A one-year demonstration and validation program will be conducted by the USPS in Washington, DC. The design, chosen from among a small group of bidders, will be based on the Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV), which was designed for and is currently being used by the US Postal Service and Canada Post. The vehicle was also sold to Mexico and many other countries for delivery purposes. Success in Washington could mean electrification of the 178,000-strong LLV segment of the postal delivery fleet, and could set the trend for other delivery services throughout the world.

The original lifespan of the vehicle, which first began service in 1987, was specified by the US Postal Service as 24 years. In 2009, this became 30 years, which makes now an ideal time to start replacing the vehicles without having the classic models go to waste.

Quantum will integrate its Quantum Quiet high efficiency battery electric drive system into a Grumman LLV, which is currently produced by Grumman. The chassis of this vehicle is in turn made by General Motors. The Quiet electric drive system will incorporate advanced features to maximize the efficiency of the electric drive system while operating as a typical postal delivery vehicle should, with 500-700 stops per day.

Since the LLV will be produced locally, its widespread use will not only help lower emissions of greenhouse gases throughout the country, but it will also support the local electric vehicle industry.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about clean energy.

First, it could indicate a significant revival of the U.S. technological innovation that has largely slipped away into the hands of China, Germany, and other nations. China is currently excelling ahead in terms of solar power development.

A fuel cell the size of a loaf of bread providing power for home and businesses would also significantly reduce some of the heavy costs of producing and transmitting electricity, as well as drastically cut down on the use of some fossil fuel products. Additionally, such a device would improve air and water quality, and could lead to byproducts yet to be explored or even imagined.

Several major corporations – Wal-Mart, Google, FedEx, Coca Cola, Bank of America, and Cox Enterprises – have ordered the cell boxes, which have been in development for nearly a decade by Bloom Energy under the supervision of a space scientist.

Although the “box” won’t be available for use in homes for several years, care must be taken meanwhile to prevent this promising new product from being smothered in the marketplace by other energy producers fearful of competition.

I personally believe that Bloom’s “box” should be embraced for what it is – an industrial breakthrough whose benefits to society and industry can be adopted and shared, not dreaded.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about California Clean Energy

California is currently home to the largest concentration of biomedical companies in the world. California’s biomedical industry employs nearly 275,000 people, representing one in six of the 1.6 million biomedical jobs in the United States. The industry supports more than 750,000 direct and indirect jobs statewide and is the second largest sector of California’s high-tech workforce.

Additionally, California’s biomedical industry attracts the greatest portion of venture capital (VC) funding of any industry in California and of any other state, receiving 42% of all venture capital investments in biotech and medical device companies nationally. As a result, there are currently 869 biopharmaceutical products in development in the state, from pre-clinical and clinical development through registration. Nearly one-third of the pipeline (272 products) focuses on treating cancer, according to 2009 research from IMS Health.

California is the birthplace of biotechnology, and our state’s biomedical innovation delivers not only global advances in healthcare but the jobs that drive our economy. While the biomedical industry has weathered the recession, it faces unprecedented challenges – access to capital, the educational funding crisis, and uncertainty surrounding healthcare reform. Now more than ever, I believe the sustainability of California’s biomedical industry depends on decisions made in Sacramento and Washington.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about high-tech innovation

Obama said “I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight,” putting clean energy jobs, high-speed rail, and basic research for American innovation at the core of the economic recovery.

“We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow,” Obama said. “There’s no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products.”

The President signaled that high-speed rail projects funded by the Recovery Act will help to pull America out of the recession. Obama also announced that California was to receive a funding award for high-speed rail, which had Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger singing Obama’s praises.

“Today’s announcement is fantastic news for job creation in California,” Schwarzenegger said. “By showing leadership and including high-speed rail funding in the Recovery Act, the Obama Administration is strongly supporting California’s high-speed rail project, which is the largest public works project in the nation and will create jobs, save billions of pounds of greenhouse gasses, and will be the first true high-speed rail system to break ground in the nation.”

Obama went on to say in his address, “We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities, and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs.”

“Next, we need to encourage American innovation,” President Obama said. “Last year, we made the largest investment in basic research funding in history an investment that could lead to the world’s cheapest solar cells or treatment that kills cancer cells but leaves healthy ones untouched. And no other area is more ripe for such innovation than energy.”

I believe President Obama issued a clear and unmistakable call to action in his State of the Union address, charging the Senate to pass the comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation we need to put Americans back to work and lay the foundation for a generation of prosperity, efficiency, and security.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about clean energy

An updated version of a 2006 report, Searching for the Study of Israel examines the scope of academic courses being taught about Israel on more than 300 leading American college and university campuses, and finds that the state of education about Israel has improved since the study’s first edition. A comparison of the institutions included in both studies shows a nearly 70 percent increase in courses that focus specifically on Israel over the three-year period.

“Our Foundation has been deeply invested in expanding opportunities to learn about Israel in academic environments that invite thoughtful discussion free from bias and intimidation,” said Lynn Schusterman, chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. “I am gratified to see a growing commitment to the study of Israel, in all its richness and complexity, taking root in classrooms across the U.S.”

The study also found that courses about Israel were offered by a variety of departments, with the majority coming from history and political science departments. Moreover, most courses went well beyond the Arab-Israeli conflict, suggesting a normalization of Israel as a subject within established disciplines.

