I had a chance to wander around the Offshore Technology Conference this week and chat about some of the technologies on display. OTC is still heavily a mechanical engineer’s conference. Despite the high tech nature of the industry, in large part vendors are not yet leading customers, and steel still rules the day in technology. [...]
Simple Thoughts on Aggie Muster Written on Muster’s Eve April 20th 2013 the year of the birth of my daughter Softly call the Muster, gently call the Roll. Another year is passing, time will take her toll. My family is remembered, as I’ll be remembered too. Remember me my brethren; I am remembering you. Softly [...]
Energy storage is still the rage in cleantech. But after the collapse of A123 and Beacon, and the spectacular failure on the Fisker Karma in its Consumer Reports tests, fire in Hawaii with Xtreme Power’s lead acid grid storage system and with NGK’s sodium sulphur system, and now battery problems grounding the Boeing Dreamliners, investors [...]
I am selling my little Honda in California, since I moved to Texas two years ago, I left a car in San Francisco to drive when I’m here. So I’d been looking into getting car share. Absolutely loving the concept, been trying to figure out if it is a better deal for me than renting [...]
Great article today on a study suggesting that traffic congestion is created by the marginal driver, and more interesting, from the marginal driver from specific and predictable locations. Maybe 1% of commuters leaving from specific neighborhoods have a big increase on traffic congestion and commute time for everyone. The link to the study is here. We dealt [...]
I drafted this memo in early 2003 for a venture capitalist friend of mine, well before the bubble in cleantech. In light of the back and forth on the recent Solar City IPO, I thought it was worth revisiting. Some of the points were pretty prescient, calling out many of the challenges cleantech investors and [...]
Are electric cars a Niche? Or just coming into their own? I’ve been asked that question twice now in the last week in various forms, so thought I’d blog my answer. Electric Drive Transportation Association has the total number of US sales at just under 400,000 this year, or 3.3% market share including hybrids. Hybrids they [...]
It’s been a busy, ummm interesting year. We’ve tracked profits to founders and investors of $14 Billion in major global IPOs on US exchanges and $9 Billion in major global M&A exits from venture backed cleantech companies in the last 7-10 years. Money is being made. A lot of money. But wow, not where you’d [...]
I’ve personally written hundreds of articles over the years. I selected a few I thought were pretty timeless or prescient, and worth rereading: What is Cleantech? Always a good starting point: or try, The Seminal List of Cleantech Definitions The “Rules” in Cleantech Investing – Rereading this one after the cleantech exits study we [...]
What’s the state of REALLY advanced energy? Is there a breakthrough on the horizon that would really change the game in energy? Fusion? Small Modular Nuclear Reactors? Is Cold Fusion or LENR real? How much work is actually going into the area? Are VCs funding it? Can the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics be [...]
When people ask me, are investors making money in cleantech, I tell them yes, but not by whom or in what you thought they were. Most of the analyses of cleantech exits do not differentiate for venture backed companies. So we conducted our own study. In the last 10 years, Cleantech.org’s Cleantech Venture Backed M&A [...]
It’s Presidential Election year. Ergo, time to discuss our 40 year whacked out excuse for an energy policy. Royally botched up by every President since, umm? Objectives: Make US energy supply cheap for the US consumer and industry, fast growing and profitable for the American energy sector, clean, widely available and reliable, and secure, diversified, [...]
It never ceases to fascinate me the massive amount of impact commodity price swings have on business plans. Apple, Google, Facebook, they don’t deal with this. Commodity price swings just don’t hit their bottom line. But in cleantech, well, government and policy is king, commodity and resource shocks are queen, you and I are [...]
This week’s news: US NRC freezes decisions on new reactor, license renewal applications “The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted unanimously Tuesday not to issue final decisions on granting licenses to build new nuclear power reactors and 20-year license renewals to existing ones, pending resolution of the agency’s waste confidence rule overturned by a court in June. [...]
We all know energy is global, and as much policy driven as technology driven. We have a quote, in energy, there are no disruptive technologies, just disruptive policies and economic shocks that make some technologies look disruptive after the fact. In reality, there is disruptive technology in energy, it just takes a long long time. [...]
By Guest Blogger Charles Waitman I spent a day at Intersolar North America in San Francisco, considered by some to be North America’s premier exhibition and conference for the solar industry. My career, to date has been in the oil industry. This was my second Intersolar conference. These are my observations. PV dominated the conference. [...]
by Neal Dikeman The other night I answered an ad on Craigslist. Not surprising, since buying and selling things on craigslist is kind of my hobby. But this one was for solar panels. 180 Wp panels from a wholesaler. Offering for $190 ea if I bought one, or $180 if I bought 20 or more, [...]
By Tao Zheng, with David Anthony, an active cleantech venture capitalist, who passed away in April 2012. The sun is the champion of all energy sources, in terms of capacity and environmental impact. The sun provides earth with 120,000 terawatt (TW) energy, compared to technical potential energy capacity of single digit TWs from other renewable sources, [...]
As previously reported by GigaOm and others, one of our bloggers, cleantech venture capital investor, David Anthony, of VC firm 21 Ventures, took his own life last month. We are saddened he is no longer with us. For those who are able to attend, there is a Facebook announcement of his memorial service on the [...]
By Neal Dikeman A quote in a recent Wired article claiming cleantech is getting pounded epitomizes the zero sum mentality prevalent in the renewable energy and cleantech discussion. ‘Even solar’s biggest allies on Capitol Hill — people such as Edward J Markey, a top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee — fear the [...]
