Burst of Energy Forward-thinking entrepreneurs are making leaps and bounds in the field of renewable clean energy. How can you get involved?

Walk through the maze of metal kegs, six-packs of boutique beer,and cartons of pop, juice and fruity syrup on Tim Curtiss'production floor, and you'll think for a minute that you'rein a beverage warehouse. However, these are just raw materials forLiquid Resources of Ohio LLC in Medina, Ohio. Beverage companiespay Curtiss, 45, to take out-of-date or flawed products off theirhands. Curtiss' company then smashes the containers and,through fermentation and distillation, converts the liquid contentsinto fuel-grade ethanol.

Launched in 2003, Liquid Resources has the capacity to produceabout 3 million gallons of ethanol a year. As both gas prices andfears of global warming rise, ethanol looks better and better-itburns far cleaner than gasoline and reduces our reliance on oilimports. Most cars already use fuel that contains up to 10 percentethanol-usually produced from corn -- but Curtiss says some expertsthink cars could run on a mix of up to 40 percent ethanol. Manycity buses run on fuel that's 85 percent ethanol.

And not only does Curtiss' company produce clean fuel, butit also helps fight the burgeoning piles of waste that threaten tooverwhelm our landfills. The company uses every bit of its rawmaterials: Metal, plastic and cardboard containers are crushed andshipped to recyclers; glass is sold to abrasives and road-buildingcompanies. The company's only waste product is water.

A self-styled "serial entrepreneur," Curtissdidn't set out to tackle America's energy crisis, but inwaste processing, he found a business model he couldn't resist.He took the plunge even though he had no background in energy. Henow projects $1 million in sales for 2006.

Renewable, clean energy is a booming field these days-even inthe U.S., which has lagged behind other countries. "The bestevidence of this was at the second annual conference of theRenewable Energy Finance Forum in New York City," says MichaelRosenfeld, vice consul of UK Trade & Investment, aninternational economic development agency for the UnitedKingdom's government that works on trade export and investmentopportunities, including renewable energy projects with U.S.companies. "You used to just see VCs and smaller playersinvesting in renewable energy, but now you see the biginstitutional investors putting in billions. But because it'sstill a relatively young market, the opportunities forentrepreneurs are fairly wide open."

According to John Anderson of the Rocky Mountain Institute, aSnowmass, Colorado, energy think tank, Curtiss is typical of a lotof the entrepreneurs headed into the renewable energy field: Manyare experts in something else.

"Energy has been dominated by the regulated-monopolyutilities structure," says Anderson, RMI's team leader forenergy and resources. "Energy has not had an entrepreneurialculture. A lot of the most successful energy entrepreneurs I'mseeing right now are immigrants from other tech areas."

Anderson says that the regulated-monopoly paradigm has made ittough in the past for entrepreneurs. However, as energyderegulation proceeds, he expects to see a huge wave of energyinnovation and opportunities. "The flood will be so big andwidespread that it's tough to know where the cool things aregoing to be," he says.

Curtiss' business is certainly one cool thing to develop asthe energy picture changes in this country, but there are manyothers, even outside the now almost-mainstream areas of wind andsolar power. Near a Butterball turkey processing facility inCarthage, Missouri, Renewable Environmental Solutions is converting270 tons of turkey offal into 300 barrels of crude oil every day.Formed in 2000 as a joint venture between Con-Agra and ChangingWorld Technologies, a West Hempstead, New York, company thatdeveloped a thermal conversion process, RES uses water, heat andpressure to convert the turkey parts into energy. In addition tocreating oil, the process reduces solid wastes and destroys prions,the mutated proteins that are suspected to cause mad cowdisease.

"People are amazed that we're using animal parts tocreate energy, but years ago [people] took parts of whales and madelamp oil," says Changing World CEO Brian Appel, 47."That's not so different from what we're doinghere."

Changing World's technology works for a wide variety ofother wastes, from municipal sludge to worn-out tires. "Infact, our initial focus was to find a sensible solution towaste," Appel says. "Energy production was second, butnow that's become primary."

Another energy solution puts a new spin on power derived fromwater. Arlington, Virginia-based Verdant Power has spent yearsexamining new designs for turbines that create energy from the freeflow of water in rivers, canals or tidal areas without using dams.The 5-year-old company is now testing one of its designs andanticipates its first commercial revenue in 2007 with theinstallation of a few hundred turbines in New York's EastRiver. The installation will produce about 10 megawatts ofelectricity per day for New York City--a tiny percentage of thecity's daily 1,500 to 2,000 megawatt gulp.

Verdant Power has faced a difficult uphill climb toward itsfirst commercial project. Since its technology is being deployed ina highly prized and regulated natural resource, getting thenecessary permits has been tough. Beyond that, the company faces aseeming lack of urgency for dealing with the energy crisis in theU.S. Fortunately for Verdant Power and others, the global marketfor renewable energy is brisk. Says Verdant Power CEO Ron Smith,57, "We're talking to people all over the world."