The biofuels panel was concentrating on feedstocks – and they are not sure corn can scale – and keep prices around $45 a barrel, even as oil goes above$70+. The idea was floated that there could be ‘hemispheric energy independence’ with a mix of biofuels.

Waste products, like used cooking oil, are probably good feedstocks, ultimately. The panel was leery of government-specified feedstocks, preferring to follow market economics. Pump prices are a much stronger driver than government mandate…

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Verdiem CEO Kevin Klustner talks about Surveyor, his company’s energy reduction tool for large LANs. Surveyor reduced the City of Stamford’s energy costs by $750,000, and have seen similar results at places like Morgan Stanley.

Klustner was introduced by AlwaysOn blogger Ezra Roizen, who was also CEO at my first startup, Montclare Tecnologies. Another presenter, John Berger, CEO of Standard Renewable Energies talked about integrating green technologies and becoming a trusted advisor to consumers. Do you need a $20,000 photovoltaic system, or can you get the same efficiency from a better air conditioner for $2000?

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Serious Materials CEO Kevin Surace, above, talked about the difficulties of getting innovative green materials, like his firm’s EcoRock, into construction channels. It has to look and hadle and cost the same as traditional materials.

ICE Energy CEO Frank Ramirez pitches a hybrid refrigeration system that makes use of the cool night cycle to store energy in cold, rather than heat units. His firm is working to incorporate his hybrid AC into new green buildings. Commercial projects are important to theses firms’ growth. Good news is the number of cities like San Francisco and San Jose that are requiring new green buildings and green retrofits of older ones…

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Dow Chemical’s Dennis Mehrens talks about water and the challenges and opportunities of finding, transporting, using and discharging water. It is clear at this conference that water is a huge issue, especially outside the US.

Two big opportunies are removing arsenic from water that’s available to India’s poorest. Pipe joints that last longer and leak less, represents a huge opportunity in the US and elsewhere.

John Sylvia a partner in the Texas Pacific Group, wants to process water at the point of use – 90% of water that comes into a household never comes in the house. He thinks the biofuel revolution will drive a water shortage at least short term. It makes sense to him to ship lower quality water (for, say, lawn watering) and just process drinking and cooking water at the faucet, saving a lot of money in the process. Industrial concerns can save even more…

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Using recyclable mirrors and pipes, Ausra’s new 1-mile square US plant will generate 175 MW. Using proprietary Fresnel technology, Ausra’s aimed mirrors heat a pipe suspended 30 feet above the mirror arrays – cold water comes in one end, 175 MW of steam comes out the other, no toxics or other complications are involved.

There is a steam concentrator that smooths out steam flow when clouds pass over, but otherwise Ausra’s equipment drives conventional steam turbines that hook easily into the grid. A 92×92 mile grid could power the entire U.S…

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Morrison and Foerster’s Susan MacCormac and Raj Atluru from Draper Fisher Jurvetson kick off the Going Green conference in a session that tries to predict what the best investments will be in the next 3 to 10 years.

Ray Lane from Kleiner Perkins discussed the 25 companies they are funding, many of which are already playing in energy markets. Lane believes that electrons are the ultimate goal, however you get there… a Republican, he nevertheless favors a carbon tax…

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