Check out these great online web tools for small business shared by Inc, Magazine. Great ideas here.

Find Out Who is Visiting Your Website

Demandbase lets you know when those blue-chip customers are knocking at your virtual door. Its free real-time ticker analyzes your visitors’ IP addresses and compares them with information from sources such as Dun & Bradstreet and LexisNexis. With those data, Demandbase can tell you the names of the companies at which many of your visitors work. Click on a company name, and Demandbase will sell you the name and contact information for a lead at that company. Demandbase has been called the iTunes of CRM, and it’s almost as affordable: The average cost per lead is just $1.80.

Calendar, Meet Social Networking

LuckyCal aims to make it easier for you to meet up with friends or business contacts. The free Web tool, which launched in December, integrates your work and personal calendars with those of your employees, friends, and business associates (as long as they give you permission). The main benefit could be for road-weary sales teams; LuckyCal will scan your colleagues’ and clients’ Outlook calendars and Facebook profiles and e-mail you when they are in your area. LuckyCal plans to charge for an enterprise version that launches later this year.

Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

Three new software programs can help companies cut carbon emissions. Edison (verdiem.com/edison), CO2 Saver (co2saver.snap.com), and Carbon Control Software (carboncontrolsoftware.com) all use Windows power settings to reduce the energy consumed by computers while they are idle. All the programs provide information on how much carbon you have saved, and Edison estimates how much money you have saved as well. The personal versions of the programs are free. Carbon Control Software’s business version costs $10.50 and up per license per year and Verdiem, the maker of Edison, has a corporate version that sells for $20 per computer per year. It may be worth the price: Globally, IT infrastructure emits as much carbon as the aviation industry, according to research firm Gartner.

Ditch That Phone Tree

Fonolo.com has mapped out the automated customer service phone trees of 200 companies. Log on, click on the department you want to reach (reservations at American Airlines, for example), and Fonolo will make the call, navigate the system, and call you when it has reached your desired department. When we used it to call Citibank, it connected us with a rep in less than 20 seconds, compared with two minutes when calling directly. Fonolo has an iPhone app as well.

Save Money on Travel

When you cancel a flight, you are entitled to a refund of the taxes and fuel charges you paid — even on a nonrefundable ticket. For 25 euros ($32), MissRefund.com will get that money for you. The company has secured refunds as large as $262; the average is $101. If you don’t receive a refund, you don’t have to pay. Meawhile, Vayama.com is an airfare booking site focused on routes and destinations that aren’t generally available online, like Seattle to Denpasar, Bali. But it doesn’t always have the best prices, particularly on run-of-the-mill trips, so make sure to shop around. Airfarewatchdog.com scours listing sites such as Travelocity and Orbitz to find the best deals, even on small airlines like Allegiant. And Yapta.com will alert you when a good price appears on the flight you want. If the price falls after you have bought the ticket, Yapta will, for $15, try to get you a refund or credit for the difference.

Name Your Price for Coding Help

The world’s largest community of software developers and graphic designers is now ready to serve small companies. Since 2001, TopCoder has been holding coding and design competitions to help companies like ESPN develop new software tools, websites, and logos. Late last year, it launched TopCoder Direct, a do-it-yourself version that allows small and midsize companies to get in the game. Log in at topcoder.com/direct, describe what you want, and determine how much money you will award the first- and second-place finishers. When the submissions come in, you pick the best. A prototype for a simple website might cost $1,200.

Skype on Steroids

Chances are you have a cell phone, a work phone, a home phone, a couple of e-mail accounts, and maybe an instant-messaging program. With free software from VoxOx, you can keep them all in one place. Import contacts from all of your e-mail and IM accounts. Then, e-mail, IM, text, or call anyone you know, all through VoxOx. Every user gets a phone number, which shows up in the caller ID of the person receiving the call. If someone uses the number to call you, you can pick up at the computer or have the call forwarded to any phone. But there is one drawback: VoxOx gives users only two free hours of calls. Then, you can either pay a fee or get more free calls by watching ads.

[via INC MAGAZINE]

(CNN) — When Rita Bryer sees 300-foot-tall wind turbines sprouting up from the prairie near her home in western Oklahoma, she can’t help but wonder about the view from the top, where blades the size of semi-trucks spin.

“Out here, you can see the wind turbines from 10 miles away,” she said. “Think about how far you’ll be able to see when you’re at the top.”

So, partly out of curiosity, partly because she wants to be part of something new, the 51-year-old is leaving behind a career of odd jobs and oil-field work.

She’s going back to school to become a wind turbine mechanic — one who’ll have to scale the turbines to make repairs.

Across the country, people like Bryer are looking to the renewable energy sector in hopes its “green-collar jobs” will offer them stability in this shaky economy. Some are signing up for community college or apprenticeship programs that train students to be wind turbine mechanics, solar panel installers, fuel-cell engineers or energy efficiency experts. Watch how the green economy is growing in Pennsylvania »

Government support has rallied excitement for the prospect of a green jobs corps, as President Obama’s stimulus package puts about $20 billion into greening the economy, according to the White House.Obama says country will double renewable energy in three years »

In his recent speech to Congress, Obama said the U.S. will double its supply of renewable energy in three years. To do so, he’s calling on a new class of workers to be trained in environmental fields. Green jobs training programs will get $500 million from the stimulus.

At a summit in Philadelphia on Friday, Vice President Joe Biden said people who make $20 per hour before a green jobs training program can make $50 per hour after. On average, the clean-energy jobs pay 10 to 20 percent more than similar work outside the field, he said. Watch how to land green jobs »

Adding to the enthusiasm, Biden cited a recent case in Chicago where a maker of energy-efficient windows intends to gradually rehire 250 workers who were laid off when their window company closed late last year.

There is a “very direct” correlation between the stimulus package and Serious Materials’ ability to reopen the plant, said Sandra Vaughan, chief marketing officer for the California-based company.

But not all signs for green industries are so positive.

