Toscanini’s: In trouble for tax non-payment….help ‘em out

Toscanini’s is a landmark at Cambridge, and while the current generation of MIT students will not remember, they had a branch smack in the center of campus, in the student center, while I was a student there. So Toscanini’s ice-cream and coffee practically runs in my blood. I have met there, dated there, discussed problem sets, cursed professors, discussed politics, planned campus activities, and bitched about the tough life a Ph.D. student. Remember “IHTFP”?

But anyways…Given that I have still not moved from Boston/Cambridge, I visit Tosci’s often enough and continue to love its ice-cream. But today I heard on TV that Tosci’s was shut down just a few days ago and may have disappeared forever for non-payment of taxes exceeding $167,000…. if not for its faithful fans who created a Save Tosci’s website and donated over $31,000 to bring Tosci’s back online, and for bailing Gus, its owner, out. Tosci’s is open again, they are still accepting donations, and they want us to go back and buy lots more ice-cream. Lets go!

Here’s some more info on it. (Source)

Cambridge - One of the most popular ice cream haunts in Cambridge is now the property of the state.Toscanini’s Ice Cream, a mainstay for cool treats in Central Square since 1981, may not ever open again, and its owner, Gus Rancatore, owes the state’s Department of Revenue more than $167,000 in back taxes.

Training young investors: What are junior partners at Kleiner Perkins and Khosla doing?

A nice article from Forbes’ Midas List. There is certainly a need for top quality management teams that have experience in clean-tech. But it is not just the management talent that is desperately needed to keep the clean-tech engine running strong, what about investors? The investment choices they make certainly have a big impact on which technology sectors receive attention, but then the real hard work is in supporting their portfolio companies to grow them into successful ventures.  VCs are fairly new to clean-tech, and they have been very busy. So the experienced hands need leverage from junior partners - but how are the new-comers getting trained? How can today’s junior partners become the next Doerr and Khosla to create the Googles, Amazons and Suns of clean-tech? Here’s a glimpse….

Growing Up Green
Erika Brown 02.11.08, 12:00 AM ET

The young stars of venture capital aim to do in alternative energy what their bosses once did in computing.

This trio could get hired anywhere. Aileen Lee was president of her class at Harvard Business School. Trae Vassallo learned to program when she was 7 and at 28 cofounded a wireless e-mail company that Motorola (nyse: MOT - news - people ) bought for $550 million. Samir Kaul led the effort to sequence the genome of the arabidopsis plant and then built three life sciences companies from scratch. He’s only 33.

These three are among venture capital’s new guard. Like their predecessors, they’re smart, driven to win and inclined to gravitate to the biggest opportunity they can find. Ten years ago it was software and telecom. Two years ago it was the Web. Now the fad is all things green: renewable fuels, electric cars, smart power grids, clean coal. In 2007 venture investors plowed $2.2 billion into green tech in the U.S., six times the amount they invested in it in 2002.

Lee, 38, and Vassallo, 35, are partners at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has earmarked a third of its $1 billion under management for green technology. A dozen young Kleiner partners revolve around their mentor, L. John Doerr, who this year tops our Midas List of tech’s top 100 dealmakers. Stopping global warming, says Doerr, “is the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century, and a moral imperative.”

Samir Kaul is the right-hand man of Vinod Khosla, a former number one Midas lister (now number 70) who left Kleiner four years ago to set up his own shop, in large part to invest in things that environmentalists love. Khosla has so far invested an estimated $300 million of his $1.5 billion wealth in 35 green companies. Also big in green tech are Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Nth Power, Technology Partners and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Draper has put $143 million into 24 deals in three countries. Credit Suisse banker Bryce Lee broke onto the Midas List for the first time this year at number 19 with big returns on Suntech Power and First Solar. Lee and another first-time Midas Lister, Adam Grosser (number 91), also scored with EnerNoc, a company that remotely controls power consumption at factories and retail stores.

