CleanTech OC Daily - 7/13/12

A new source of support for natural gas vehicle tech: ARPA-E
A new ARPA-E program from the Department of Energy will allocate $30 million in grants to companies, university labs and startups building the next-generation of natural gas vehicle technology.  Methane Opportunities for Vehicular Energy (MOVE) grants are aimed to address some of the issues associated with bringing natural gas vehicle technology to smaller regular cars.

New Desalination Technology Achieves 99% Water Recovery Rate at Bottling Plant

GE’s new desalination technology pilot showed a water recovery rate of over 99% at a beverage bottling plant – these findings could translate into savings of billions of water each year, if widely implemented. GE's AquaSel Non-Thermal Brine Concentrator (NTBC) treats brine by desalinating it and returning most of it to the water system, and then concentrating the remaining brine even further.

Clean Tech Investors Finding Opportunities at Nexus of Energy and IT

According to fund managers who spoke at the Silicon Valley Energy Summit at Stanford University, most early-stage investing in clean tech focuses on energy startups that use IT not currently used in the energy sector. Some of the reason for this is a cautious clean tech investment environment, therefore IT-energy startups may be a good match for investors presently.