Cleantech speed dating in San Francisco

As any connoisseur of food or wine must reluctantly confess, at times it's possible to have too much of a good thing.

Case in point: 52 public and private cleantech companies hoping to change the world presented today at a cleantech conference in San Francisco presented by boutique investment bank and brokerage Pacific Growth Equities.

Arranged in four (count 'em: four!) parallel tracks of half-hour presentations, under the auspices of speed dating with potential investors, it was implausible for any but a Time Lord to sit in on all.

And yesterday, the first of the two-day conference, was even more challenging, with 56 companies presenting.

But we did our darnedest, focusing on interesting emerging private companies—companies that not all industry insiders have necessarily heard of, but whose propositions deserve your attention.

Herewith, with eyes red from PowerPoint charts and ears still ringing with jargon, are four such companies from Pacific Growth Equities' Clean Technology and Industrial Growth Conference 2007:

Codon Devices
"There's a big gap in the ability to read biology and how to write," said Codon Founder and President Brian Baynes, whose synthentic biology company is focused on new ways to think about engineering biologic components, including biofuel-producing cells.

Codon is pursuing proprietary synthesis and design technologies, and was co-founded in 2005 by Khosla Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Alloy Ventures, and Ph. D.s from MIT and Harvard.

The "cut-and-paste DNA manipulation of 30 years ago" is passe, said Baynes, whose company claims to be synthesizing genetic codes more rapidly and cost-effectively than other current approaches.

Codon's work has applicability in molecular biology, pharma, industrial enzymes and agriculture, with a big focus on biofuels and energy, it claims—the latter evidenced by a deal this fall with Agrivida.

Codon is helping Agrivida deliver its vision of embedding enzymes in energy crops that activate at harvest time to help break down the cellulosic material for conversion to fuel.

How successful has the effort been? It's unclear. Baynes only said Codon is "increasing their [Agrivida's] probability for success."

Codon is forecasting $15M in revenue by end of year 2008.

Virent Energy Systems
The company is only making about a gallon of fuel per day today.

Yet today's presentation by biofuels company Virent Energy Systems was one of the most well-attended of today's conference. Why?

Virent President and CEO Eric Apfelbach said the fuel produced by the company's low temperature, second generation process "isn't like gasoline. It is gasoline," and is therefore not subject to the same blending requirements or transportation and storage issues as ethanol.

Apfelbach said Virent's process is based on a catalyst, not enzymes, and "avoids dependence on fragile creatures." He claimed the process could make natural gas, diesel, jet fuel and others from any water-soluble feedstock, providing it was already broken down, cellulosic ethanol-style.

"We have no interest in reinventing the wheel on the pretreatment side," he said.

The catalyst is similar in cost to the yeast used in corn ethanol, he said, and yields an exothermic reaction, which produces heat—and water—as byproducts. Furthermore, a biogas co-product can be burned to make the process more efficient.

As to cost, Apfelbach claimed Virent's fuels could come in under petroleum and ethanol's wholesale costs, without incentives, and be produced in only took 28 minutes—unlike the 3000-plus minutes required to make a batch of ethanol.

Sensicast Systems
Wireless sensors sound like a good way to increase efficiencies. But it came as a surprise to attendees of Sensicast's presentation that a return on investment could be realized practically overnight.

Sensicast CEO Gary Ambrosino pointed to a compressed air customer that was able to reduce leakages in its system and thereby reduce its power costs so dramatically that the system paid for itself in four months.

A hundred customers, Ambrosino claimed, use Sensicast's wireless sensors to remotely monitor temperature, energy and other data.

While having obvious efficiency applications, hotels and health care providers are also using the networks to liability-proof their regulatory compliance, he said.

Sensicast's sensors are battery based, lasting up to three years on double-A batteries. New solar powered versions in the works should last longer, while a forthcoming fuel cell-powered model is being designed for a lifespan of 20 years.

The company's differentiation is in its proprietary, 100-percent lossless network design, and in its bi-directionality—which has usefulness in demand response, Ambrosino said—as well as the company's first-mover advantage.

MBA Polymers
Founded in 1994, when $100 a barrel oil was only a bad dream, MBA Polymers is especially pleased by high oil prices.

While most of the 90 billion pounds of plastic sold worldwide each year today is made from virgin petrochemicals, MBA produces commercial grade plastic from discarded end-of-life computers, appliances and automobiles, with less than 10 percent of the energy and none of the oil, refinery or equipment costs.

"MBA's process uses only air, water and electricity—no chemicals," CEO Mike Biddle told the audience today.

The company "mines" plastic from the electronic shredder residue (ESD) discarded by metal recyclers.

With high petrochemical prices, MBA's plastics, which generate signficant carbon credits in their manufacture for even more profit, are even more appealing to customers.

Furthermore, like other materials recovery companies, MBA has a "negative cost feedstock," i.e. people pay them to take their waste away, explained Biddle.

With operations in China and Austria, MBA is raising more money for additional plants worldwide.

The company was the winner of a Cleantech Most Promising Technology award (see 2005 Cleantech Awards recipients).