Business Week calls them under-the-radar start-ups in alternative energy, and warns that they may not be the ground floor opportunities that investors are seeking. What’s amazing about this list, however, is the wide range of approaches these companies are taking.
Geothermal energy. Making ice at night. Cylindrical and thin film solar cells. Wind turbines that fit on a house. Ocean and river generators. A truck-top plant to convert industrial waste to biofuel. New ways to conserve, meter, and sell energy. New ways to finance solar panels. Algae for jet fuel, and that elusive clean coal technology.
Maybe none of these will work commercially. Maybe all of them. More likely, some portion of these and others that are not on the radar screen this month will be changing the way we run our homes, offices and vehicles over the next few decades.
If any of these technologies work, we could be on the verge of a new industrial revolution—one that won’t take our depleted natural resources for granted. When everyone is busy looking backwards at how we got ourselves into this financial and environmental mess, it’s exhilarating to see how we just might find out way out.
The Next Energy Innovators, BusinessWeek