Yes, it’s true. TheStreet.com’s Jim Cramer sees Cleveland and the surrounding rust belt environs as harboring the next wave of true innovation, trumping even the much vaunted Silicon Valley.  From ValleyWag:

At a breakfast event to conclude New York’s Internet Week this morning, TheStreet.com’s Jim Cramer said Valley innovation is all about creating “fancy ways to deliver music and videogames.” The obstreperrific stockpicker said videogame makers Take-Two and Activision are tech’s two most successful companies, other than Apple and Google — and that’s fine, but it’s also a sign Silicon Valley won’t save us from the economic woes the markets gave a hint of last week. Instead, he predicts the Rust Belt — “Cleveland Valley,” Cramer calls it — will. The region, better known as the Cuyahoga River Valley, has had to reposition itself as the home of what Cramer calls “New Tech,” building such marvels as “windmills with blades the size of 747 wings.”

About time…

As Northeast Ohio continues to explore the viability of offshore wind in the relatively shallow waters off Cleveland (creating opportunities to develop lower cost foundations), Europeans are experimenting with a radically new design for deep water wind off the coast of Norway.  From MIT’s Technology Review:

“The notion of floating wind turbines far offshore may have come a nautical mile closer to reality late last month, with the announcement of a collaboration between Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro and Germany’s Siemens, a major wind-turbine producer. The new partners plan to install what could be the world’s first commercial-scale wind turbine located offshore in deep water. StatoilHydro has allocated 400 million NOK ($78 million) to floating a Siemens turbine in more than 200 meters of water–10 times the depth that conventional offshore wind-turbine foundations can handle–atop a conventional oil and gas platform.”

Click here for the rest of the story.

Our thanks to the Generation Foundation’s Bob Miller for the following from www.grist.org:

Most people — if they give Cleveland much thought at all — probably see it as a Rust Belt city, a victim of white flight and the decaying industrial economy, and of environmental gaffes in the 1970s when Lake Erie was declared dead and the nearby Cuyahoga River was so choked with pollution that it caught fire. But this Midwest metropolis is also home to a surprisingly forward-looking sustainability subculture. The city hired a sustainability programs manager in 2005; last year, its transit system was named the best in the nation by the American Public Transportation Association. A focus on energy-efficient, affordable housing has seen new town homes and cottages springing up in a formerly depopulated neighborhood, and community gardens sprouting along with them. Cleveland also ranks second only to Los Angeles in the number of projects per capita seeking certification under LEED-ND, an expanded version of the notorious green-building guidelines that applies to entire neighborhoods. Its biggest problem may be convincing people to move there — or move back — but even in that realm, there are signs of hope: one activist reports that Cleveland natives currently working on green programs in other cities have begun calling to find out how they can help back home.

Click here to read more about the greening of Cleveland.

Cuyahoga County has updated its website to make access to the procedings and progress on the offshore wind feasibility project easier for people to find.  Click here to open a new window that will take you to the updated site, where you can not only find out about past and upcoming meetings, but also see the video the task force has put togther on the project (click the link on the right hand side of the page).

From MIT’s Technology Review comes news of a potyential polymer-based breakthrough in fuel cell technologies:

“Methanol fuel cells have the potential to replace batteries as a lightweight power source for portable electronic devices. But fuel-cell materials are expensive, and fuel cells that consume methanol are inefficient. In particular, the membranes used in methanol fuel cells are expensive and waste fuel. Now researchers at MIT have developed a cheap membrane material that increases the power output of methanol fuel cells by 50 percent.”

Click here to read the complete article.

The Toledo Blade buries the lead on this story so we’ll give it to you here:

“The U.S. Department of Energy claims wind has the potential to produce $80 billion in economic activity and 300,000 jobs for the Great Lakes region.

“‘The potential for wind power generation in the Great Lakes region is enormous,’ Larry Flowers, national technical director of the Energy Department’s Wind Powering America program, said.”The race is clearly on. Will Northeast Ohio carve out a leadership role, or merely wind up a “me too” player?