Wind and solar companies have cut staff and stalled new projects as the credit crisis has tied up money, meaning banks are less able to invest in renewable energy.

In the short term, that will make things difficult for the newly trained green work force, said Kathy Werle, dean of applied sciences and technology at San Jose City College, in California, which offers associate degrees in solar panel installation.

“Right now, money is so tight. People can’t borrow money to put solar on their homes,” she said.

Werle said she expects Obama’s stimulus plan to help jump-start the industry. Within a year or so she expects the graduates to be able to find plenty of green jobs.

The uncertainty appears not to be tempering student demand for green education, though. Earlier this semester, 260 people showed up for 44 seats in solar panel installation classes at San Jose City College, Werle said.

“Anything green is very popular,” she said.

Meanwhile, some schools that train the green-collar work force are billing their programs as near-guaranteed ways to find stable jobs.

Sidney Bolfing, chairman of the Texas Renewable Energy Education Consortium, an association of community colleges, said nearly 100 percent of his graduates find jobs in the fuel-cell industry — many before graduation.

“Typically all of these students all get jobs,” he said.

Bolfing is so confident in the idea that he markets green-collar careers to high schools and elementary schools in the area.

He hopes that the standard list of childhood dream jobs — astronaut, firefighter, police officer — soon will include things like wind technician and fuel-cell engineer.

Even if there’s trouble in the short term, green jobs are needed to fight climate change and spur economic growth, he said.

“We need to develop these new technologies like there’s no tomorrow,” he said.

Matt Raines, 31, of West, Texas, had a career as an auto mechanic. But that didn’t seem to be going anywhere, so now he is enrolled as a community college’s hydrogen fuel program.

He said local people look at him funny when he tells them about the decision because they don’t understand what he’ll be doing.

“I had one lady who actually asked me if I was building hydrogen bombs. I was like, ‘No ma’am, it’s energy production, green energy,’” he said.

Raines finds the program exciting, and says he’s been contacted about jobs by three companies, even though he is yet to finish his two-year degree.

Maria Kingery, co-founder of Southern Energy Management, a North Carolina company that installs solar energy panels, said schools need to catch up with the changing industry.

She applauded money in the stimulus package that will go to green job training programs, but said “training is going to be a real challenge” in the coming months.

Her company has a hiring freeze in place at the moment because of the economic downturn, but expects to grow in 2009, she said.

Some green jobs are low-tech and require little or no specialized training.

A former construction worker could easily take up a career in home weatherization and energy efficiency, said Bob Logston, owner of Home Energy Loss Professionals (HELP) in Baltimore, Maryland.

Some weatherization steps are as simple as shoving newspaper insulation in a home’s attic, caulking windows and repairing ductwork.

More than $11 billion of the economic stimulus package is intended to help people make their homes more energy efficient, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Because of those efficiency provisions, Logston said he expects his business to quadruple.

He employs six people now and expects to hire at least 12 more, he said. He also plans to offer his employees insurance for the first time.

“Everything’s budding, so to speak, everything’s in bloom even though it’s winter,” he said of green jobs in the home weatherization business. “The energy costs are so high people can’t afford” not to increase efficiency.

Part of the trouble with estimating the profitability of green jobs is that no one seems to be able to agree on a definition for the term. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does not separate data on green jobs or jobs in renewable energy, and economists disagree on how many new green jobs the stimulus package will create.

In such a murky situation, community colleges often network with the local business community to gauge their interest in students from green-jobs programs. Many have banded together to dig up regional knowledge.

“The students always ask, ‘Can you guarantee job placement?’ No, I can’t guarantee it, but I can tell you I’ve spoken with local wind farm managers and everybody I’ve spoken with says there is a need, (and) there will be a need,” said Kimberlee Smithton, director of business and industry services at the High Plains Technology Center in Woodward, Oklahoma.

That school, where Bryer is taking classes, is offering a wind turbine technician program for the first time this year.

Bryer said she doesn’t know how much money she’ll make in the wind business. She doesn’t much care.

“To me, especially, it’s going to be a job — a good job I think I’ll like, and I just look forward to doing it,” she said. “It’s always nice doing something different, not the same old thing.”

The woman who’s always been seen as a rebel because she was the lone female working tough jobs in the oil fields now feels like she’s part of a movement for change.

[via CNN.com] by John Sutter

“It’s time to bail out the people and the planet,” says Van Jones [1], author of The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems [2]. We agree, and this guide to to sustainability-focused career paths will help retrofit and solar-charge your work life.

The TOP TEN GREEN JOBS FOR THE NEXT DECADE:

Farmer

America has only two million farmers, and their average age is 55. Since sustainable agriculture requires small-scale, local, organic methods rather than petroleum-based machines and fertilizers, there is a huge need for more farmers — up to tens of millions of them, according to food guru Michael Pollan. Modern farmers are small businesspeople who must be as skilled in heirloom genetics as marketing.

Schools: University of Vermont: Center for Sustainable Agriculture; Stone Barns Center For Food & Agriculture in New York State; University of Oklahoma: Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture; Evergreen State College: degree in Sustainable Agriculture.

Related careers: urban gardener; farmers market and CSA coordinator; artisanal cheesemakers; and other food producers.

Forester

Modern forestry is a complex combination of international project finance, conservation and development. According to the World Bank, a staggering 1.6 billion people depend on the forest for their livelihoods. Foresters help local people transition from slash-and-burn to silviculture–teaching cultivation of higher-value, faster-growing species for fruit, medicine or timber, for example while carefully documenting the impact on the environment. Deforestation, which causes around a quarter of all global warming, is also likely to be a leading source of carbon credits worth tens of billions of dollars [3].

Schools: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; Duke University: Nicholas School of the Environment; University of Michigan: School of Natural Resources & Environment.

Companies/organizations: The Nature Conservancy; New Forests Inc.

