Within five minutes of sitting down to lunch, Jesse Berst has burst my bubble. “I’m not sanguine about Seattle as a big leader in the area,” he says. “I don’t know if we’ll have a cluster here.”

He’s talking about smart energy and cleantech, and he knows a thing or two about the space. As managing director of Redmond-based GlobalSmartEnergy, Berst provides strategic consulting on energy technologies (and market opportunities) to corporations, investors, and government agencies. He is also the executive director of energy and environment prizes for the X PRIZE Foundation, based in Santa Monica, CA (more on that shortly).

Berst, who’s also an Xconomist, made his name in the 1980s and 90s as a technology analyst, and co-founded three successful high-tech publishing companies. Around six years ago, he decided to work full-time on energy and the environment—something closer to his heart. “I got bored with [information technology], plus it was so obvious that energy was going to be the next big industry,” he says.

Most recently, he’s been focused on the “smart grid.” This is an envisioned upgrade to the existing electricity network, and it involves the use of various technologies—smart monitors and sensors, communications, and advanced software and hardware to control the network, which in the United States is run from 130-odd control centers around the country. The goal is to more efficiently and reliably regulate power usage, and Berst says the smart-energy industry is following roughly the same evolution as telecommunications. Now, because of the growing amount of data to be managed, corporations like Microsoft and Oracle have entered the arena. And the main hurdles to adoption are bureaucratic, not technical.

“Most of our projects are in places like Hawaii and New Mexico, places that are more progressive and aggressive about energy,” Berst says. (This was surprising—I had thought the Northwest was pretty progressive in terms of energy.) In his research consultancy duties, Berst says the key question is, where is the money in cleantech? Corporations, banks, and agencies want to know, should we get into the sector? He is currently advising several startup companies, still in stealth mode; the most recent (”today was our first day,” he says) is looking into building smart-energy infrastructure at the community level, in places like resorts.

The other big thing I wanted to talk with Berst about was the X Prizes. Starting last fall, he began consulting for the X PRIZE Foundation, which sets up ambitious innovation awards to advance the state of the art in space, genomics, transportation, and other fields. Recently, Berst’s team submitted recommendations for energy prizes; the areas being investigated include alternative energy generation, efficiency, storage, sustainable housing, and carbon sequestration. The X PRIZE board is reviewing them, but it may be a while before we can tell you any more (watch this space). Berst did say that any eventual prize(s) should be worth more than $10 million, and should “stretch people farther than a venture-based company would.”

A few more take-aways from our discussion:

—Don’t forget the role of mid-size companies in energy and cleantech. We often look at startups and big players, but Berst points out that “real, permanent job growth comes from small-to-mid-size companies that grow up.” Case in point: Areva T&D, a French smart-grid company that has operations in the Northwest and is looking to hire for its global R&D center. (Its parent company Areva has roughly 150,000 employees worldwide, but the point is to follow the Arevas-in-the-making.)

—Large organizations like Boeing and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have some hidden gems of energy-related projects, but they often struggle with commercializing such technologies. Nevertheless, says Berst, “they’re a warehouse of breakthrough concepts.” (Berst serves on the advisory council of PNNL.)

—In smart energy, there is a manpower shortage in the Northwest. “We have to import power engineers,” says Berst, because of a dearth of engineering training programs, which were phased out over the past few decades.

My bottom line? Anyone in the area with a serious interest in energy and cleantech can look to Berst’s group as a tremendous resource in their back yard. If they take advantage, perhaps they can help make Seattle a more energy-progressive place.

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As part of a strategy to accelerate development of its biomass-to-ethanol technology, Cambridge, MA-based Mascoma appears to be sparking a little competition between state governments anxious to host the facilities that will bring the technology to market first.

On Friday, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm announced an agreement between Mascoma, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, forestry and mining company JM Longyear, and two state universities that will bring a major Mascoma ethanol plant to Chippewa County in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Under “Center of Energy Excellence” legislation passed by the Michigan legislature last week, Mascoma will get a $15 million grant for the facility, as well as help finding a site from the state’s Department of Natural Resources.

The plant is expected to be the first commercial-scale facility using Mascoma’s technology, which is based on the fermenting of sugars from non-food biomass such as wood chips. But the company is already working with the University of Tennessee to build what it calls a “large-scale demonstration facility” in Monroe County, TN, using $26 million in grant money from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and with the state of New York to build a “pre-commercial scale” plant in Rome, NY, using $14.8 million in state funds and $1.25 million in tax breaks.

In each location, officials have boasted that their affiliation with Mascoma would help make their states into national leaders in cellullosic ethanol technology. Michigan is “in a race” to become the first state producing cellulosic ethanol from wood in high volume, Granholm told Detroit Free Press reporter Tom Walsh last week.