Some of the eco-money is chasing science fiction. “One company planned to convert the ocean into a carbon-eating soup,” says Michael Goguen of Sequoia Capital. Some of it is late to the party and being deployed at insane valuations. First Solar, a huge success for the VCs who got in early, now trades at 40 times sales. David Dreessen of Battery Ventures won’t even invest in a second or third equity round of green-tech deals because the valuations have gotten so stretched. His firm has even gone contrarian by helping launch a $415 million “dirty” fund called SB Energy that will invest in businesses that suck oil out of rock or sand.

GEO2 covered in ‘Green Car Congress’

Yes, this is a shameless plug for my company, but there is at least one useful thing here aside from that: Let me introduce you to Green Car Congress if you haven’t been introduced earlier. It is an excellent clean-tech blog, with a special emphasis on technologies associated with the automotive world. They cover exciting new technologies and companies from solar, wind and biofuels, to new battery technologies, power-trains, and of course dramatic innovations in the emissions control industry - hence GEO2.

Check it ou. Here’s a link to it (click on images to enlarge):

GEO2 Technologies Introduces New Fiber-based SiC Substrate for Diesel Particulate Filters; Ceramic Fiber Technology Enables Significant Increase in Porosity

24 January 2008

GEO₂ Technologies Inc. has introduced a new ceramic fiber silicon carbide (SiC) substrate for diesel particulate filtering. The new SiC substrate achieves high porosity and high strength simultaneously while delivering lower back pressure and high trapping efficiency, according to the company.

Unlike other SiC products, GEO₂ filters are based on a cross-linked microstructure (CLM) that increases maximum porosity to 67%—an increase of about 20 percentage points compared to other SiC filters—effectively reducing the size, weight and cost of emissions control systems.

The new GEO₂SiC filter can remove 99.9% of pollutants from diesel exhaust while achieving better fuel economy, emissions control and enhanced engine performance.

SiC-based filters have become the mainstay of the diesel light-duty vehicle market. The filters support higher temperatures, and are more robust—and expensive—than other chemistries. The common manufacturing approach is to take ceramic powders, and extrude into them into a honeycomb. This process yields filters with porosity of around 40-50%.

Porosity is a key factor in a filter—higher porosity results in lighter weight, higher catalyst loads, and reduced back pressure. Increased back pressure due to emissions treatment equipment can cause increased emissions, increased fuel consumption, and can negatively affect engine performance.

GEO₂’s breakthrough that led to the cross linked microstructure, says co-founder and vice president of product development Dr. Bilal Zuberi, was the development of a process to extrude ceramic fibers into the honeycomb filter shape.

Ceramic fibers typically look like cotton, Zuberi says, and cotton cannot be molded. The powder-based materials are like clay—add water, and it becomes moldable, and can be put through a die.

We figured out what kind of organics we can add to the fiber mix to change properties to become moldable. Once moldable, you create the shape. Then, because a ceramic product needs to be fired, during that time you burn out the organic materials. The choice of the organic and the burning cycle is key—otherwise the material just falls apart.

—Bilal Zuberi

Trying to deliver higher porosity with traditional materials can result in tradeoffs in strength and durability. The GEO₂ substrate not only delivers significantly increases porosity, but maintains its strength.

In internal testing, GEO₂ ran the new SiC materials through 1,000 regeneration cycles (most filters go for 200 cycles in their lifetimes in an light duty vehicle). Part of the strength and performance is driven by the chemistry of the SiC material, but part is because of the internal structure, says Zuberi. Where other materials get brittle fractures, the GEO₂ materials dissipate the force throughout their structure.

GEO₂’s business model calls for licensing the technology to established filter manufacturers. The company is also looking at other markets such as solutions for gasoline direct injection engines and fuel cells as well as gasification systems and fuels processing.