Solar Power Installer

Making and installing solar power systems already accounts for some 770,000 jobs globally. Installing solar-thermal water heaters and rooftop photovoltaic cells is a relatively high-paying job–$15 to $35 an hour–for those with construction skills. And opportunities are available all over the United States, wherever the sun shines. Currently over 3,400 companies in the solar energy sector employ 25,000 to 35,000 workers. The Solar Energy Industries Association predicts an increase to over 110,000 jobs by 2016 — even more if anticipated tax credits are accelerated [4].

Companies: Akeena Solar; Sungevity; Sunpower; Full list at SEIA.org.

Energy Efficiency Builder Buildings account for up to 48 percent of US energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. LEED, the major green building certification, has over 43,000 accredited professionals [5]. But the cutting edge in efficient buildings goes far beyond LEED. Buildings constructed according to Passivhaus and MINERGIE-P standards in Germany and Switzerland, respectively, use between 75% and 95% less heat energy than a similar building constructed to the latest codes in the US. Greening the US building stock will take not only skilled architects and engineers, but a workforce of retrofitters who can use spray foam insulation and storm windows to massively improve the R-value (thermal resistance) of the draftiest old houses. A study by the Apollo Alliance recommended an $89.9 billion investment in financing to create 827,260 jobs in green buildings — an initiative supported by the Obama stimulus package, which specifically mentions energy retrofits [6].

Schools: Arizona State University School of Architecture: Energy Performance Climate-Responsive Architecture; University of Michigan: Alfred A. Taubman College of Architecture + Urban Planning; The Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Wind Turbine Fabricator

Wind is the leading and fastest-growing source of alternative energy with over 300,000 jobs worldwide. Turbines are 90% metal by weight, creating an opportunity for autoworkers and other manufacturers to repurpose their skills. According to the American Wind Energy Association [7], the industry currently employs some 50,000 Americans and added 10,000 new jobs in 2007. Their job board [8] is an excellent place to start looking for opportunities.

Companies: Vestas; Siemens; GE Energy.

Conservation Biologist The granddaddy of diversity, E.O. Wilson, famously called conservation biology — a discipline with a deadline. The urgent quest to preserve the integrity of ecosystems around the world — and to quantify the value of — ecosystems services — leads to opportunities in teaching, research and fieldwork for government, nonprofits, and private companies. The forthcoming economic stimulus package from the Obama administration offers the prospect of increased federal support for science and research [9].

Schools: Center for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington and the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University. At the small College of the Atlantic [10] every student gets his or her degree in human ecology; it’s been called the most sustainable college or university in the world.

Green MBA and Entrepreneur

The concept of the triple bottom line [11] has migrated from the margins to the mainstream of the business world. A recent report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, Mayors Climate Protection Center found that business services like legal, research and consulting account for the majority of all green jobs — over 400,000. This includes everything from marketing to the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) segment, to serving as a VP of sustainability within a large company, to piloting a green startup like Method or Recyclebank.

Schools: Stanford School of Business; San Francisco’s Presidio School of Management; Leeds School of Business; University of Colorado at Boulder — Deming Center for Entrepreneurship; the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Wash.

Recycler The total number of recycling jobs in the United States is at more than 1 million, according to recent reports [12] (PDF, right click to save). Although the market for paper and plastic has slowed down recently due to the economic downturn, demand for steel is still strong — 42 percent of output came from scrap in 2006 — and recycling remains the economical alternative to high disposal fees. Worldwide more than 200,000 people work in secondary steel production, and the US is a major center of production. New laws and regulations [13] are also creating a need for specialized companies that can close the loop by recycling and repurposing e-waste, clothing, plastic bags, construction waste, and other materials.

Companies: Rumpke; Greenstar North America.

Sustainability Systems Developer The green economy needs a cadre of specialized software developers and engineers who design, build, and maintain the networks of sensors and stochastic modeling that underpin wind farms, smart energy grids, congestion pricing and other systems substituting intelligence for natural resources. Coders with experience using large scale enterprise resource planning have an edge here, as well as developers familiar with open source and web 2.0 [14] applications.

Companies: IBM, V2Green, WindLogics

Urban Planner Urban and regional planning is a linchpin of the quest to lower America’s carbon footprint. Strengthening mass transit systems, limiting sprawl, encouraging use of bicycles and deemphasizing cars is only part of the job. Equally important is contingency planning, as floods, heat waves and garbage creep become increasingly common problems for metropolises. Employment in this sector is projected to grow 15 percent by 2016, and the jobs are mainly in local governments, which make them a slightly safer bet for the downturn.

[via Fast Company] by Anya Kamenetz

In 2009, the job market will be full of contrasts: some industries will be eviscerated while others face shortages of workers. The good news is that despite the recession, there are still real jobs to be had. The bad news is that you may have to change fields to find one.

The trick to job hunting in 2009 will be to figure out how your skill-set can translate across industries, says Elaine Varelas, a managing partner at Boston-based outplacement firm Keystone Partners, so that you’re not confined to searching one sector of the economy. “People are frustrated because it’s taking them a while to assess the job market,” she says. “They’ll have to figure out other things they can do and want to do.” Successful job-seekers will be the ones who can figure out how to take skills learned in one kind of job and translate them into assets in others.

Here are the top eight areas where work can be found in 2009:

1) Nursing & Medical Services

Perhaps the best bet in 2009: Becoming a registered nurse or medical technician. With over 50,000 new nursing jobs to be created this year alone, med techs and nurses will have their pick of jobs and salaries, the latter averaging about $57,000 per year.

Social services jobs will see a boom too, as a swelling number of retirees check-in for medical care, says the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report. But not all health care jobs will see equal growth. “The growth here will be more about the services and delivery people–nurses and technicians–than administrators,” Varelas explains. “Hourly workers interested in changing roles should get into any role that services the elderly,” she suggests.

