What are the "crown jewels" of U.S. R&D doing against global warming?

The nation's federal laboratories got their start with nuclear bombs (well, really with agriculture in the late 1800s), spread (a little) to encompass nuclear energy -- and starting from studies of the effects of radiation on human body tissue, joined the biotech races. In fact, putting aside the nuclear weapons work (not an easy thing to do), the weight of federal research funding overall has been towards human health for decades now.

And despite the Bush Administration's lack of interest in science generally, the labs have kept an eye on real world trends and are well aware of the need to show some progress on technologies to combat global warming.

So the magazine about lab inventions of commercial interest, "Innovation," published by TVC, the tech transfer via venture capital affiliate of Sandia National Laboratories, devoted most of its February-March 2008 issue to the subject. I'll highlight a few over the next few posts.

Sandia: "Reversing combustion." The Counter Rotating Ring Receiver Reactor Recuperator (CR5 for blessedly short -- now do you have any doubt these guys are scientists?) can take apart the carbon-oxygen bond in carbon dioxide, turning it into carbon monoxide. They had started with a plan to free hydrogen from water for the so-called Hydrogen Economy, so now they have the raw ingredients for making a liquid petroleum-like fuel. Now I remember this much from chemistry classes: there are a couple of energy hills there. So Rich Diver and his colleagues will use solar energy.

Unfortunately, they think the process is 15-20 years away from commercialization. Maybe if they got a bit of funding, say private funding, it could go faster? Contact: Craig E. Tyner, manager, licensing and IP management, cetyner@sandia.gov, 505-844-3340.

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Greenwashing vs. Green Being

For a while there I just couldn't cope with, much less compete with the flood of green references as Earth Day approached, and even now as it slowly recedes, so I'm rethinking the value of this blog. More specifically, over the next few days while I"m on vacation in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I'll be letting thoughts come into my mind without pressure. I'm hoping I'll come up with a new distinctive focus, and one hopes, value for it by then.

In the mean time, let's talk about greenwashing. Companies have clearly read the (green) tea leaves, and every media outlet from Advertising Age to Fox Television to The Harvard Business Review has a green glow to it these days.

While the Google Trends (nee zeitgeist) search doesn't yet have enough data to track the term, there are already sites devoted to debunking or at least tracking the claims. I like Greenwashingindex.com for its "advertising academic" approach to ads spotted by readers

, but there are plenty more.

Of course this is important, and I hope companies that are caught are exposed and punished in the marketplace for it, but I also hope it doesn't turn everyone cynical. There's plenty of cynicism as it is. In fact, I think that even greenwashing is on balance a good thing, because it means that companies are aware that's what their customers and prospects want. Naturally, some companies late to the party will try the quick and dirty approach, but I think the movement is real enough to withstand a certain amount of failures, even cynical ones. What do you think?

See you soon!