Kleiner Perkins investing in alternative powertrains - Fisker Automotive

Last week was the Detroit International Auto-show. This is the largest gathering of its type in the United States where largely the large automakers around the world, especially the US big 3, show off their latest car models etc. Traditionally this event has attracted automotive engineers and salesmen of all sorts, and media that was more nostalgic about the automotive past than the real future. This year, at least to me, seemed very different. For one, this year’s show coincided with the primaries in Michigan and hence all the major presidential candidates showed up to demonstrate their unity with the auto-workers etc.

…but that was hardly the big news for me. The big news this year has been the focus on green technologies in the automotive sector and the focus on alternative drive-trains. And the big news has been the inclusion of a new type of investor in the automotive world - top notch venture capital firms. I had just finished writing about Vinod Khosla’s investments in alternate powertrains that I read about Fisker Automotive, a plug-in electric hybrid car-developer/manufacturer that just got over $10million of investment from Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers.

I have written before about Tesla Motors, probably the most prominent among this new generation of car developers that promise excitement in our mobility solutions while simultaneously providing solutions to the automotive industry’s carbon foot print. The technologies deployed by such car makers are typically very impressive: light weight fiber composite structural materials, electric or hybrid drive-trains, next generation battery systems, etc. And the performance is equally impressive as well: sports-car accelerations, long mileage on single electric charges, impressive fuel economy and cabin comfort.

But the question that they must face, in addition to those around the CO2 and other emissions of the coal power plants that feed electricity into the plug-ins’ batteries, is around the supply chains that they must establish to consistently produce high quality cars in a timely fashion. Can these upstarts get dependable supply chains established (that took traditional auto-makers decades to establish?), and will they be able to reduce costs at a pace that will be necessary for mass-production? VCs will probably look for VC returns in some reasonably short period of time, and more importantly, to maximize the societal/environmental impact one would want many such vehicle son the road as quickly as possible. Hence the scalability of the solution matters tremendously. I continue to look for optimistic signs for them…

Here’s a nice article from Wall Street Journal on these new car-investments from key VC firms:

Vinod Khosla investing in combustion engine technologies?

Vinod Khosla is a prolific investor. He must work like a machine. I admire that. Khosla Ventures, the early stage VC investment firm he founded has been a star in the area of clean-tech. They have invested in many different technologies, and in some cases up and down the value chain of critical industry segments.

But given some of my interests, the news of Vinod investing in combustion engine related companies certainly caught my eye. My first reaction was wow! Given that he has dissed hybrid vehicles in the past as mere ‘toys’, I am very interested in knowing what combustion engines/power-trains is he betting on?

And I am happy to see he is investing in diesel hybrids and advances in traditional combustion. To me, this is a good example of him using what he calls his ‘Chindia test‘, i.e. for a technology innovation to be material to solving this world’s major problems, it should have the potential to be successful and profitable in countries like China and India. I fully agree. Combustion engines will still be used in huge quantities (even if hybrids become more common) in most parts of the world, including western Europe and the US, and anything that can be done to reduce the emissions and improve fuel economy would be very beneficial to climate change.

Here’s a good synopsis of his recent investments from Venture Beat:

Khosla keeps betting on combustion engines with Transonic investment

Well-known Silicon Valley investor Vinod Khosla has never been shy expressing his opinion. Khosla once dissed plug-in hybrid vehicles — supported by environmentalists because of their partial reliance on batteries versus oil — as “nice toys …not material to climate change.”

Clean-tech sector: A quick review of 2007 and 2008

2007 was undoubtedly the year of clean-tech. The debate around global warming frequented the front pages of major newspapers, and reached our homes and dining tables. There were too many exciting clean-tech related news to recount, and there were a few disappointments as well. I have been asked several times if there is anything ’substantial’ to be expected out of this clean-tech boom, or are these just science fair type curiosity projects, but on a larger scale and consuming tons of public sector funding? While many clean-tech blogs are highlighting technologies to look out for in 2008, ‘Automotive News’ recently published a tongue-in-cheek list of 10 potential alternative fuels that included chicken droppings and cheese.