2) Computing & Engineering

Computer-related jobs are projected to grow by more than 20 percent in the next decade, and 2009 will be no exception. Software engineering is particularly in demand, with network systems and data communications analysis also booming. These jobs also had some of the highest median salaries in 2006, according to the BLS, with computer software engineers earning a median income of $79,000 a year.

These positions are expected to grow at nearly double the rate of other types of jobs, but that won’t last forever. “As the software industry matures, and as routine work is increasingly outsourced abroad,” fewer computing jobs will be available in the next decade, the BLS notes.

But for now, technology workers are still in high demand, says Varelas. Most of the open positions will be found at smaller companies, where employers will be looking for a versatile, multi-faceted worker that can fill more than one role. “You have to be a business person who’s also a tech person,” to be an ideal candidate, Varelas explains. That could give an advantage to seasoned workers over recent grads.

3) Education

“To a great extent, education is recession proof,” says Roy Krause, President and CEO of recruiting and staffing company Spherion. In 2009, roughly 38,000 of our economy’s new jobs will be created in colleges and universities nationwide. As more students wait out the recession in college and graduate programs, the need for teachers, administrators, assistants and other staff will expand.

The demand for primary and secondary-school teachers will be booming as well. “There always seems to be a shortage there,” says Krause. Some of the most in-demand teaching roles will prepare workers for the most in-demand jobs. “There are literally not enough educational programs to generate the volume of health-care workers we’ll need,” Varelas explains. As high schools and universities expand to meet demand for nurses, computer engineers and teachers, the demand for teachers and professors will grow commensurately.

Post-secondary teachers can expect a media salary of about $56,000, according to the BLS, while kindergarten through 12th grade teachers can expect between $43,000 and $48,000.

4) Green Jobs

So-called “green” jobs haven’t been measured in BLS reports to date, but some experts have predicted they’ll shake up the list of the fastest-growing jobs before the end of the decade. “More and more companies are adding dedicated staff to focus their environmental efforts,” says Alison Doyle, About.com’s Guide to Job Searching. Green jobs are arriving in two breeds, she explains: some will be at specialized firms that reduce human environmental impact, like environmental consultancies; others will simply be jobs at environmentally-friendly companies looking to improve their eco-image by hiring specialized “green” officers to audit and improve the company’s environmental impact.

But the recession might slow the corporate world’s eco-makeover, as many companies’ transition to green-hood is delayed by financial problems. To see any growth in green job demand, we’ll also need to see some “very creative new organizations,” Varelas explains. Upstart green-services companies may be hiring, she says, but otherwise this sector will be what she describes as a “slow-growth industry: high demand but high competition.”

Companies that can afford to go green will hire staffers like Traceability Managers, who will examine global supply chains and check for suppliers that might be excessively pollutive or carbon-costly to buy from. Environmental consultancies will seek to hire engineers or architects who are LEED-accredited, understand HVAC systems and can help guide developers through the LEED approval process for their buildings.

5) Energy

“There’s a big buzz on campus about renewable energy,” says Chris Higgins, Senior Associate Director of Career Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Outgoing students are particularly interested in startup companies, he says. “Biofuels seem to be the biggest area of investment.” Those venture-backed businesses should still be in good shape to hire in 2009, since they are more insulated from the broader economy.

“Obama’s talking a lot about green initiatives, so alternative fuels are going to be big,” agrees Spherion CEO Krause. But those renewable energy jobs might also see a glut of interest from workers in traditional energy, thanks in part to increasing volatility and competitiveness in the market for oil and gas jobs that has resulted from wild oil-price fluctuations. “We’re seeing a slowdown in Texas and Canada,” Varelas says of North America’s two biggest oil-producing areas. Workers in the energy industry have very specific skill-sets and knowledge that don’t translate well to other industries, she notes. She predicts that many of these workers may “be jumping at a green energy job” if they have the opportunity.

6) Infrastructure

With the president-elect vowing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on internal improvements like roads, bridges, broadband infrastructure and financial oversight, some experts are predicting niche job booms. “We work with a couple of companies that build bridges, and they’re expecting a lot more business.” says Krause.

Financiers might also find new lives as a part of the government’s new regulatory apparatus, which will need auditors, accountants and compliance officers. Obama’s energy-independence programs will also require electrical and mechanical engineers, grid managers, biofuel chemists, and civil engineers. Electrical, mechanical, chemical and civil engineers made median salaries of about between $68,000-$79,000 in 2006, according to the BLS Median salaries for power plant operators were about $55,000, or about $70,000 for operators at nuclear power facilities.

7) The New Finance

Financiers should prepare to be especially flexible in 2009. “Those people will need to take a look at reinventing themselves. They’ll have to figure out where else they can use their skills, and move into other industries,” Varelas says. For many bankers, that will mean applying their middle or back-office operations knowledge in other businesses. How long before they can move back into their former careers? “This consolidation is going to be long Ð at least three-to-five years,” Varelas says.

But don’t discount finance yet. “We’ll simply see shifts. There will be a shift from originating mortgages, for example, to collecting on them,” Krause explains. “If interest rates go down to 4.5%, you’ll also see a lot of refinancing.” This will require underwriters, actuaries, and administrators.

For financial workers switching fields, an initial pay cut may come with the transition. A financial analyst who made the median 2006 income of about $66,000 and decides to become, say, a commercial loan officer will probably net about $10,000 less in 2006 dollars. However, after three years of experience, that loan officer’s salary would jump to between $61,000 and $100,000, according to the BLS.

Self-Employment & Small Business

Replacing farmers in the self-employment demographic are growing numbers of people “who don’t want to be employees anymore,” says Katy Piotrowski, a career counselor and author of The Career Coward’s Guide to Changing Careers. “I’m seeing a lot of people buying franchises, or setting up arrangements that involve multiple online businesses,” she says.

