http://www.fastcompany.com/fast50_07/
One of the most facinating reads in a while. Click through all 50 -- its only a paragraph each. Its eye opening. examples Psiphon ] An end-run around Internet censorship The Chinese government is well-known for censoring Internet content, but its Great Firewall is hardly unique. At least 40 countries engage in some form of filtering, forcing dissidents, journalists, and many average citizens into the cyberunderground. "It's very much becoming the Internet experience worldwide," says Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Deibert, though, has a novel solution: MySpace-style social networking. Dubbed Psiphon, his product lets people with unfettered access to the Net set up their computers as proxy servers for people living under repressive regimes, giving them immediate access to the unrestricted Web. A month after its release, the free open-source software had been used to set up 10,000 servers that connect to Iran, Vietnam, Central Asia, even China. To fund further development of Psiphon, the lab will sell enhanced versions of the software to businesses beginning this year. ------------------- SunEdison ] Distributed solar power, built to scale Renewable energy is all the rage, but it still tends to be expensive compared with fossil fuel-based juice. So how does four-year-old SunEdison sell commercial-grade solar power at or below the going rate for electricity? By leveraging capital from Goldman Sachs and other investors to cover the upfront cost of acquiring photovoltaic panels and installing them on customers' roofs. It has already built 127 of its distributed generation systems nationwide, for customers including Staples and Whole Foods. "Many institutional investors don't want to do one-off projects," says CEO Jigar Shah, who left BP Solar in 2003 to start the company. "They really want to put together $50 million to $100 million funds, and they can see that we've really been able to achieve that scale." In return, customers sign purchasing contracts that lock in the current price for as long as 20 years, creating a steady revenue stream for SunEdison--and, for themselves, a low-cost, low-risk way to clean up their act. --------------- [ GreenFuel Technologies ] Cleaner power from coal, now with biodiesel! It may not be as noble as soybeans or corn, but pond scum is poised to supplant both as our next great national resource, thanks to the "bioreactors" of GreenFuel Technologies. Founded six years ago by an MIT engineer who had been working to grow algae in space (the microscopic plants eat carbon dioxide), GreenFuel is now building reactors big enough to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from your typical coal-fired power plant by as much as 45%. But wait, there's more. After digesting all that carbon dioxide, the algae produce soupy "biomass," a handy source of ethanol and biodiesel. A 1,000-megawatt plant hooked up to one of the bioreactors could theoretically produce more than 100 million gallons of fuel each year. The company now operates one U.S. bioreactor, but so far, most customers are overseas. Still, CEO Cary Bullock is convinced his technology will eventually earn a high enough return from biodiesel production to make it a no-brainer. "All we're doing is what Mother Nature does," he says, "only we do it a lot faster." ------------------
