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| WestStart-CALSTART: A Head ‘Start’ |
| By Kathryn Jones | |||
| Friday, 29 February 2008 | |||
 WestStart-CALSTART develops technology teams that seek funding opportunities for the commercialization of electric, hybrid electric natural gas, fuel cell, biofuel and clean mobility technologies.
“We really grew out of a number of bad concurrent conditions,” Senior Vice President Bill Van Amburg explains. “There was a big economic recession in California [in the early ’90s], as well as a brain drain of high-tech talent out of the aerospace and defense industries who were leaving the state. And, we had the worst air pollution in the nation, mostly caused by transportation. “Our public/private partnership grew out of that need to solve some serious societal problems, while trying to target an area of economic growth and technological potential for both the state and the nation, which was advanced transportation. We wanted to grow the economy by solving environmental problems.” The organization does this in four ways, he explains. Through strategic brokering, it oversees a network of approximately 155 WestStart-CALSTART members in strategic global partnerships to speed the process of introducing clean transportation to the marketplace. “Right now, you see a lot of larger, more established companies looking for solutions in terms of technologies and energy storage like batteries, hybrid drive lines or gaseous fuel storage,” Van Amburg notes. “These solutions are not part of the normal supplier network of the traditional truck- and automakers. So, we help link these potential partners. This adds value for larger companies looking for solutions and for the medium- and smaller-sized companies – where a lot of the innovation is – looking for partners to invest with and to take their products and technologies to the next level.” Secondly, WestStart-CALSTART works with private and public partners to create technology teams that seek funding opportunities for the commercialization of electric, hybrid electric, natural gas, fuel cell, biofuel and clean mobility technologies. “We actively work across these market sectors to bring good partners together and seek a mixture of public and private funds to spur a faster introduction to the marketplace,” Van Amburg says. “We continue to be partners with the Departments of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Army’s National Automotive Center and other agencies that have a number of demonstration and development projects that we manage within our industry partnerships. Increasingly, we are moving from technology development to market development projects and policy work, as well. One of the key lessons from the last 15 years is that we now have the technical base to make efficient and clean vehicles and fuels. What we must expand on is building user demand.” To assist this, WestStart-CALSTART operates the industry’s premier information Web site and provides news and trends analyses of the latest international developments. It also initiates annual industry information-sharing conferences, which “give participants early knowledge of opportunities, competitor activities and how new technologies fit together in a broader picture,” the organization says. Its final task is to derive “clean mobility solutions [by] working with fleets to implement clean vehicle solutions, with manufacturers to develop commercialization strategies and with transit operators seeking new ideas to boost ridership and give people other options than just their car.” New Announcements WestStart-CALSTART will officially announce two ground-breaking endeavors to the public this spring, but Van Amburg discussed the projects in a January interview with U.S. Business Review. “We’re about to launch the opening of the first of a series of E85 stations in the state,” he says. “California only has one station in the whole state where you can by E85 ethanol fuel, yet the state has more than 300,000 flex-field cars. “Working with ethanol fuel producers, pump and tank providers, automakers, regional clean air and energy agencies and retail stations, we organized a team to raise federal and state funding to help speed up the work. We are about to open 15 more stations. California is going to be a multi-fuel state and this is the next round to making that happen. “The second thing we’ll announce is the official kick-off of $24 million in fuel cell busy technology projects with five different teams,” he continues. These “state-of-the-art” projects will push the nation to improve technology for fuel cells reliability in the transit bus market. However, “We think the light-duty passenger car market is a ways off for fuel cells, but we think there is a nearer-term possibility for a useful marketplace for the transit bus arena,” Van Amburg says, adding that the state will require transit agencies to start phasing in zero emission buses within the next few years. “It’s really taken the last 10-plus years of investment technology development and improvement in a focused way to allow us to be ready to deliver the solutions that the industry needs today,” he admits. “Looking back with the operations that were available, say, in 1995, we didn’t quite have the technology to be as effective in new solutions that we have today. “We’ve been frustrated that things haven’t changed as quickly as we wanted them to. From our own perspective, we went through some ups and downs, where it looked like fuel was getting cheaper and people weren’t paying attention as much, but we could see these growing drivers in increasing bad air quality, increasing our dependence on foreign oil and the tremendous challenge of global warming. It was a good lesson to us that we kept our focus and mission over the years because we’ve seen the pay-off today. “It’s interesting, because so many of the things we’ve been saying for 15 years, we are finally hearing more people saying,” he continues. “Finally, it is it becoming more mainstream. Clearly air quality alone didn’t do it. Even concerns about energy security and the fact that we were becoming more dependent on foreign oil still didn’t change our behavior that much. What really drove it were the fuel prices. When you’re starting to pay $2.50 and $3 at the pump, you start to pay attention to what is causing the run-up, and I think that’s been the final trigger. We need more efficient vehicles.” |
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