As a career counselor who assists adults interested in mid-life career switches, Piotrowski reports growing numbers of workers “trying to escape the desk job format.” Experienced career jumpers are also wary of taking new positions that promise little job security Ð jobs Piotrowski likens to “black holes” of employment. Top prospects for small businesses will be Internet companies that can get funding while the venture market is still well capitalized, as well as green consultancies and international sales, which could benefit from the volume generated by a weak dollar.

The BLS does not calculate income estimates for self-employed workers of any kind.

9) Retirement, Reconsidered

The BLS says that over the next ten years, “the need to replace workers who leave a field permanently is expected to create more openings than growth will.” But with retirement accounts losing value, many baby boomers could postpone leaving. Could this affect turnover?

“This recession will delay retirement, but not the traditional way,” says Krause. “Retirees will come back into the workforce on contract or part-time basis, but not keep their old positions.” Because longevity means larger salaries and a lower cost-basis, companies will still pressure older workers to retire, but will also need their experience to weather a recession not equaled in decades. If retirement is your next stop, look for firms where your wisdom could be useful on retainer.

10) Telecommuting

The first quarter of the year will be rough for job-seekers. But the upside will be more employer flexibility. “Candidates will have to market themselves,” says Krause, “but more employers are open to job sharing and telecommuting as gas prices fluctuate and there is more emphasis on getting the candidate with the right suite of skills.” Which means that it’s wise to expand your geographical search, and inquire about whether working from home on a part-time basis is an option, regardless of the job you are seeking.

“What’s heartening,” Krause says of the incoming administration, “is that there’s a recognition that there’s a problem.” If the president-elect’s stimulus package works as intended, American job-seekers could see the creation and preservation of about 2.5 million jobs before 2010.

[via Fast Company] by Chris Dannen

ATLANTA, January 14, 2009 – Just like an old neighborhood as it gentrifies, so the residential construction industry is undergoing a significant shift from old ways of building to new sustainable (green) practices. With this change, comes a requirement to insure healthy indoor air for those inside, while protecting the natural resources of our planet outside. Architects, homebuilders and contractors are learning that a homeowners’ right for non-toxic, healthy indoor environments ranks right up there with energy and environmental conservation.

Results of a recent survey conducted by the National Home Builders Association (NAHB) and McGraw-Hill bear this out in terms of market share and homeowner attitudes. For example, the US residential green building market is expected to double to 12% to 20% ($40 billion to $70 billion) market share by 2012. The survey results also showed that 70% of homebuyers were more apt to buy green even in today’s economic conditions, and 87% were at least moderately knowledgeable about green home construction. Homeowners cited lower operating costs through energy savings (91%), having a healthier place to live (84%) and environmental concerns (80%) as the top three most important reasons for buying green homes.

Yet, according to the survey results, which were reported in the McGraw-Hill Construction 2008 SmartMarket Reports, builders still tend to focus more on energy and environmental conservation in their selection of green features, such as tight construction, insulation, Energy Star® products and water-efficient plumbing. While these features are excellent choices for lowering energy costs and conserving water, they may inadvertently contribute to poor indoor air quality (IAQ).

“As with commercial buildings, super tight, insulated homes with minimal ventilation and low air change rates can result in indoor mold growth and indoor air pollutants building up to levels that threaten occupant health. Conversely, pursuing good IAQ without considering the efficient use of energy may unnecessarily increase construction and energy costs, create financial hardships for families, and increase emissions of greenhouse gases, thereby contributing to outdoor air pollution” said Tony Worthan, President of Air Quality Sciences, Inc. (AQS).

A new white paper from AQS, titled Energy Conservation and Indoor Air Quality: Benefits of Achieving Both in Homes, explains the importance of balancing the efficient use of energy with good indoor air quality. It also emphasizes that all those involved in building and renovating homes must strive towards adopting one defining common set of green principles that place equal emphasis on energy efficiency and protecting occupant health (good IAQ). The two must go together. In addition, this white paper reviews who is most at risk from indoor air pollution, common indoor air contaminants found in homes, their sources, health impacts and what steps can be taken to achieve efficient use of energy and good IAQ.

This white paper completes a three-part series on energy and indoor air quality. The other two papers in the series, Energy Conservation and Indoor Air Quality: Partnering to Protect Human Health, and Energy Conservation and Indoor Air Quality: Lessons From the Past Have Relevance for the Future, are recommended reading to gain a valuable perspective on the interdependence of IAQ and energy conservation and the benefits of considering them as primary and complementary goals for healthy indoor environments. All three white papers are available free of charge from the Aerias-AQS Indoor Air Quality Resource Center at www.aerias.org, Premium Content tab / White Papers.

Air Quality Sciences, Inc. is a fully integrated indoor air quality (IAQ) company that provides solutions to create healthy indoor environments and avoid potentially dangerous indoor pollution. As the only indoor air quality firm with laboratories that are ISO 9001:2000 registered, AIHA EMLAP accredited and ISO 17025 accredited, AQS sets the standard for effective diagnoses and reliable solutions. The company provides product emissions testing for the GREENGUARD Certification Programs, German Blue Angel Eco- label, Green Guide for Healthcare, LEED EQ credits, and other key IAQ and green product criteria requiring third party verification. To learn more about AQS, Blue Angel and GREENGUARD, visit www.aqs.com, www.blauer-engel.de or www.greenguard.org, respectively. For more information on indoor air quality, visit Aerias-AQS IAQ Resource Center at www.aerias.org

Inquiries, Sales and Funding Rise in Anticipation of New Regulations — and Spending — From Obama Administration

While many small businesses continue to struggle with tight credit and declining sales, one fledgling industry is seeing a boom in investment and sales growth: alternative energy.

Alternative-energy firms are reporting an influx of inquiries and business from a wide range of companies looking to increase their energy efficiency, especially from those that believe the Obama administration will impose stricter regulations requiring them to conserve energy. President-elect Obama has spoken often of the importance of alternative energy, also known as clean technology, and his federal stimulus package is expected to include plans to beef up alternative-energy infrastructure and improve energy efficiency in government buildings. In a speech last week, he called for the U.S. to double the production of alternative energy in three years.