And wherever Mascoma goes, CEO Bruce Jamerson is quick to praise local leaders for their dedication to clean energy technologies. A few samples of Jamerson’s public statements:

•    “The leadership of the University of Tennessee and its trustees have demonstrated tremendous dedication and zeal towards the advancement of biofuel technology….We look forward to working with our new colleagues as we progress through the stages that will ultimately lead to the production and distribution of a commercial product in Tennessee.” — Tennessee Journalist, October 4, 2007

•    “Cellulosic ethanol will become a commercial reality and the work done at this new facility will dramatically expedite the process. We are excited about the support from New York, and commend New York’s leadership in advancing the cellulosic ethanol market.” — Mascoma press release published by Reuters, December 10, 2007

•    “Working with the state of Michigan, two of its leading universities, and JM Longyear on this significant project brings us closer to commercial scale production of biofuels that can promote energy independence, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and stimulate regional economic development.” — news release from the office of Governor Jennifer Granholm, June 27, 2008

•    “Michigan, for us, is becoming one of the power alleys.”—Detroit Free Press, June 27, 2008

At a time when venture investment are harder to come by and fewer companies are making it to the IPO stage, it certainly pays to find creative ways to fund a technology company’s growth. Mascoma competitors SunEthanol and Range Fuels, for example, both receive money from the Department of Energy. But Mascoma executives seem particularly skilled at persuading government agencies to offer grants for biofuels facilities that promise to bring jobs and cheaper energy to their regions. Overall, state and federal government agencies have committed more than $115 million in grants to Mascoma—meaning that the company’s growth is being funded by taxpayers as much as by private investors, who have put approximately $100 million into the company.

It’s easy to see why Michigan, with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, would be eager to court growing companies like Mascoma. The $250 million Chippewa County plant, which will go into full operation by late 2010 or early 2011, is expected to create between 400 and 600 jobs in manufacturing, the timber industry, and transportation. And a wood-to-ethanol plant is a natural fit for a region like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which has huge amounts of low-quality scrub timber ripe for chipping. (JM Longyear, based in Marquette, MI, owns 65,000 acres of forest in the UP.)

“There are great synergies in Michigan for Mascoma, not only in the ready supply of wood fiber across northern Michigan, but also great research institutions with a long-time focus on this science and our 21st Century Jobs Fund that is tied to bringing job-creating alternative energy ventures to Michigan,” said James Epolito, president and CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, in a statement issued by Granholm’s office.

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Is Ethanol Policy Counterproductive?

Citing a pair of wire stories, Salon asks whether current policies to promote the production of ethanol amount to bad economics. Federal ethanol mandates are driving up the price of corn, which makes it hard to make a profit by selling ethanol. High corn prices have driven about a dozen biofuel plants to file for bankruptcy.

Record Data Breaches Recorded This Year

Government, businesses, and universities have reported a record-breaking number of break-ins to their databases. The Washington Post’s Security Fix blog says that the Identity Theft Resource Center tracked 342 reports of data breaches between January 1 and June 27. That’s a 69 percent increase over the same period last year.

Brain, Not Cell Phone, Is Problem, Studies Say

Many states are mandating that drivers use only hands-free cell phones to minimize traffic accidents. But with California’s law going into effect July 1, a story in the Los Angeles Times highlights studies that show the real danger is not dialing. It’s that conversation refocuses the brain’s attention.

Court Ruling May Not Offer Text Privacy

In a case last week in which a police department had tried to gain access to employees’ text messages, a federal court ruled that the department had no right to see the material. The media hailed the decision as a blow for privacy. But GigaOm argues that the ruling won’t keep your messages out of the hands of employers unless you work for the government.

Material Protects Environment From Fluorescent Bulbs

Compact fluorescent light bulbs are being promoted as a way to help the planet, since they use so much less electricity than ordinary bulbs. But the downside has been their mercury content, which can spread if the bulb breaks. Now researchers at Brown University have come up with a material that absorbs the mercury in case of a break, UPI reports.

Hawaii Requires Solar Water Heaters

All new single family homes in Hawaii must have solar water heaters to get a building permit. The law signed by Governor Linda Lingle goes into effect in 2010. The Environmental News Network says the law is meant to address the fact that the island relies on foreign countries for 90 percent of its energy.

Throttling Web Traffic May Not Be Necessary

Telecom companies are threatening to turn down data allowances to subscribers because, they say, too much peer-to-peer traffic is eating up bandwidth and causing network congestion. But Ars Technica says it looked at traffic numbers from Bell Canada and discovered that the level of congestion is low, with no link being congested more than 3 percent of the time. The one place that does have a problem, where DSL lines come into the central office, actually saw an increase in congestion after Bell started its throttling policy.

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Aren’t things supposed to slow down in the summer? There was lots of dealmaking happening in New England last week, across life sciences and high-tech fields.

—Northborough, MA-based Aspen Aerogels, which makes nanotech-based insulation, raised $37 million from Arcapita Ventures, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners, Reservoir Capital Group, and RockPort Capital Partners.

—Waltham, MA-based ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN), which has half a dozen cancer drugs in clinical trials, raised about $25 million in a sale of stock to Ziff Asset Management.

—RFID software maker OATSystems, also of Waltham, was acquired by Checkpoint Systems (NYSE: CKP) of Thorofare, NJ, for an undisclosed sum.

—GTC Biotherapeutics of Framingham, MA, inked a deal with Deerfield, IL-based Ovation Pharmaceuticals to develop and market the anticlotting drug ATryn—which GTC produces in the milk of genetically engineered goats—in the United States.

