From old-school Fortune 500 companies to start-ups barely out of first-round financing, businesses are committing big bucks to the green revolution. And while it seems like everyone’s doing it these days, we think these 20 companies are the ones pushing the ecological envelope. Whether it’s because of their reach, their potential, their influence, or the sheer genius of their innovations, we predict that each one will have a hand in changing the world in one way or another—sooner rather than later. Introducing the inaugural edition of... The Plenty BY DANIELLE WOOD 2o The Plenty2o 1 NANOSOLAR Brin, the founders of Google, a proprietary formula made up can also use the algae-based fuel PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA are bolstering the company, and of non-polluting metals that are themselves or sell it on the open Solar power has been around a new deal with Conergy, the ground into a fine powder. When market. If it sounds like a pipe since the ’70s, but until recently, nation’s largest solar electric sys- added to a tank of hydrogen, the dream, it’s not. The company has people were about as likely to use tems integrator, gives Nanosolar a powder acts as a sort of sponge already launched small projects it as they were to live in geodesic huge jump on its competitors. to encapsulate the gas. When the in Arizona, Massachusetts, and domes and grow all their own hydrogen is needed for fuel, a small New York. A large U.S. utility food. The reason? No com- amount of heat is added to the company and a major U.S. power pany has been able to make solar 2 ECD OVONICS tank, which releases the element. generator are poised to begin power as affordable as electricity ROCHESTER HILLS, MICHIGAN Those who say a hydrogen car partnerships with GreenFuel to produced by coal and natural gas. When inventor Stanford Ovshin- is impossible need only look at build 1,000-megawatt plants, That’s where Nanosolar comes sky first opened ECD Ovonics Ovshinsky’s modified Prius, which which will each generate over 100 in: Its thin film technology in 1960, he had a lofty goal—to has an internal combustion engine million gallons of biofuel a year; involves “printing” a microscopic use science to change the world powered entirely by solid-state the owners of a 2,200-megawatt layer of solar cells onto metal completely. Over the past four hydrogen. George W. Bush has coal plant are also ready to try sheets as thin as aluminum foil. decades, he’s done just that, in- even shown interest. An unlikely out the technology. With $20 The resulting panels are lighter, venting everything from the flex- ally? Maybe, but stranger things million in venture capital invest- cheaper, and as efficient as ible solar cell to the nickel-metal have happened. A few years ago, ment in the bag, GreenFuel is traditional solar panels, but they hydride batteries that power every Chevron came calling, hoping to one to watch. require no silicon, short supplies hybrid car on the market. sniff out the threat. Instead, they of which have caused many solar The spry octogenarian’s latest invested $67.3 million for a 20 companies to stumble. Others obsession is that clean-fuel sticky percent stake in the company. 4 ENVIROFIT INTERNATIONAL are pursuing thin film, too, but wicket: hydrogen. Though often FORT COLLINS, COLORADO Nanosolar is poised to produce touted as a replacement for In the U.S., two-stroke engines enough to generate 430 mega- gasoline in cars, hydrogen is ex- 3 GREENFUEL TECHNOLOGIES are mostly used for chain saws watts of electricity a year—four tremely flammable in its gaseous CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS and go-karts, but in the develop- times the amount produced by all state. But Ovshinsky has solved Former International Space ing world, they are the motor of solar plants in the U.S. combined. that problem by pioneering a Station researcher Isaac Berzin, choice. There are more than 100 Perhaps more importantly, method for storing hydrogen in along with his team of scientists million two-stroke vehicles in Nanosolar is the first company to solid form, rather than as a high- from Harvard, Columbia, and Asia alone, from Thailand’s tuk- figure out how to produce these pressure gas. The process involves MIT, have found a truly bizarre tuks to India’s auto rickshaws. cells cheaply. How cheaply? Less secret weapon in the fight against They ply the streets leaving swirls than $1 per watt, or one-tenth carbon dioxide emissions: algae. of brown smog in their wake; of the cost of traditional cells. GE expects Yes, algae. Not only does it “eat” the toxic clouds of ash, soot, and In other words, solar power will to earn at least CO2, it can also be used as a clean, other particles spewed from the finally be able to compete with renewable biofuel. The researchers exhaust