绿色科技能否防止福岛事件重演？

    关于如何才能保护环境，以及如何在保护环境的过程中大赚几亿美元的点子一直层出不穷。不过究竟哪些点子才真的管用？

    是亿万富翁汤姆•希伯的新作么？它旨在通过使用智能软件，从根本上改善大公司的能源使用和碳排放，希伯给这个公司起了个故弄玄虚的名字——C3。抑或是Global Thermostat公司推出的“负碳”技术？该公司称这项技术能直接从空气中吸收二氧化碳。（至于能量，该公司则使用熔炼等现有工业流程中所产生的余热，这种能量目前通常都被浪费掉了。）核电本来是无碳技术，不过如果日本当前的核危机导致核电发展陷入长期衰退，那么碳捕捉技术就会变得极具吸引力。

    日前召开的《财富》杂志（Fortune）的头脑风暴绿色会议（Brainstorm Green）上，云集了倡导绿色运动的美国政界名流、《财富》美国500强高管和许多刚刚踏足绿色领域的新面孔。许多从事绿色科技的企业都在会上公布了自己的计划。

    例如汤姆•希伯是做数据库软件发家的，他刚涉足生态领域不久。他的C3从2009年起就开始保密，不过希伯计划在这次大会上谈及C3。希伯软件公司提交给美国证交会的一份档案显示，该公司去年10月通过一次私募发行募集了4800万美元，几乎使它的总资金增长了一倍。希伯已经组建了一个蓝筹股董事会，成员包括美国前国务卿康多莉扎•赖斯和美国前能源部长斯潘塞•亚伯拉罕。

    虽然C3公司的网站很简单，内容也模糊不明，不过早些时候人们普遍猜测，希伯可能会利用他的软件知识，为企业建立一种轻松、自动化的方式，来追踪并交易碳排放。这种方法在碳排放限额交易（cap-and-trade）或碳税体系下可能最为有效。不过这两种政策在美国似乎都行不通，至少在短期内是不可行的。（碳交易市场是否是死路一条？这很可能是本次大会的另一个主要话题。）

福岛危机会如何重塑环境争论？

    除了Global Thermostat公司外，位于纽约的乞力马扎罗能源公司（Kilimanjaro Energy）也表示，它可以从空气中直接捕捉二氧化碳。不过这家公司胸怀大志，它所想的并不仅仅是在核电的应用衰退后，及时抢占一席之地，而是想要改变人们对二氧化碳的看法，把它从一种债务看成一种资产：“大气中的二氧化碳是一项巨大的资源，如果将它转变成有用的产品，那就可以帮助人类完成碳循环。”

    Transphorm公司也是一家胸怀大志的企业。该公司表示，它可以将目前所有可再生能源的生产控制在对环境无害的水平上的。它的秘诀是：消除电网在电能转换过程中流失的大量的电（例如通过上下调整电压）。这种技术是一种重大突破。无论本世纪的主宰能源是来自岩层的煤、天然气还是太阳能，它都同样适用。也许福岛核电站泄露出的放射性物质没有什么神奇的绿色科技可以去除，但在绿色领域里，的确有许多替代能源可以代替核能。

    也许对于清洁环境的追求，不应该仅仅指望某项能改变游戏规则的科技。有许多不起眼的方法也可以使绿色决策生钱。例如一家名叫ecoATM的公司就设计了一种回收旧手机的机器。只要你把旧手机放进去，这台机器就会吐出现金。ecoATM的雄心壮志可能相对较小，不过它们更现实。它减少了填埋垃圾中的有毒物质，又让更多的钱进了消费者的腰包。这一策略可能会提醒绿色科技的决策者，所有的变革——不管它有多大，基本上都是从小事开始的。

    译者：朴成奎

    Bright ideas about how to help the environment and in the process make a few bucks -- or perhaps even a few billion bucks -- abound. But which of them could actually work?

    Might it be billionaire Tom Siebel's new venture, the mysteriously-named C3, which aims to use clever software to radically improve big companies' energy use and carbon output?* Or perhaps it will be Global Thermostat, which says its "carbon negative" technology can suck carbon dioxide right out of the air. (For power the company uses the excess heat generated by existing industrial processes such as smelting, energy that currently goes to waste.) Carbon capture technology would look especially appealing if Japan's recent catastrophe sends zero-carbon nuclear power into a long-term decline.

    Many of the contenders will get a chance to reveal their plans at Fortune's annual Brainstorm Green conference, which starts today and brings together a who's-who of the green movement from government, the Fortune 500 and all manner of newcomers.

    Siebel, who made his fortune in database software, is one eco-neophyte. He plans to talk about C3, which has been in stealth mode since 2009. In October the company raised $48 million in a private offering, according to a filing with the SEC, roughly doubling its total funding. Siebel has recruited a blue chip board, including former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former energy secretary Spencer Abraham.

    While the company's minimalist web site remains vague, some early speculation centered around the idea that Siebel would use his software knowledge to create an easy, automated way for companies to track and trade their carbon emissions. That would likely work best under a cap-and-trade or carbon tax system. Neither policy seems politically viable in the U.S., at least for the time being. (Whether the idea of carbon-trading markets is doomed will likely be another major topic at the conference.)

How will the ongoing crisis at Fukushima reshape the environmental debate?

    Beside Global Thermostat, a New York City based company called Kilimanjaro Energy also says it can capture carbon dioxide out of the air. Yet that company is thinking of nothing so small as merely making up for the potentially diminished use of carbon-free nuclear power. It wants to change the way people think about carbon dioxide, from a liabiity to an asset: "Atmospheric CO2 is a vast resource whose transformation into useful products can help humanity close the carbon cycle."

    Another company with big dreams, Transphorm, says it can effectively match the current output of all renewable energy sources at no harm to the environment. Its secret: eliminate the vast amount of electricity that is now lost by the electric grid as it transforms it from one form to another (say by stepping its voltage up or down.) That's an efficiency breakthrough that could work no matter what form of fuel -- coal, natural gas from shale, solar -- ends up powering the grid in the coming century. Perhaps there's no green magic bullet that can help clean up the radioactive material spewing from the Fukushima plant, but there are, in other words, lots of alternatives to nuclear emerging from the green energy space.

    Then again, perhaps the quest for a cleaner environment shouldn't rely on the hunt for a game-changing technology. There are lots of little ways for making green decisions pay. A company called ecoATM has designed a machine that can accept old cell phones and spit out cash for turning them in. Its plans may be relatively small, but they are real. Less toxic materials go in the landfill, more money goes into consumers' wallets. Their strategy should serve as a reminder to greentech thinkers that all change, no matter how big, generally starts quite small.