—Foxborough, MA-based cyber security firm Industrial Defender acquired Teltone of Bothell, WA, for an undisclosed sum.

—RNAi-based drug developer RXi Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RXII) of Worcester, MA, announced a $8.7 million private placement of stock.

—Software consulting firm Security Innovation of Wilmington, MA, raised $7.1 million in a Series A financing round led by Brook Venture Partners.

—Boston’s Spark Capital teamed with Seattle’s Bezos Expeditions to invest a reported $15 million in Twitter.

—Photovoltaics maker Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR) of Marlboro, MA announced a $300 million sale of senior convertible notes to help fund construction of its manufacturing facilities. A few days later, it expanded the offering to $325 million.

—New England Patriots owner the Kraft Group of Foxborough, MA, led a $4.6 million Series A investment in New York-based social media site BlogTalkRadio. The startup’s software gives users free tools for creating their own call-in talk shows.

—Woonsocket, RI-based prescription drug provider CVS Caremark forged an alliance with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) to give consumers online tools for tracking their health information, using Microsoft’s HealthVault.

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Who Should Be Obama’s Tech Czar?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has proposed creating a Cabinet-level position for a chief technology officer. Washingtonian.com finds the idea intriguing, and reviews some of the names being kicked around among techies. Should the czar be Google’s Vint Cerf, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, or someone else.

Foreign Hackers Could Black Out the U.S.

Chinese hackers are a major threat to both government and private computer networks in the U.S., the National Journal warns. Even worse than stealing data, attackers could disrupt the control of major utilities and bring down the power grid. In fact, the magazine says, two major blackouts may have been caused by hackers.

Generation Gap Between Moms on the Web

How mothers use the Internet varies depending on their age, a study by Bonnier Corp’s Parenting Group has found. As Ars Technica reports, Gen X moms, born in the 1960s and ’70s, are very task-oriented, using the Web to achieve specific goals, such as buying products. Gen Y moms, on the other hand, are much more into Web 2.0, writing and reading blogs, creating videos, and updating their online profiles

Solar Cell Market May Mirror That of Computers

In a sign that the market for photovoltaics may be about to take off, three computer heavyweights that promoted the development of the PC over the past three decades are moving into the solar cell business, says Scientific American. IBM announced it will begin making solar panels based on chemical thin films. Intel spun off a new solar tech company. And Hewlett-Packard started licensing technology to a company that makes rooftop solar systems

Climate Change is a Security Threat, Spies Say

Global warming could spur wars over water resources and push refugees to migrate far away, raising security issues for nations around the world. That’s the assessment of a classified study released by the National Intelligence Council to policymakers in Washington this week, according to U.S. News and World Report. The report said sub-Saharan Africa will be the most susceptible to political instability.

New Test Could Determine Toxicity of Nanoparticles

Materials engineered to be smaller than the wavelength of visible light are finding increasing applications in medicine, engineering, even consumer products like face cream, but no one quite knows what impact they might have on human health. Now researchers at the University of Michigan have come up with a way to test the effects of nanoparticles on human cells, according to the Wired Science blog. They also found that if they coated certain particles with a gel, they could make them less toxic.

EU Caps Airline Emissions, America Objects

The European Union has imposed emissions caps on intercontinental flights, even though the U.S. argues that such a cap violates treaties on aviation, the International Herald Tribune reports. Europe seems confident that the U.S. will get on board with the cap, though, because both Barack Obama and John McCain promise to support an emissions trading program in America

Genes May Affect Voter Turnout, Study Claims

Do your genes make you more or less likely to vote? Researchers at UC San Diego and the University of Southern California think they do, according to Science Daily. The scientists studied voter turnout patterns of identical and non-identical twins, and found that 53 percent of the variation in turnout can be explained by genetic factors.

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Everyone Needs a Gigabit by 2015

The government must take steps to push the availability of broadband Internet access if the U.S. is to remain competitive, a telecom law firm is recommending. The Baller Herbst Law Group, in a report to a North Carolina agency, calls for 100 megabits per second of affordable access for all Americans by 2012, with 1 gigabit per second service three years later, Ars Technica reports. Like electrification, it will require government action to ensure poorer and more rural areas get service, the report says.

Will VoIP Kill the Telephone?

The companies that offer phones calls using Voice-over-Internet Protocol, such as Skype and Vonage, currently piggyback on telephone networks when one of the parties to a call doesn’t have a VoIP device, a strategy that brings the VoIP companies revenue. But an essay at GigaOm argues that this model won’t last forever, as VoIP achieves greater penetration. In the long run, the writer argues, the telephone companies may go the way of the Dodo.

Safety Standards Developed for Online Health Records

There’s been a lot of talk lately of the advantages to patients of making their medical data available digitally, but one big concern has been keeping the records private. Now, Bloomberg reports, Microsoft, Google, and dozens of consumer groups have come up with a set of standards to safeguard e-records. Among the proposals is giving patients the ability to see just who is looking at their records.