To read the entire article, click here.

From SSTI:

As readers know, the

United Kingdom is no slouch in the world’s economy. A steady rise in productivity since 1997, the pound trading at nearly twice the dollar, and the home of some of the world’s top research universities and a global financial center for centuries all attest to the

United Kingdom’s strong economic position.
 
How it is preparing to sustain and expand its competitive position through strategies like those enumerated in the April release of Innovation Nation stands in sharp contrast to

U.S. policies and investments to support science and technology-based growth.
 
For evidence, one needs look no further than the unit of the British government that released the strategy – the UK Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). DIUS has no

U.S. counterpart working to coordinate advanced research investments, workforce preparedness, and tech-based economic development initiatives.

U.S. efforts in these areas are scattered across several agencies and have been perennial targets and often victims for budget.
 
Innovation Nation outlines nearly four dozen specific action items to encourage the permeation of innovation throughout the

United Kingdom. Virtually no element of society is left untouched by the agenda. Highlights of items not being discussed loudly in the

U.S.:

• For all sectors of business, including the services and creative industries, DIUS will provide innovation vouchers to finance collaboration between 500-1,000 small and medium-sized enterprises and the “knowledge-based institution of their choice.” The department also will ensure finance accessibility at all stages of growth, will double the number of knowledge transfer partnerships between educational institutions and UK businesses, and is training all export and business link staff in advising businesses on management and licensing of intellectual property. It also will develop an international marketing, regulation and research strategies to aid businesses in working in the EU and international markets.
• For universities, DIUS will continue to expand research investments and broaden knowledge exchange opportunities into the arts and humanities, further develop an online toolkit of model technology transfer agreements, and create an Innovation Research Centre in partnership with several other government agencies.
• For its citizenry, DIUS will establish at least one national skills academy in every major sector of the economy to design and prepare optimal curricula and approaches for workforce development, create regionally based graduate-level university enterprise networks, and expand apprenticeship and training programs; and,
• Perhaps most humbly, DIUS calls for the public sector to transform procurement processes to encourage innovation and to develop mechanisms to inspire and reward innovation in breaking down bureaucracy and overly burdensome procedures and regulations.

 

Innovation Nation is available at: http://www.dius.gov.uk/publications/ScienceInnovation.pdf

From SSTI:

Unprecedented investment in alternative energy technologies and growing awareness about the need for clean and renewable energy production have driven many states to initiate strategies to promote alternative forms of power generation, such as solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and wind power. Most current government strategies, however, fall short of what will be needed to build a truly reliable, affordable and clean energy portfolio in the

U.S., according to a new study from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The key to creating portfolios that accomplish all of these goals will be diversity. No one source of power will be able to support the nation’s need for electricity, but a diverse portfolio of many power sources may be able to provide a flexible and sufficient power supply.
 
Wind has emerged as one of the more affordable and common alternative sources of power. The cost of drawing power from wind has fallen 90 percent over the past 20 years, making wind power an increasingly viable alternative for regions with the necessary geographic attributes and which have the infrastructure to accommodate wind farms (see the Oct. 23, 2006 special issue of the Digest). The DOE report examines the necessary steps and outcomes of building a larger wind infrastructure, one that could provide 20 percent of the nation’s power by 2030.
 
One of the most pressing changes required to make this 20 percent scenario possible is the expansion of the

U.S. power transmission grid. The current grid is already taxed by congestion and in need of an overhaul, but increasing the availability of wind power would require even greater changes. Capacity would have to be increased in regions that are geographically favorable to the production of wind power. The pace of construction for new wind installations also would have to increase substantially. Currently, wind power generation is increasing at roughly 3 gigawatts (GW) a year, a number that would have to grow to 16 GW by 2018 and continue growing at that pace through 2030. This would bring the pace of wind installations in line with the current increase in natural gas units.
 