cause hundreds of thou- gas and fossil fuels. $20 billion at GreenFuel Technologies have sands of people to die each year This year, the company will developed an emissions scrubbing from respiratory disease. begin building the world’s largest in revenue system that takes advantage of this Those days may be drawing solar-cell factory, which will triple happy coincidence. to a close, thanks to a retrofit kit U.S. capacity and make us second from green Power plants that use Berzin’s originally developed for snow- only to Japan in output. Invest- technologies system not only reduce their mobiles. Envirofit has retooled ments from Silicon Valley heavy- carbon footprints and gain valu- the technology to convert two- weights like Larry Page and Sergey by 2010. able emissions credits, but they stroke engines into cleaner-burn- 50 | Feb/Mar/07 plentymag.com ing, more efficient engines, test- So far, there are more than 40 lute our air, water, and soil with ing them first in the Philippine 5 GENERAL ELEctRIC products in development, from hazardous gases, toxic chemicals, cities of Vigan and Puerto Princ- FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT water-stingy washing machines and harmful pathogens. Big esa. By this fall, Vigan’s govern- Two years ago, GE hopped onto and fuel-efficient airplane engines farms have given consumers ment is requiring all 3,000 of its the sustainability bandwagon to hybrid locomotives and mam- cheap prices—but they come city taxis to switch to the new with its Ecomagination initiative, moth desalination plants. with a price, too. For years, large technology, and if all goes well, promising to attack some of the In the first full year of the farms have squeezed out smaller Puerto Princesa and other Asian world’s biggest problems with an program, revenues from Eco- competitors, who can’t charge the cities will adopt it, too. Though army of some of the world’s big- magination products topped $10 same low prices. the retrofit is relatively cheap— gest brains. Oil and gas reserves billion. With numbers like that, Recognizing that there’s power just $300 a pop—it’s still a lot being depleted? Greenhouse gases GE has been leading by example, in numbers, in 1988, Organic of money for most taxi drivers. out of control? Over one billion showing corporate America that Valley, a member-owned co-op, Luckily, government grants can people lacking clean water? GE’s doing good and doing well don’t recruited seven organic dairy help offset the cost, and the on it—and with 25,000 tech- have to be mutually exclusive. farms to unite against Big Agri- increase in fuel efficiency means nologists and 2,500 scientists on culture. Today, the label is made that the payback period is less staff in their research facilities up of 900 independent farms than a year. alone, it certainly has enough 6 ORGANIC VALLEY whose combined size makes Envirofit expects to sell retrofits brainpower to make it happen. LA FARGE, WISCONSIN them able to compete against the for 100,000 engines by the end of The company’s green awaken- In the U.S., today’s food pro- giants. Organic Valley cheese sits 2007, and two million by 2011. ing isn’t about altruism—it’s big duction is dominated by just a right next to Kraft on grocery Best of all, every retrofit the com- business. GE expects to generate handful of mammoth industrial shelves, and the co-op boasts pany sells eliminates more than a at least $20 billion in revenue farms—the sheer sizes of which 90,000 acres under its umbrella. ton of pollution a year. from green technologies by 2010. cause massive erosion and pol- Its farms produce juice, milk, plentymag.com Feb/Mar/07 | 51 The Plenty2o Domini convinced J.P. Morgan Chase eggs, meats—more than 200 er introduced the Skystream—the ties without your knowledge. At to adopt a products in total. And they offer first small wind turbine designed to Domini, analysts don’t just look at a lifeline to struggling family easily hook into a home utility sys- the financial performance of the comprehensive farms, paying them up to 40 per- tem. With a price tag of $10,000 companies they invest in, they take cent more than what they’d get to $13,000 (including installation), social and environmental factors environmental for conventionally-grown fare. the Skystream costs half of what its into account as well. Armed with policy. predecessors did. And the resulting $1.8 billion in assets, Domini has power is not only clean, it’s cheap: filed more than 140 shareholder The auto-maker made en- 7 TESLA MOTORS only 10 cents per kilowatt hour, as resolutions with more than 60 vironmental stewardship a key SAN CARLOS, CALIFORNIA opposed to the 15 to 35 cents that corporations, actively engaging component of its business when it The old knock on electric cars local utilities typically charge.