McCain’s Battery Prize Gets Mixed Reception

Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain this week suggested offering $300 million to the person who can build the next generation of battery for plug-in hybrid automobiles. Technology Review asks a pair of MIT battery experts what they think of the idea. While one says the prize will focus attention on a key problem, the other feels that, without benchmarks, the idea is mainly a political stunt.

Toyota Plans Plug-in Hybrid in Two Years

And speaking of batteries, Toyota will offer two new hybrid models in 2010, including a new plug-in hybrid, AutoWeek reports. To that end, the company is ramping up production of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for the cars. It’s also investing in new battery technology, considering possible chemistries that include a metal-air battery.

Much Work Needed to Make Renewables Affordable

It’s going to take a major effort for the United States to use renewable sources for a quarter of its energy needs by 2025, a new report says. The study, from the RAND Corporation, was commissioned by the non-profit Energy Future Coalition, which has set a “25 by ‘25″ goal for renewables, according to Science Daily. The study warns that, if done wrong, a conversion to that much renewable energy could be expensive and have a negative impact on land use.

‘Digital Manners’ Face Threat of Abuse

With police installing remotely operated kill switches on buses, and the Pentagon seeking to do the same on airplanes to prevent the vehicles being used as terrorist weapons, Microsoft is looking to expand the concept with a technology called “Digital Manners Policies.” Theaters might use the technology to switch off DMP-equipped cell phones, while museums could shut down cameras. An essay in Wired wonders how to prevent such capabilities from being abused, by a burglar shutting down security cameras, say, or a terrorist turning off the wrong airplane engine.

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Tired of city rankings yet? OK, I’ll be brief. So the July/August issue of Men’s Health, out this week, ranks Seattle #1 in “most environmentally conscious” drivers. Not that surprisingly, the Northwest did well in the survey overall: Portland, OR, and Spokane, WA, also made the top 10. The analysis of 100 American cities took into account gas consumption, annual mileage, vehicle efficiency, air quality, and mass-transit usage.

My colleague Luke and I have certainly done our part—we both recently ditched our cars. But how are local companies doing on greening up transportation, energy, and other technologies?

Startup activity in the cleantech space is certainly one good measure. According to DowJones VentureSource data for 2007, Washington state came in third in VC investments in cleantech (behind California and Massachusetts), with $175 million. It was dominated by a few big Seattle-based company deals: biodiesel maker Imperium Renewables raised $117 million in equity, but canceled its IPO at the end of the year; Targeted Growth, an agricultural biotech company, raised $22 million; Powerit Holdings landed $7 million; and Propel Biofuels raised $4.75 million.

(For a sense of what a larger cleantech cluster looks like, see the MIT Entrepreneurship Center’s energy map of New England here. Of course, it takes a lot of driving to visit all those companies.)

There is also some anecdotal evidence that local employers have contributed to the greening of Seattle. Microsoft and a few other companies run employee shuttles throughout the area. And roughly 70 percent of biotech giant Amgen’s staff in Seattle use something other than a single-occupancy vehicle to commute, says company spokesperson Carol Pawlak. Amgen runs a shuttle service from downtown, subsidizes bus and ferry transportation, and arranges van pools.

Xconomy doesn’t do that yet, but at least Luke and I will be getting our exercise.

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Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR) of Marlboro, MA today announced it plans to sell $300 million worth of senior convertible notes to help fund the completion of its Devens, MA, plant and to begin construction of a new manufacturing facility. Much of the capacity at the Devens plant is now spoken for, thanks to a recent run of long-term contracts that Evergreen has signed.

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Science Debate Needed, Tech Advisor Says

Presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama ought to have a debate focusing on science and technology policy, a former White House technology advisor says. Mike Nelson, who worked in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under Bill Clinton, tells Wired’s Threat Level blog that the topics should include universal broadband Internet access. But he’d reframe a debate on science as a debate about America’s future, Nelson said.

Public Opinion on Tech Policy Sought

To help frame the debate on science, TechCrunch, which has been covering the just-finished Personal Democracy Forum in New York City, offers a poll to find out what technology policies its readers would give priority to. Among the choices, “mandate net neutrality,” “promote renewable energy,” and “appoint an engineer to the FCC.” Netscape creator Mark Andreessen suggests “brain draining the world” by offering work visas to anyone with a college education.

Visa Rules Leaving Tech Jobs Unfilled

Andreessen may be onto something. An insufficient number of work visas and green cards is forcing foreign students educated in the United States to take their skills and go home, leaving “a tremendous number of unfilled jobs,” warns an industry trade group. The New York Times reports that a technology industry trade association, AeA, has released a report, Cybercities 2008, saying the US is not producing enough of its own technology graduates to fill its needs.

Open Source Ideas May Improve Healthcare

Getting medical records online so doctors can be assured of complete and up-to-date information on their patients is turning out to be a huge task. John Halamka, chief information officer at Harvard Medical School, thinks the healthcare world ought to take a page from Linux and bring the community together to develop open standards for collecting and sharing the data, according to CNET News.