So start-ups across a variety of areas — solar power, biofuels and energy conservation among them — are getting increased financing from venture capitalists and lenders at a time when other small companies are cutting back and being turned away by investors. And many are hiring more staff, boosting marketing efforts and expanding geographically.

Alternative energy “has been the brightest sector in venture capital over the last year,” says Brian Fan, research director at Cleantech Group, an industry trade organization in San Francisco. “Everyone is thinking it’s going to be a big priority of the incoming administration.”

While the overall volume of venture-capital deals sank last year, investments in clean-technology companies totaled $8.4 billion, up nearly 40% from 2007, according to Cleantech Group. In the third quarter alone, venture capitalists poured $2.6 billion into clean technology, a quarterly record. In the fourth quarter, they invested $1.7 billion.

Some venture capitalists think clean technology is the next big thing — the innovation that will drive the economy, much as Internet-related ventures did a decade ago. “Anytime big innovation comes along, it brings the chance to build big companies,” says Erik Straser, general partner at venture-capital firm Mohr Davidow Ventures in Menlo Park, Calif., which has investments in several alternative-energy start-ups.

But whether the administration will turn to energy initiatives quickly enough for all these companies to reap the rewards remains to be seen. And unlike with other new types of technology companies, the growth of clean technology “depends on the right kind of government policies and incentives,” Mr. Fan says, because implementation requires a certain amount of infrastructure and tax credits to offset the expense for users.

“The policy side is absolutely critical,” he says. “If [the right policies] don’t get pushed through, we will see a good number of these start-ups suspend operation.”

Just the anticipation of a new administration has been enough to spur interest among companies. Green Panel Inc., a solar technology and installation company in Brighton Mich., is planning to add four employees to the 14-person, two-year-old firm over the next few weeks to handle new business that has come in since the election. Even though no new energy regulations are in place yet, big companies are starting to take a look at alternative-energy options, says Adam Harris, Green Panel’s chief executive. He says one industrial firm held off on an order of solar panels until after the election. And he has heard from other firms whose executives want to have systems in place ahead of any regulations for big companies.

“What’s really changed is the push from the top — the fear of what could happen if they don’t” put plans in place to cut dependence on nonrenewable energy like fossil fuels, Mr. Harris says. The firm expects to double its revenue this year to nearly $4 million.

Executives at venture-capital backed Greenline Industries Inc., a Larkspur, Calif., maker of biodiesel production equipment, believe the Obama administration will create a huge demand for biodiesel and other advanced biofuels. The president-elect has said he’ll require that 60 billion gallons of advanced biofuels are produced by 2030, spurred by tax incentives and government spending. The appointment of former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack as agriculture secretary makes increased demand even more likely, Greenline executives say, because of his commitment to ethanol production in his state.

Greenline, which has 35 employees, declines to offer specific projections but plans to triple its sales staff in the coming weeks. “It’s a reaction to the administration change and to changes we expect as a result of the people [Mr. Obama] has picked — the policies that will be happening and the growth in demand we expect,” says Donn Tice, Greenline’s chief executive. The company’s latest round of venture-capital financing was in March, for $20 million.

Mr. Tice says calls from potential customers have picked up in the weeks since the election, and he expects the pace to accelerate once Mr. Obama takes office. In December, Mesilla Valley Transportation signed a deal with Greenline for a 10 million-gallon processing plant, part of a multistage, $25 million project of a company offshoot called Global Alternative Fuels. The election “expedited things,” says Dean Rigg, chief financial officer of the transportation company in Las Cruces, N.M., which started processing biodiesel fuel with Greenline equipment about 2½ years ago. “We’re all betting” that a push toward new biofuels will come quickly from Washington, he says.

Two weeks after the inauguration, Greenline plans to launch a new corporate logo and a new tagline: “Ask Greenline.” Michael Brown, the firm’s founder, says it’s a response to the idea that more and more people are asking how to develop alternative fuels.

Some small companies are counting on the government itself for new business. Verdiem Corp. sells software that provides centralized control over power consumption, such as remotely turning off computer monitors left on overnight. Over the past year and a half, most of the Seattle-based company’s growth has come from corporate customers. But with Mr. Obama’s declarations that he plans to improve the government’s own energy efficiency, Verdiem Chief Executive Jeremy Jaech sees opportunity. The 60-employee company is planning to add three or four new salespeople to its 20-person sales staff in the weeks ahead to focus specifically on federal operations in Washington, D.C. The company hopes to win the business through the information-technology companies that play a role in managing government buildings.

Mr. Jaech believes Mr. Obama will need to practice what he has preached, reducing energy consumption on the federal government’s estimated 6.5 million personal computers. And Mr. Obama will have to start with his own offices, he believes. For his company, Mr. Jaech adds, “it’s low-hanging fruit.”

But while Mr. Jaech anticipates quick growth from Washington, Verdiem is hiring in stages. “I know the federal government can take a while to do things,” he says.

[via WSJ Small Business] by Simona Covel at simona.covel@wsj.com

Would you like power with those fries?

A new garage-engineered generator burns the waste oil from restaurants’ deep fryers to generate electricity and hot water. Put 80 gallons of grease into the Vegawatt each week, and its creators promise it will generate about 5 kilowatts of power.

That’s about 10 percent of the total energy needs of Finz, a seafood restaurant in Dedham, Massachusetts, where the first Vegawatt is being tested. At New England electricity rates, the system offsets about $2.50 worth of electricity with each gallon of waste oil poured into it.

Vegawatt’s founder and inventor, James Peret, estimates that restaurants purchasing the $22,000 machine will save about $1,000 per month in electricity costs, for a payback time of two years.

“You take this waste resource and make it a profit center,” said Peret, who spent four long years cooking up the project in his garage. “When I started telling people, they said, ‘Someone’s gotta have done this.’ I’d run into more people. They’d say, ‘Why hasn’t anyone done this?’ My only response was, ‘I don’t know; it seems like a good idea.’”

