These are just edible pickles - no promises of renewable energy that I know of. We have helped people make theremins, web apps, and curriculum already so pickles seems like a logical progression :)
Actually, he will be generating co2 and selling it back to one of the other people in the shared production space. The space will be selling power back to the grid in the daytime using solar panels.
We have not determined the spend with the founder yet - but are excited to have another physical product company. From our experience - the small amount of money can have a noticeable impact when you are not dealing with the abstractions of web startups. He has a product, fixed costs, and a process - so I am hoping we can connect him with people familiar with scaling single food products (getting into stores, higher production levels, etc). Also the marketing/branding since there are lot of creative campaign ideas surrounding a cartoon pickle.