RFID Can Interfere with Hospital Devices, Study Finds

The Food and Drug Administration may want to turn its attention to a Dutch study that found radio frequency identification tags can cause electronic interference that can switch off ventilators, reset intravenous drips, or reprogram pacemakers. New Scientist reports that the researchers are calling for better engineering of RFID devices to avoid such problems. The FDA last year issued a draft of proposed guidelines, but says so far it has received no reports of injuries due to interference.

Tropical Diseases Attacking Poor Americans

Public health officials need to keep better track of 24 exotic diseases that are spreading among the poor in places like Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta, a new study says. Peter Hotez of George Washington University, who published the study in the Public Library of Science journal Neglected Tropical Diseases, tells the Los Angeles Times that the diseases–including the parasitic infection schistosomiasis, the bacterial infection brucellosis, and the virus dengue fever–are under everyone’s radar, but affect at least 300,000 Americans.

Washington Should Promote “Internet for Everyone,” Campaign Says

The quality and accessibility of broadband in the U.S. is falling behind that of Europe and Asia, groups from the ACLU to Google believe. So the groups have joined together in a campaign called “Internet for Everyone,” to urge the next administration to make universal broadband access a priority. The Google Public Policy blog explains the company’s reasons for joining the push.

Solar Thermal Power Burns Up the Track

When people talk about solar energy, they’re usually talking about photovoltaics. But the Environmental News Network reports that, thanks to technology improvements, concentrated solar power is actually the second fastest growing utility-scale alternative energy source, following wind power. Concentrated solar power plants use mirrors or lenses to focus sunlight that heats up fluid-filled pipes.

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Conference Looks at Web’s Effect on Politics

A two-day conference in New York this week is looking at the interaction of the Web and the political process, reports Ars Technica. At the Personal Democracy Forum’s confab, researchers presented tools for mapping and modeling the blogosphere. One speaker suggested that online fundraising is not as important a use of the Internet as finding new ways to create civic institutions. And another noted that traditional media outlets are challenging bloggers with their own offerings during this campaign

Power Lines Are Bottleneck to Renewable Energy

Wind and solar power are all well and good, but unless there’s a way to transmit their electricity from, say, the middle of the Mojave Desert to a home in the Dallas suburbs, they won’t make much difference. Speakers at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum said there’s a real need to fund and build high-power transmission lines in the parts of the country where wind farms and solar installations would work best, which tend to be less inhabited, according to the Environmental News Network.

Community Policing is the Web’s Best Asset

If a small sample of Internet users were to allow their computers’ activities to be tracked anonymously, the open-source community could identify and deal with problems such as worms and pop-up ads, an expert argues. Writing in Technology Review, law professor and Internet author Jonathan Zittrain also sees too much proprietary software, with the ability to ban outside code, as a threat to openness online.

California Air Board to Tackle Global Warming

The California Air Resources Board is about to rise from obscurity when it issues what the San Francisco Chronicle calls the nation’s most ambitious plan to fight global warming. The paper says the board is likely to offer regulations that will encourage consumers to use more energy-efficient light bulbs and higher-mileage hybrid vehicles. There may also be new regulations on utilities and a carbon credit trading system.

Geo-Engineering May Be Better Approach to Warming

Alternative energy and conservation aren’t the only responses to climate change. Another approach policy makers should consider is geo-engineering, changing the Earth to control the environment, an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times suggests. Actions such as putting particles into the atmosphere to reflect more sunlight away from the planet could buy us time as we switch to alternative fuels, argues Samuel Thernstrom of the American Enterprise Institute.

Lack of Infrastructure Prevents Broadband Competition

Regulators want to encourage competition among different forms and providers of broadband. But a blogger at ZDNet argues that it’s not always easy to replace cable with DSL or FIOS. He uses his own suburban New Jersey community as an example of how suburbs often lack the infrastructure to support competition.

Defense Argues the Internet is for Porn

The legal concept of obscenity has always been fairly subjective; as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once famously wrote, “I know it when I see it.” Now a measure of just how many see it may change the legal notion of whether something violates community standards, says the New York Times. The defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to introduce Google’s data of the relative popularity of search terms such as “orgy” as compared to “apple pie,” to show that a good portion of the community is perfectly happy with porn.

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Study Finds Scientific Fraud

The National Institutes of Health may have to start policing their grants better, after a study found that as many as 1000 incidents of scientific misconduct may go unreported each year. The study, by the NIH’s Office of Research Integrity, surveyed 2,212 scientists who receive NIH grants and found that researchers witnessed an average of three cases of fraud per 100 people each year, Bloomberg reports.

Alternative Energy Could Power Next Tech Boom

With oil prices soaring and concern about global warming spreading, alternative energy could well be a booming market in the next few years. But will the winner be biodiesel, wind power, solar energy, or even new nuclear power? A special report in the Economist looks at a variety of technologies being developed around the world.

Innovation Cuts Data-Center Power Use

Finding new sources of energy is important, but so is cutting back energy use at power-hungry facilities like computer data centers. CNET News brings us the story of a startup, Power Assure, which has developed so-called Holistic Power Management. The company says it can reduce data center power by up to 80 percent.