While Vegawatt is a small solution, Peret’s invention is a very clever embodiment of several long-cherished alternative-energy ideas: capturing both the heat and power from fuel combustion, making energy where it’s used, and recycling used resources. Big industrial plants that make paper, for example, have long taken advantage of these concepts to save on their utility bills, but the Vegawatt will be the first product that could turn thousands of fast food restaurants into mini power plants.

“Now the restaurant owners are going to be motivated to put every single drop of waste oil into this thing, because it will pay for itself,” Peret said.

And importantly, it provides convenience for restaurateurs or Burger King managers, instead of subtracting it, like so many green solutions seem to.

Restaurants that fry delicious things like chicken and french fries generate dozens of gallons of waste oil that have to be stored in barrels out back. Because used cooking oil is considered a low-grade hazardous material, they haven’t been allowed to just throw it away; they generally had to pay rendering-plant operators to come. But it is now a sellers’ market for grease.

Higher crude prices have made other types of oil more expensive. Biodiesel makers and renderers have become increasingly willing to pay up to 40 cents a gallon for the stuff. There have even been reports of “biodiesel pirates” stealing fryer grease.

In fact, Vegawatt is derived from the home-brew fuel movement that many trace back to Dr. Thomas Reed, who popularized a recipe to convert waste cooking oil into biodiesel more than 20 years ago. Peret converted his truck to run on straight vegetable oil, or SVO to home brewers. But he was troubled by the inefficiency of the process.

“If you want to run waste vegetable oil in your car, it’s not as simple as going behind a restaurant and filling up,” Peret said. “People that do this spend the majority of their free time collecting fuel from restaurants.”

Peret realized he could use the same engine technology to power an on-site generator and defray a restaurant’s electricity costs.

“It’s not difficult to go from spinning tires to spinning magnets,” he said

So he created a test unit — which you can see at the back of his garage in the top photo — that’s basically a diesel generator hacked to run waste cooking oil. It feeds power directly into the restaurant’s electrical system through a 30 amp hook-in.

Vegawatt is more efficient than a typical coal or natural gas plant. Peret said it can capture 70 percent of the fuel’s caloric value. That’s because the generator captures and uses the waste heat it generates.

“All the water [the restaurant] would send to its boiler, instead of sending it straight there from the city, we run it through our heat exchanger first,” Peret said. “Depending on the flow, [the water] can go into the hot water heater at 120 degrees.” (This non-electrical energy savings is included in the 5-kilowatt rating cited above.)

The big power plants, though technically very efficient, waste most of the fuel they burn. After accounting for all the sources of energy waste “what you are left with … is just 27.6 units of usable energy out of every 100 units you started with,” energy researcher Benjamin Sovacool explained in his recent book, The Dirty Energy Dilemma. “In terms of making toast, it would have been nearly four times more efficient just to burn a lump of coal and place your bread over the flame.”

Biomass energy sources — like waste wood, switchgrass or cooking oil — are best when used right near the source of their creation. Dragging the stuff creates more emissions and raises the cost of the fuel. Vegawatt doesn’t have that problem. By company estimates, the Vegawatt generates 50 percent less carbon dioxide than a comparable amount of electricity from a coal power plant.

“In terms of the amount of energy that it takes to transport this waste, it’s a french fry,” Peret said. “You just feed the guy who is picking up the bucket and pouring it into the system.”

Forest Gregg, an alternative-fuels expert and author of last year’s SVO: Powering Your Vehicle with Straight Vegetble Oil, called it a “nifty application and a great business idea.”

Gregg also drew attention to a strong part of Vegawatt’s pitch: that it won’t require “intervention or maintenance by restaurant staff.” That’s because when users buy a system — or lease it for $450 a month — they get a service contract with the company for cleaning and maintenance.

The owner of the very first Vegawatt, George Carey (pictured above), seems pleased with the unit, too. He heartily endorses the company on its website, saying, “The Vegawatt system enables me to significantly reduce my energy costs, generate clean energy on-site, and very importantly, reduce the heavy energy footprint of my restaurant.”

See Also:

• Tapping the Vortex for Green Energy
• Global Energy Network Depends on a Few Vulnerable Nodes
• How A Google Engineer Hacks His Energy Usage
• Biofuel Startup Strives to Meet Obama’s Green Ambitions
• Obama Voices Biofuel Doubts
• Biofuel Solution at Sea, not on Land
• DOE Invests $125 Million in Synthetic Life to Develop Biofuels …
• Food vs. Fuel: Saltwater Crops May Be Key to Solving Earth’s Land …

[via WIRED] by Alexis Madrigal

When Vestas, the world’s largest wind-turbine manufacturer, announced plans for a new U.S. research center, 42 states lined up to make sales pitches. The winning location would be rewarded with hundreds of jobs, millions in tax revenue, and green-business cachet. Finn Strøm Madsen, president of the Danish firm’s tech division, wanted a site near big-name universities, so Massachusetts (MIT) and California (Caltech, Berkeley) seemed obvious choices. Portland, Oregon, was already home to Vestas Americas’ headquarters. But in June, Vestas picked Houston.

VOTE!

http://www.change.org/ideas

THE M COMPANIES, in partnership with EdenFresh, LLC, is developing a similar product (actually more complex and effective) using a hybrid-nanosilver compound, which is added into paint products. Check out ECOATS.NET!

Check out this great article about a similar product in Entreprenuer:

Warm, wet European summers offer the perfect growing conditions for fungi. Species such as Zygomycota, Deuteromycota and/or Ascomycota, responsible for mould and mildew growth, may be thriving in up to a fifth of Europe’s houses, according to a 2006 study by the Federal Statistical Office in Germany. New as well as old buildings are affected, with nearly a tenth of German apartments estimated to have mould and mildew growing in them.