I remain optimistic that what we are witnessing is not just a shift in our understanding of the need for cleaner energy sources, but also a unique coming together of science, engineering, health, business, investor and public policy stakeholders that ultimately need to work closely together to find winning solutions. This is no science fair - this is evolution in action. An evolution of technologies and policies, and of our abilities to incorporate better ones into our lives.

Here are some thoughts that stuck with me through 2007, and what I am expecting in 2008. Would love to hear what you think about these.

2007

1. Ethanol bubble bursts - A few failed IPOs, the spectacle of rising food prices around the world, esp Mexico, and a realization that ethanol actually gives lower fuel economy provided enough material to disillusion even some of corn-ethanols strongest supporters. On the issue of technology trajectory for ethanol, it seems cellulosic ethanol has not yet moved fast enough to be commercially viable in the short term.
   
2. Clean coal continued to garner attention, esp as gasification projects got major funding for building demonstration projects. But I am still looking for serious and convincing plays in this sector. There is much potential here but people seem scared of venturing too far into the dirty coal business.

Wear Sunscreen: Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young

This essay by Mary Schmich was published in the Chicago Tribune in 1997. It was rumored to be a commencement speech given by Kurt Vonnegut at MIT, but that was obviously not true, but it made several rounds on the internet. I remember reading it back then and was truly taken aback by the simplicity and the power of the message contained with in it. No idea what prompted me to think of it again today, but I did. And here it is to be shared with you. Watch the video that was also made on her essay.

Source: chicagotribune.com

Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young

Mary Schmich

June 1, 1997
Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ‘97:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.Do one thing every day that scares you.

MIT economist sees U.S. weathering $100 oil

Oil has finally hit $100/barrel. To some, it seems, this is finally the trigger that will force major societal changes - a price point for oil commodity that may now impact not just our outlook on the cost/benefit analysis of investments in renewable energy sources (i.e. non fossil fuel based), but also our consumption patterns (i.e. improving our nega-watts).

But I am no so sure. I feel, an d I qualify this by saying that this is more of a gut feeling than any kind of careful analysis, that people won’t feel the need to make a change in their behavior unless the change was rapid, sharp and highly publicized. I also worry if at such high prices, some of the more dirty fuels, such as tar-sands etc might also start getting exploited.

But what do I know….let’s read what an economist has to say about the impact on the $100 oil (source: MIT News):

MIT economist sees U.S. weathering $100 oil

Sarah H. Wright, News Office
January 2, 2008

As the price of oil doubled over the last year, hitting the $100 mark for the first time on Jan. 2, it may have looked like 1973 all over again to some observers. But research by MIT macroeconomist Olivier Blanchard, Class of 1941 Professor of Economics, shows that a return to 1970s-style gas lines and stagflation isn’t in the cards.

Blanchard’s paper, “The Macroeconomic Effects of Oil Price Shocks: Why are the 2000s so different from the 1970s?” outlines changes in U.S. and global economic policies between the two eras. Cited in The Economist (Nov. 17) as an explainer for the current situation, the paper was co-written by Blanchard’s colleague Jordi Gali (Ph.D. 1989) of the Center for International Economic Research in Barcelona.

Blanchard discussed the differences between the oil shocks in the 1970s and in the 2000s during a recent interview with the MIT News Office.

Q: Four price-doubling oil shocks have occurred in 35 years–1973, 1979, 1999 and now. How have economic reactions differed?

A: In the 1970s, there were two sharp recessions and sharply higher inflation. This time around, the economy has remained strong, and inflation has barely bulged.

Q: What’s behind the differences? Why was 1973 so different from 2007?

A: In the 1970s, the adverse effects of oil price increases were compounded by other adverse shocks–a sharp slowdown in productivity growth and large increases in the price of raw materials.