Lending Website Seeks SEC Approval

The Securities and Exchange Commission will examine whether peer-to-peer lending embedded on a site like Facebook is a good idea, TechCrunch reports. Lending Club, originally launched as a Facebook application, has filed registration forms with the government. The company suspended operations in April after the SEC told it it required regulatory approval to act as the middleman in lending deals.

Grant Aims for Greater Ambulance Efficiency

Can public safety officials get emergency help where it’s needed in a more timely manner? That’s the question researchers at Cornell are examining. Science Daily tells us the researchers have a National Science Foundation grant to perfect a computer program that will tell city managers where to place ambulances across a city for maximum availability at all times.

Global Warming Will Cause More Wildfires

A warming Pacific Ocean will bring warmer, drier air to the northwest corner of the United States, sparking more wildfires by the end of the century, New Scientist says. The magazine cites a study by the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service, which predicts that the acreage burned in that area will more than double between 2002 and 2080.

Plant Oil Could Fuel Jet Planes

The poisonous seeds of a fast-growing weed called jatophra could make the friendly skies a little greener, the Los Angeles Times reports. Researchers from the Hawaii Agriculture Research Center are working with companies like Boeing to develop the oil from the seeds into a plant-based jet fuel. The fuel could produce about half the carbon emissions of fossil fuel, researchers say.

Is An Oil-Free Country Possible?

Could oil be entirely removed from a country’s economy? Shai Agassi, founder of Project Better Place, thinks so, and told a conference gathered to discuss how Washington could promote plug-in vehicles about his plan. The Environmental News Network posts a video of his talk.

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Last week was a good one for New England tech and life sciences startups trying to raise cash. But first, the shape-shifting robots.

—IRobot (NASDAQ: IRBT) of Burlington, MA, won a $3.3 million contract from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office to develop “soft, flexible” robots that can shimmy through tight spaces for reconnaissance and search-and-rescue work.

—Brookline, MA-based online directory firm JazzD Markets reportedly raised $8 million in Series A financing round from investors including Commonwealth Capital Ventures and Pilot House Ventures.

—Navic Networks of Waltham, MA, was scooped up by Microsoft for an undisclosed sum. The firm, whose investors include Pilot House Associates, Highland Capital Partners, Himalaya Capital Ventures, Pequot Ventures, and Lauder Partners, makes ad-targeting software for TV set-top boxes.

—Waltham, MA-based Battery Ventures teamed with Gemini Israel Funds to invest $11.4 million in New Jersey-based Neocleus, which makes virtualization software for Windows desktops and laptops.

—American Well of Boston inked a deal with Hawaii Medical Service Association—American Well’s first major customer—to offer the Boston firm’s online medical consultation services to all of the health plan’s 710,000 members. It also forged an agreement with Microsoft to integrate the software giant’s health information management service, HealthVault, into the American Well interface.

—Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) formed an alliance worth up to $93 million (not including royalties) with Japan’s Kyowa Hakko Kogyo to commercialize an RNAi-based treatment for respiratory syncytial virus in Japan and other major Asian markets.

—Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: [ESLR) received two new long-term orders, worth a combined $600 million, bringing the photovoltaic manufacturer’s total contractual backlog up to $1.7 billion.

—Friday saw a flurry of financings: Newton, MA’s OwnerIQ, which builds websites offering downloadable user manuals for consumer products, raised $6 million in Series B funding from Egan Managed Capital, Atlas Venture, CommonAngels, and the Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation. Sciformix, of Westborough, MA, which handles regulatory paperwork for biotech and pharma firms, closed a $3.3 million Series A round led by Boston-based Flybridge Capital Partners. And web consulting firm Optaros of Boston raised $12 million in a Series C round from .406 Ventures, Charles River Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, and Globespan Capital Partners.

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“Anyone know any investor jokes?” asks Carolynn Duncan of FundingUniverse. A pause, then someone on the side of the stage shouts “Yahoo!”

We’re at Seattle LivePitch, in the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center in West Seattle, on a sunny Friday afternoon. (On the way over, I got my first look at the snow-capped Olympic Mountains—awesome.) Hosted by FundingUniverse, a Utah-based site that connects startups and investors (and has recently expanded to the Northwest), the event gives 14 entrepreneurs two minutes each to pitch their startup to a panel of judges and the audience. But it’s not an investor forum or a fundraising event. “The point is to get the community together, for entrepreneurs to pitch in a safe environment and practice taking questions, so we can give them feedback,” says Duncan.

The judges were selected from the local innovation community: Rebecca Lovell from Alliance of Angels, Jim Roberts of UW Tech Transfer, Buzz Bruggeman of ActiveWords, Nathan Kaiser of nPost.com (a resource site for entrepreneurs), Todd Dean of the Northwest Keiretsu Forum (angel network), Tom Ryan of Atlas Recruiting (angel investing meets recruiting) and John Kauffman of law firm Stoel Rives.

The panel of judges was lined up on stage, and the house lights dimmed as we were given the “five rules of LivePitch”—making it feel like a cross between a spelling bee and “Fight Club.” Most of the rules were self-evident (don’t monopolize an entrant during networking time, don’t sell your services). And we, the audience members, would help determine the winner by each “investing” in two entrepreneurs after the session—whomever we thought had the best pitches.

