clean

It's chemistry for washing your car.

Lucky Earth Products has come up with a liquid, called Green Earth Waterless Car Wash, that lets you wash your car without buckets, hoses, brushes, or gallons of water. The compound--made out of water, coconut extracts, silicone, and a bit of salt--gets misted onto your car. Once there, it attracts dirt via electrostatic principles and encapsulates it. The owner then wipes their car with a soft cloth.

A $20 jug containing 32 ounces of the liquid is good for about 10 car washes. Additionally, the company has liquids for cleaning tires (Tire Shine) … Read more

HALF MOON BAY, Calif.--Chlorine is bad for you, and iodine isn't, points out Jared Franks, CEO of Ioteq, and that difference is the basis of the company's business.

The Australian company has come up with a water purification system that kills microbes with iodine rather than chlorine or ozone. Ioteq's Isan system basically immerses fruit and vegetables in iodine-soaked water, and monitors the iodine dosage.

After purification, the produce gets bagged and sent to grocery stores. The process leaves a minimal iodine residue that is not harmful to people--and it doesn't change the flavor, Franks … Read more

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is kicking off a competition to award $200,000 to entrepreneurs in the green-energy field.

The MIT Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Prize, announced Wednesday, combines two existing prizes and increases the prize money.

The revamped contest pulls in sponsorship from the U.S. Department of Energy and NStar, an electric and gas utility based in Massachusetts. In addition to receiving cash or services, competitors will also get mentoring from experts as they develop their business plans.

Sponsors hope the competition will accelerate the pace of innovation and energy.

"We want to help these entrepreneurs get … Read more

Members of OPEC announced Tuesday that they will contribute $750 million to a fund to study clean energy and technologies, according to Cleantech.com

The fund will put a particular emphasis on carbon capture and storage.

Saudi Arabia coughed up $300 million for the fund while Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates each pledged $150 million. Abu Dhabi, a member of the United Arab Emirates, already participates in a clean technology venture fund.

In a statement, OPEC (according to Cleantech.com) said it would "stress the importance of cleaner and more efficient petroleum technologies for the protection of … Read more

While Yelp, Yahoo Local, Zagat, Michelin and others can provide a fairly clear picture of whether or not an eatery is worth going to, there's another resource called CleanScores that takes a scientific approach--health inspection scores. Since scores are public, CleanScores takes that data along with a track record of all infractions, and turns them into an eye-friendly, searchable database. While only good for San Francisco and Los Angeles residents at the moment, the site is eventually planning to expand out to other parts of the United States.

What makes the service really useful (besides finding out your favorite … Read more

A serving of green tech news from around the Web.

Kleiner to invest in Indian clean-tech firms. In India, venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers expects a majority of its investments to come from solar power and distributed generation (which includes bio-fuels) companies. Livemint.com

Be an Eco Sinner or Saint in the New SimCity. The latest version of the popular video game Sim City lets players play out the climate change experiment, says environment reporter Andrew Revkin. New York Times Dot Earth blog

Carbon Capture Moves Ahead. Blue Source demonstrates a remediation system that could capture carbon … Read more

The clean-technology revolution will likely make a lot of people in Silicon Valley rich, but it's also going to help bring back some of the factory jobs that have disappeared.

Why? Weight, for one thing, explains Kevin Surace, CEO of Serious Materials, which recently landed $50 million in funding to build factories for its eco-friendly drywall.

Although labor is cheaper in China, shipping costs are going up, primarily because of fossil fuels.

"You could spend $2 to $3 a panel just to ship it (drywall), and that's just to get it to the dock. You'd then … Read more

A lot of wave and tidal power systems being proposed these days will be capable of generating megawatts of power.

Puget Sound Tidal Power is aiming for 10 to 15 kilowatts with its turbine--barely enough for five homes--but the lower power output also means a lower price tag, according to company President Burton Hamner. The total cost of a single turbine from Puget Sound in mass manufacturing will come to around $10,000 or so, he said. The budget on larger turbines often runs into the millions of dollars.

"We think you could get payback in five to eight … Read more

NISKAYUNA, New York--General Electric will spend $1 billion in research and development this year on clean energy technologies, part of its Ecomagination environmental initiative.

The industrial giant announced the investment on Tuesday at its Global Research center here, where it also said that it will put $6.8 million of that into plug-in hybrid vehicles as part of a U.S. Department of Energy project.

The company hosted a day-long presentation at its labs to showcase technology developments in solar electricity, plug-in hybrid components, water desalination, high-efficiency lighting and home energy dashboards, and materials for wind turbines and aviation.

GE … Read more