The report outlines many of the benefits that the increase in wind power production would have for the country. Most importantly, it would diversify

U.S. power generation, keeping prices stable and helping to increase the amount of available power without the country becoming more dependent on coal and other polluting sources of energy. The 20 percent scenario would also:

• Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent;
• Reduce the amount of water consumed through electricity generation;
• Potentially increase annual revenues in communities involved with wind power generation to $1.5 billion by 2030; and,
• Potentially employ up to 500,000 jobs in the U.S., with 150,000 employed directly in the wind industry.

 

Still, the transition to wind will involve substantial investment, mostly tied up in incremental costs associated with initial capital investments. Though wind farms and plants offer lower ongoing costs than other traditional means of power generation, the initial investment is substantially higher. The report downplays these costs, noting that the energy investment in the 20 percent scenario would amount only $43 billion more than an alternative scenario in which no increase in wind power occurs.
 
Though the report does not go into detail about what role state governments would play in supporting wind power, many states have already taken an active role in building a stronger wind industry. Since 2001, 21 states have introduced renewable portfolio standards, all of which call for some increase in the percent of energy drawn from wind. None of the initiatives, the report notes, are as long-term as the scenario sketched out by DOE and only California, Nevada and New York call for wind energy to represent as much as 20 percent of the total power sourcing.
 
Many universities have also increased their focus on wind energy. Recently, the

University of

Wyoming announced their plans for a UW Wind Energy Research Center. BP America Inc. has provided $2 million for the center, which may be eligible for matching funds from the state legislature. The funds will be used to begin construction of a building for the center, which will include a large, closed-loop wind tunnel.

Texas Christian University also recently announced a five-year partnership with Oxford University Environmental Change Institute and FPL Energy LLC to examine the socio-economic and environment impacts of wind power. The partners hope to use their research to mitigate some of the negative consequences of wind power on animals and animal habitats and the impact on local communities.
 
Download the DOE report 20% Wind Energy by 2030: Increasing Wind Energy’s Contribution to

U.S. Electricity Supply at: http://www.20percentwind.org/20percent_wind_energy_report_05-11-08_wk.pdf

Youngstown’s role not only in the economic revitalization of Northeast Ohio but also in the establishment of the “Cleveburgh” Corridor continues to grow.  From Jim Cossler:

We are extremely pleased to announce that Humility of Mary Health Partners (HMHP) has agreed to serve as the Beta site for erisRx, a .NET suite of charge capture tools developed by YBI portfolio company Eris Medical Technologies. HMHP is a region of Catholic Healthcare Partners, the largest health system in Ohio and the seventh largest not-for-profit health system in the United States.

The software provides healthcare revenue management teams, clinical staff, and hospital administration with an automated tool to review patient charges both prospectively and retrospectively, prioritize and trend charge capture opportunities, and more effectively manage the hospital patient charge capture process.

To learn more about this exciting new technology that allows hospitals and practices to pin point missing revenue opportunities, visit Eris Medical Technologies at www.erismed.com

Jim

Jim Cossler
Chief Evangelist
Youngstown Business Incubator
330.884.6262
www.ybi.org

Coming out of a stimulating discussion these past two days in the first convening by the Brookings Institution on Bi-national Freshwater Technology and Policy Leadership comes this article from the International Herald Tribune:

“A boat loaded with drinking water docked in Barcelona on Tuesday, the first in a series of shipments designed to stave off shortages in the drought-stricken port city. The first vessel, from the nearby city of Tarragona, will be followed in the next few days by another from Marseille.

“The drastic move to supplement Barcelona’s drinking-water supply is part of a controversial plan to alleviate the impact of the worst drought to hit the northeastern region of Catalonia in decades.”

A frightening enough indicator on its own, but paired with what was for me (as a recovering venture capitalist) one of the highlights of the Brookings session in Cleveland was the presentation made by David Henderson, a VC who is investing heavily in water technologies.  You can click here for the rest of the Herald Tribune story, then hop over to XPV Capital to see what the future of water looks like to the venture investment community…