favorite Web features and suggest ways of encouraging their spread. Ars Technica has its own suggestions of “things that need fixing” to secure the Web’s future. Their list: Improved security features, more persistent connections, better support for video, and support for 2D graphics.

Internet Bandwidth Market Proposed

An exchange market, on which companies could buy and sell unused bandwidth, could improve the efficiency of Web use and lower prices, a United Nations proposal says. Hamadoun Toure, the Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, the UN body responsible for communications standards, tells the New York Times that such an exchange is his dream. He hopes the exchange could help bridge the digital divide in developing countries.

MIT Students Build Solar Concentrator

One relatively cheap method for harnessing solar power is to focus a wide swath of sunlight down to a small area, thus concentrating its heat. Students at MIT have made a 12 x 12 foot mirror that can focus sunlight onto a small point, boiling water to create steam energy. The Discovery Channel says that the students, who aimed to make the mirror as inexpensively as possible, are forming a company to market their technology.

Unsafe Browsers Widespread on Internet

A full 40 percent of people surfing the Internet are doing so with outdated versions of Web browsers that are vulnerable to attack, a study shows. The study, conducted by Google, IBM, and the Communications Systems Group in Switzerland, found 576 million people using unsafe browsers, the Washington Post reports. More than half of all Internet Explorer users had outdated versions, the report found.

Government Sets New Standards for LED Lighting

The future of lighting may lie in tiny, bright, efficient LEDs, but so far incandescent and fluorescent bulbs dominate the market. Now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the nation’s main standard-setting body, has released two key standards for LED-based lighting, Daily Tech reports. The standards, which have to do with color specifications and measurements of efficiency, should make LEDs more legitimate in the eyes of industry.

Pentagon, NSF to Study Social Sciences

One aspect of national security is understanding how other societies work. The Pentagon and the National Science Foundation are therefore teaming up on the Minerva Research Initiative, a project that will distribute grants to social scientists to study topics of interest to defense planners. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the grants may support studies of the Chinese military or examinations of life under Saddam Hussein, for instance.

More-Productive Cows Mean Less Gas?

The worldwide dairy industry is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than vehicle traffic, thanks to the land, water, and feed that go into milk production, as well as the methane produced by cows’ digestive systems. Agence France Presse reports that a researcher at Cornell University found that giving one million cows a controversial growth hormone would allow dairies to produce the same amount of milk with far fewer cows. Researcher Judith Capper says the result would be the same as removing 400,000 cars from the roads.

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