One by one, the 14 entrants came up to the stage. Their pitches were all over the map in terms of tech sector, revenue model, target customer, style, and grace. The ideas ranged from conventional (Lilipip, a filtered YouTube for kids on mobile devices) to different (Sports 4E, automating management of sports leagues) to downright random (Robber Dotter, bringing Swedish bands to market in the U.S.—the founder claimed to be fluent in Swedish, but I would need Erik, our visiting journalism fellow back in Boston, to tell if she was pulling a John Candy in “Splash”).

In the end, I voted for Bryce Baril’s MarketOutsider and Lawrence Winnerman’s Elektronova. Baril’s site acts like a “robotic financial analyst,” he says, by scouring the Web for articles about a given company and automatically rating whether the news is positive or negative. Winnerman’s company sells networked sensor “plugs” for appliances (primarily refrigerators) that monitor electricity usage and could eventually save households 10 percent on their electric bill, he says. Both gave polished pitches and responded well to questions, which came rapid-fire from both the audience and the panel: How do you reach your users? What’s the market opportunity? How does your product compare to X, Y, and Z? What’s the expected return on investment in five years?

In the end, Elektronova came in number one in both the judges’ and the audience voting, while MarketOutsider came in number two. I was slightly disappointed—I was hoping to be different from the pack. Ultimately, MarketOutsider appealed to both my artificial-intelligence side and my interest in media, while Elektronova had a certain charm I can’t quite put my finger on… but I guess it electrified everyone else too.

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Electrics Cars Coming to America

Think, a Norwegian company that makes cars that run only on electricity, has opened a North American division and hopes to start-selling its autos in the U.S. in 2009, Business Week reports. The Think Ox is about the size of a Prius, runs for 125-155 miles per charge on rechargeable lithium ion batteries, and goes from 0 to 60 mph in 8.5 seconds. One wonders if the Ox name, presumably designed to evoke clean air, will have the same effect on sales that the Chevy Nova—”no go” in Spanish—legendarily had on sales in Latin America.

Changing MPG Standard Could Save Fuel

The way we think about fuel efficiency could be undermining our ability to actually figure out how much a car can save us in gas costs, researchers at Duke University suggest. New Scientist reports that a study found that people think doubling the miles per gallon of a compact car has the same effect on overall fuel consumption as doubling it in an SUV: that is, going from 10 to 20 mpg saves five gallons per 100 miles, while going from 25 to 50 mpg saves only two. The scientists want to flip the Environmental Protection Agency’s standard on its head, from miles per gallon to gallons per (100) miles, which they say would make the picture clearer

Big Business Wants a Climate Plan

Ninety-nine large businesses from all over the world, including ALCOA and Shell, want global leaders to get together on greenhouse-gas targets and an international carbon market, Bloomberg says. The statement, prepared by the World Economic Forum, was presented ahead of next month’s meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations. The U.S. has said it won’t agree to any binding targets unless China and India do also.

DARPA Not Underperforming, Director Says

Following on a report that the Department of Defense took away $32 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency because the agency was having a hard time allocating the funds, DARPA’s director says the Pentagon doesn’t understand how the agency works. According to Wired, director Tony Tether says there was unspent money because of his heightened supervision of projects. Some finished early, before all the money was spent, and some were cancelled because of poor performance, he says.

Court Debates the Meaning of “Infringement”

A federal judge may grant a mistrial in a file-sharing case after conceding he may have given the jury the wrong information about whether an action was a copyright infringement, Ars Technica reports. The judge had told the jury that merely making a copyrighted song available on a peer-to-peer network counted as infringement. But a friend-of-the-court brief from nine professors of copyright law argue that “making available” isn’t the same as “distributing” someone else’s property. The case could help define the line between stealing and fair use.

Heart Imaging Drugs Can Cause Death, FDA Warns

The continued use of certain drugs, known as contrast agents, to improve ultrasound images of the heart is leading to deaths, the Food and Drug Administration says. An AP story on Forbes.com reports that the FDA put out a warning in October, but since then has received four reports of patients dying after being injected with Definity, a drug formerly marketed by Bristol Myers Squibb. Researchers have been developing agents that are easier to see on ultrasound or MRI scans as a way to spot hard-to-find defects.

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With a new CEO (almost) in place, two potential term sheets on the way for a long-sought new round of financing, and another pair of partnership deals in the works, Cambridge, MA-based biofuels company GreenFuel Technologies could be on the threshold of a major new phase of its operations.

That was the picture painted by interim CEO Bob Metcalfe, on the heels of Tuesday’s announcement that after a year-long hunt, the company had found a new chief executive who will start next month. In an interview on Tuesday after the announcement, Metcalfe, who will become chair of GreenFuel’s board, spoke about the difficulty in finding energy entrepreneurs, as well as the company’s brightening future.

GreenFuel is developing algae bioreactor systems to convert carbon dioxide emissions into renewable, clean-burning biofuels. Last June, the firm had to close its third-generation algae greenhouse in Arizona, which had produced too much algae for the system to handle properly. Around the same time, it also learned that its algae-harvesting system would cost double the planned amount. The setbacks forced the layoffs of roughly half the company’s 50-person staff and the appointment of Metcalfe, a general partner at major GreenFuel investor Polaris Venture Partners, as interim CEO.