In the 2000s, the effects of oil price increases have been partly offset by other shocks, this time favorable–sustained productivity growth and strong Asian growth, for example.

E-Ink digital books - soon in color!

I have known of E-Ink (the company) and its technology since it sinception at MIT. That is one of the benefits of being close to a school where labs are spinning out innovations in quick succession (and taking a course with E-Ink’s founder, Prof. Joe Jacobsen).

E-Ink has had a taken a long path to commercialization even though in late 90’s some believed paper books were a thing of the past. Even some people I knew jumped into the e-books phenomenon in the dot-boom phase.

E-Ink came up with a revolutionary technology that made it possible to use (a) very little energy and (b) the screen could be made very visible even in sunlight. They started their journey by trying to make billboards that were ‘alive’, but that didn’t really go too far. Then in addition to other display products, they started down the path of making better screen for digital book readers, and recently made big splashes when Sony (Reader) and Amazon (Kindle) announced their own versions of the e-readers that both used E-Ink technology. I won’t do justice to the technology but the basic idea is to have colored balls (microcapsules) as pixels that would expose their ‘bright’ or ‘dark’ sides when a voltage was applied to them. I am still a bit fazed by the price or I would have got one myself. Why would I ever want to carry 2-3 books with me on long trips abroad. I could just download a dozen onto my e-reader.
(click on image above to enlarge)

But anyways - now they have come up with an even cooler technology. It is E-Ink, in color! And not only that, they also have developed technologies for flexible displays….The technology is not yet fully commercial and may be a few years away from a product you and I can afford, but I look forward to the day… this could be a game-changer. Imagine all the magazines we collect during the month becoming available for download in full color! Hey, I don’t know about you but I am sick of throwing away/recycling piles of ‘Technology Review‘, ‘Chemical & Engineering News‘, ‘Wired‘, ‘Fast Company‘, ‘Business Week‘, ‘The Economist‘, ‘Foreign Affairs’ and ‘American Scientist’ each month. And the stack doesn’t look attractive after a while and I have to keep putting ‘Town and Country‘ magazine on top to hide my geekiness from being on public display.

But this won’t be the only use. Imagine quick deployment of text books in developing countries, newspaper access, consider the trees saved from being turned into paper. Would libraries turn into plug and retrieve data centers? One can just imagine the utilities. Read on…

Delhi (India) to curb pollution: Phase out light duty diesels in favor of CNG

Action Alert: Delhi to curb diesel pollution

The Delhi government has announced plans to cut diesel emissions in the national capital region in the wake of strong public concerns about rising numbers of diesel vehicles and diesel related pollutants in the city’s ambient air. The plan recently approved by the Cabinet proposes an Environment Cess on diesel fuel. The revenue from this cess will be used to create a fund to finance Delhi’s clean air action plan. Delhi Chief minister Sheila Dikshit has also written to the Union government to introduce Euro IV diesel fuels and standards in the National Capital Region by 2008-09.

Simultaneously, the city government targets to phase out light duty commercial vehicles on diesel, organize pollution checks on incoming traffic at the city borders and enforce the bypassing of incoming trucks to Delhi. Financial incentives will be provided to vehicle owners interested in converting to CNG.

This announcement comes soon after the Centre for Science and Environment’s (CSE) warning that even Euro III diesel cars spew several times more toxics than their petrol versions. CSE had based its study on actual emissions data available from the Automotive Research Association of India. Stating that one diesel car is equal to 7.5 petrol cars in terms of emissions of particulate matter, and three petrol cars in terms of nitrogen oxide emissions, it had stated that air toxins from a diesel car were also harmful and carcinogenic.

Source: http://www.cseindia.org/campaign/apc/action_alert_2007_sep_dec.htm

The original web page also contains a number of useful links (e.g., briefing paper on clean diesel — http://www.cseindia.org/campaign/apc/pdf/Diesel_Briefing_paper.pdf

Source: CAI-Asia