The growth of these microscopic mould fungi is not just unsightly, but may also be partly to blame for the increasing numbers of cases asthma, rhinitis and other allergies, health experts warn.

‘The risk of mould growth depends on the influence of factors, such as organic material, temperature, humidity and ventilation,’ says Helmut Schmid, head of nanotechnology at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany. ‘In old buildings the cause is often moisture caused by defects in the construction of the foundation; in modern buildings the same problem arises because better thermal insulation often leads to a lower air exchange.’

Traditional anti-mould paints, which contain isothiazolinone compounds (Structure I), are effective in tackling the problem. But they often stop working after a couple of years and bring with them their own associated health risks, as sensitisers and contact allergens.

New nanoparticle-containing paints do the job just as effectively, Schmid says, but last ‘indefinitely’ for as long as the paint layer remains clean and intact. The paints, which contain tiny quantities of nanosilver particles, exert their lethal effects by reacting with proteins in the outer membranes of microorganisms, he explains, so rendering them incapable of carrying out their normal activities and swiftly leading to cell death. And because of the way they are formulated they should be safer than existing anti-mould paints.

The result of a five-year collaborative effort by coatings company Bioni and Fraunhofer Institute researchers, Bioni nano-paints have already been on the marketplace for several months. Earlier this year, Bioni Hygienic paint, which is currently applied in several hospitals, was singled out for a Frost Sullivan European award for excellence in research.

‘This innovative coating is set to have a profound impact on the medical sector,’ says Frost & Sullivan senior research analyst Archana Jayarajah. ‘In principle it not only permanently prevents the formation of mould and fungal growth on walls, but also reduces germs that are resistant to antibiotics in hospitals.’

Tests have shown, for example, that when brought into contact with the Bioni Hygienic coating, there is a 99.999% reduction in the dangerous hospital superbugs Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococcus faecium.

‘It is known since antiquity that silver has antimicrobial effects,’ Schmid says. ‘The difficulty was to produce and stabilise it in the nano-form and do the product integration.’

While silver particles themselves are toxic, silver nanoparticles have a much greater surface area and so can be used in only tiny quantities, which should make the technology much safer. Bioni Hygienic and Bioni Nature paints, for example, are also expected to find use in children’s bedrooms, bathrooms and care homes for elderly or disabled patients.

Making a paint including nanoparticle silver poses huge technical challenges, Jayarajah points out. As well as manufacturing the particles at roughly uniform 13nm diameter sizes, the researchers had to find a way of preventing them from clumping together and precipitating in the final paint formulation. ‘The researchers were able to address these problems by stabilising the nanoparticles with additives and quickly integrating them in a polymer system, which also serves to facilitate a homogeneous distribution of the particles,’ Jayarajah says.

Importantly, trapping the particles in a polymer matrix also prevents them from escaping from the final paint. Particles embedded in the polymer are held tight and unable to break free, a fact confirmed experimentally by atom emission spectroscopy, Schmid points out. The TUV Produkt und Umwelt, a test institute in Cologne, Germany, has awarded the coatings its TUV Rheinland Signet for emission free coatings, confirming that they are non-toxic and won’t cause cancer, deformities or mutations.

Used as an outside coating, meanwhile, Bioni’s nanosilver technology is also claimed to reduce air conditioning bills. Due to their expanded surface area, nano-silver particles reflect 93% of incident sunlight. This property, together with the ‘significantly lower thermal conductivity’ of the paints compared with conventional ones, makes them useful for keeping indoor temperatures down in hot weather conditions, Bioni says.

Bioni Perform coating, marketed for building exteriors, is available for roofs and facades. Designed to protect against weather extremes including heat, UV radiation, moisture and salty air, it is also claimed to reduce the cost of maintenance and repair.

Horses stables are another area where Bioni’s nanosilver paints are being applied. Painting the wood and walls of the stables with Bioni Nature kills the fungal spores that are a risk factor for COPD in horses, a condition not unlike human asthma, and which cuts short the career of many racehorses. In tests of Bioni Nature against Aspergillus niger, the benchmark of all anti-fungus coatings, the paint is reported to destroy all of the spores present.

But while applications for nanosilver generally are burgeoning–from odour-free socks to medical devices and air conditioning systems–experts worry about the potential environmental consequences. They warn that the release of silver particles into aquatic systems could disrupt the ecosystem by endangering bacteria that live in lakes and streams. Further growth of the technology, Jayarajah cautions, ‘will largely depend on how the industry handles health and safety concerns,’ pointing out the lack of data on these issues and the absence of stringent regulations on the use of the particles.

At Bioni, researchers are more optimistic. ‘Bioni Hygienic is meeting the highest hygiene requirements and standards for paints and coatings, says Harry Stulajiter, director of Nanovations in Sydney, the Australian partner of the global Bioni network. ‘The nano-silver in the size of 13nm is embedded in a formulated structure that prevents it from congregating into larger agglomerates. The process also binds the particles permanently to the paint. That’s essential from a toxicological point of view, and eliminates any effect to human health from manufacturing to the application.’

New products based on the technology are already in the pipeline and include coatings for dental implants, synthetic bones, catheters, cardiac valves and packaging for foodstuffs and toys. A wallpaper containing the nanosilver particles is expected to be launched any time now. ‘Our next products will come to market in September [next month],’ Helmut promises.

Nanotechnology-based paints are growing rapidly, and in 2004 accounted for 5% of the total market for paints and coatings, according to Frost & Sullivan figures. Sales of nanomaterials in this sector are projected to rise from $ 8m in 2004 to $ 2749 by 2015. At least 86% of automotive paints are expected to incorporate some form of nanotechnology in their product portfolio by 2015.

In Brief

• Mould and mildew may be a problem in up to a fifth of European homes
• Current anti-mould paints could pose a health risk and are short-acting
• Nanosilver-containing paints prevent mould permanently
• They could also help to destroy bacteria including MRSA

[via Entrepreneur] byCath O’Driscoll