Only “interim” almost became interminable. Metcalfe says the long CEO search—led by Polaris general partner Peter Flint, in conjunction with Hobbs and Towne, a search firm specializing in the alternative energy field—highlights the difficulty in finding executives with experience in clean energy fields who also have a startup, entrepreneurial mindset (this is something Xconomist Bill Aulet has blogged on here). “The hard part is that unlike the computer industry and the Internet industry, there aren’t a lot of two-time serial entrepreneurs around,” Metcalfe says. “Most of the qualified people have worked for British Petroleum for 25 years. They don’t really have the small-company experience which we think is important. Simon does.”

He’s referring to new CEO Simon Upfill-Brown, who will start in mid-July. Even before then, Metcalfe will be working to hopefully arrange a Series C financing round for the company. GreenFuel recently completed a $13.9 million extension of its Series B round—$5.7 million of which was debt conversion—from inside investors, including Polaris, Access Private Equity, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. “We just did our third close on the B—that’s a 2005 B that had three closes,” Metcalfe says. “We’re still planning to do a C.”

I asked him about the timing of the new round, and in a typical fashion, he quipped: “Yesterday would be okay.” It might not be too long after that, though. Two potential deals are likely coming in July, he says. “But neither one of them is in the bag…we don’t have a term sheet yet.”

Completing that round is the last of seven steps Metcalfe laid out shortly after taking the reins at GreenFuel last summer. “We have one more to go,” he says. The Ethernet inventor seemed to relish the possibility of wrapping up the deal before Upfill-Brown arrives. “This is my crack at the C round, and then if those two prospects don’t mature as we’d like them to, then Simon will lead the next crack at the C round and I’ll help him as chairman.”

He’s also working on some key partnership deals, to follow on one we wrote about in March to build an algae-based fuel plant in Europe; that deal could be worth up to $92 million.

The new deals relate to GreenFuel’s efforts to boost the size and productivity of its algae farms, Metcalfe says. The firm is now hard at work building its second 100-square-meter algae farm in Cambridge, MA. “It should come on line in July,” says Metcalfe. He says the company is talking with two potential new partners about extending this work on an even bigger scale. “It’s with those partners that we’ll make the move to 1,000 square meters,” he says. Any operations on that scale, though, won’t be in Cambridge. “Those will be in places with more sun.”

Metcalfe says the goal is to sign the partnership agreements later this month or in July. Then, he says, “we would hope to get to 1000 square meters probably in a year,” stressing that this estimate is a “very round number.”

Getting such a deal done, especially in conjunction with lining up a new financing round, would be a great cap to his CEO stint. Still, he doesn’t sound too sad to be leaving. “I’ve learned a lot about energy. I’m not a natural choice to be the interim CEO of GreenFuel. It’s been fun being on the steep part of the learning curve.”

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Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR) has signed two new long-term orders, valued at approximately $600 million, bringing the company’s total contractual backlog up to $1.7 billion. The new orders, combined with two similar multiyear contracts announced last month, represent more than 65 per cent of the capacity in Evergreen’s Devens, MA, plant.

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Court Finds Text Messages Are Private
You can now text your BFF to your heart’s content and not worry about somebody reading the transcript, thanks to a federal court ruling. CNET News reports that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must get a user’s consent before getting a service provider to turn over copies of text messages. The ruling came in a case where police supervisors in Ontario, CA, wanted to see officers’ messages to determine if they were work-related.

FDA Targets Internet Nostrums
The Internet not only provides a handy source of information about diseases and their treatments, it can also link ill people to sellers of purported remedies, offering cures without any scientific proof they actually work. Now the Food and Drug Administration has sent warning letters to 25 companies that market pills, lotions, and tonics that claim to cure cancer, the Los Angeles Times reports. The FDA fears the fake cures could interfere with legitimate treatments or otherwise harm patients

Doctors Don’t Use Electronic Records
Digitizing health records can improve the quality of medical care by speeding access to information and reducing errors. But the New York Times reports that a new study shows fewer than 20 percent of the nation’s doctors have adopted electronic records. A big part of the problem is that small, private practices don’t want to spend the $15,000 to $20,000 per doctor it would take to make the conversion.

House Bill Would Spend More on New Energy
A spending bill for fiscal year 2009 would increase spending on energy research by 21 percent, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports. The House Appropriations subcommittee approved the bill, raising the budget for the Department of Energy’s Office of Science to $4.86 billion. Among the provisions: $100 million to establish two dozen new Energy Frontier Research Centers

Home Uses Solar Panels to Produce Hydrogen
Speaking of energy frontiers, Scientific American brings us the story of a New Jersey man who’s taken his home off the grid by installing solar panels on his roof and using their power to split tap water into hydrogen he can use when the sun’s not shining. The project cost $500,000, of which $400,000 came as grants from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. Whether such a setup could be made economically feasible is an open question.

DARPA Suffers Loss of Personnel and Funds
The Department of De