In early 2000 the San Diego County Water Authority flipped the switch on the Rancho Penasquitos Pressure Control & Hydroelectric Facility. For the $22 million project, engineering firm Black & Veatch designed an intricate series of computer-controlled connections that jacked up the pressure on water moving through a 22-mile pipeline. Result: swifter water flow for the authority and enough excess hydraulic pressure to run a 4.5-megawatt turbine. That provides sufficient juice both to power the Rancho Penasquitos system and to net the authority $1 million a year in emissions-free electricity sales back to its energy utility.

Such energy-water twofers represent an emerging sweet spot for Black & Veatch, ranked 126 on our Private Companies list. This 93-year-old engineering firm has made a large part of its living from big, carbon-spewing power plants. Now it is being reborn as a green company. It will help its clients cut emissions.

Power-related projects accounted for half of the Kansas City outfit’s $3.2 billion revenue last year. Water made up 38%. “This nexus of energy and water is a big deal,” says Chief Executive Len C. Rodman, 59, who likes to see fuel, power and sustainability as one large-scale piece. “It’s going to be a bigger deal.”

Full story at Forbes.com

Washington, D.C.–As the notion of the “green economy” has come into vogue over the last few years, organized labor licked its chops. Take the Apollo Alliance, for example. The labor-sponsored group launched in 2004 with claims that a shift to renewable energy could create 3.3 million jobs, presumably unionized, in the U.S.

At a mid-September forum in Washington, D.C., organized by the Cleantech Group, two labor reps made their case to the venture financiers now putting money into newfangled energy technology companies. They dangled labor’s political muscle, $5 trillion in union pension assets and an emphasis on flexibility and partnership.

“Partnership is the most important thing that we want to get across to you today,” said Christopher Chafe, executive director of Change to Win, a federation of seven unions with 6 million members. Chafe seasoned his remarks with words like “dialogue” and “relationships”–he used some variation of “partner” at least a dozen times.

Full story at Forbes.com