What I personally find most exciting about the study is the dramatic growth in courses specifically focused on Israel and the broad scope of so many courses. Education is the core mission of the university, and in that arena, we have seen an impressive increase in the study of Israel – as a culture, as a society, as a government, as something more than a party to a conflict.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Israel

This gives the region a major boost in its effort to become a hub of the developing green economy. Local business leaders are looking to green / clean tech as a way to strengthen and diversify Sacramento’s job base.

In many ways, though, Sacramento seems an unlikely candidate to emerge a winner among the many regions trying to build a green-tech industry. Sacramento lags far behind the Bay Area when it comes to raising money for new companies, and its previous efforts to establish itself in the high-tech and biotechnology industries faltered.

Despite the economy, though, business development officials say green tech companies are showing renewed interest in Sacramento.

“It’s a wave of activity like we’ve never seen,” said Bob Burris, deputy director of the Sacramento Area Trade and Commerce Organization, the region’s nonprofit business recruiter.

Although there’s no official way to count green jobs, one leading advocacy group says that Sacramento is doing exceptionally well on that front. Palo Alto-based nonprofit Next 10 recently released a study concluding that Sacramento led all California regions in percentage growth of green jobs from 1995 to 2008, with an 87 percent jump from 7,019 to 13,102. By Next 10’s count, Sacramento has more green jobs per capita than the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

It is my hope that clean tech companies will want to be located in Sacramento in the future, so they can be closer to California’s regulatory process.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about clean technology

Joseph Stiglitz, a former Nobel Prize winner in economics, made waves yesterday when he argued against Bernanke’s claim. Stiglitz, in an interview with Daily Finance, said that ” we would be lucky to be out of the recession by 2012…2010 may be a year of positive growth, though far weaker than would be necessary to get unemployment down significantly.”

The current unemployment rate has remained a sticking point for many of the assessments of the economy, including Bernanke own view. The lack of new jobs created provides a frightening scenario for the world’s wealthiest countries, who are in desperate need of tax revenue to pay for the stimulus measures undertaken to right their respective economies.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “high unemployment in the world’s wealthiest countries could last years,” ensuring that the crater left by last year’s events would be much deeper than most experts had hoped.

Stiglitz’s view makes job creation the number one factor in any recovery, a fact which echoes much of the rhetoric of President Obama around the time of the stimulus bill’s passage. Stiglitz also came out to condemn the practice of trading in complex derivatives by saying they do not serve the “common good” in any meaningful way.

This Nobel Prize winner’s analysis should not be dismissed as naysaying, but rather be looked upon as a challenge for the private sector, which may have the power to infuse the economy with the kind of projects designed to put people to work. Without an improvement in unemployment at some point in the next two quarters, the futures outlook could be grim.

[image via Seattle Municipal Archives]

Here are a few telling statistics to come out of the report, which captures data beginning in 2006 through the end of 2008:

- Venture-backed companies now account for 12 million jobs and 21% of GDP

- 81% of the software industry’s 1 million jobs originate from venture-backed startups

- Over that time, venture-backed business showed 1.6% job growth in the private sector vs. 0.2% in the industry as a whole

The full details of the report can be found here. I highly suggest spending some time with this document as it does a nice job of framing not only the financial ramifications that VCs have on fledgling businesses, but the culture that they can help to create during early stage growth. This guidance and development of best practices won’t show up on any balance sheets, but can certainly make the difference between success and failure.

NVCA Venture Impact 5th Ed

[image via Mark Coggins]

Inspired by Cisco CEO John Chambers and to support this effort, Donahoe has been personally visiting many of eBay’s strongest sellers, interviewing them using little more than a Flip video camera and his own questions. He has called the process “eye-opening,” saying “it’s incredible how they make a business out of nothing, really. They find inefficiencies in the supply chain and are able to create businesses around them.”

The kind of business 101 that you wouldn’t expect a successful CEO to need, but this feedback has taught him how to make improvements in the eBay operation. Insights that he has gladly shared with his own employees. While he might not be the first corporate decision maker to undertake this kind of first person fieldwork, it’s still stands as a powerful example of what getting back to your roots can bring to your company at any stage.

[image via Aaron Escobar]

Here in the U.S., we’ve certainly witnessed our fair share of anger over the bonus structure currently in place in the finance industry. After last year’s hasty first round of bailouts, and the subsequent fallout over much of that money being used for bonuses, golden parachutes, and other forms of superfluous cash-buttressing, Americans were clearly ready for some decisive reform. Europe, similarly, has called for a change in “bonus culture” since the collapse began in earnest around this time last year.

Still keen on keeping some sense of laissez-faire, the United States and Great Britain have been tepid on the idea of hard and fast bonus regulation, whereas Germany and France have “demanded a tough line,” according to an article in The Economist. The tough thing about this issue is that bonuses can be taxed at higher rates than the baseline salaries of high-earning bankers.

In response to any global policies curtailing bonus culture, the big banks of the world will likely raise salaries to ensure the best talent doesn’t simply set up shop in a country capable of providing bigger bonuses. In any case, the challenge will be to keep tax revenue flowing in from the bigger earners, whether that means a change in the tax code, or simply more aggressively taxing whatever bonuses do get passed out. Needless to say, it will likely be a while before anti-bank sentiment dies down worldwide.

[image via Gregory Warran]