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 [...]
Ok. Deep breath. The first time I modeled solar costs and started reviewing the first PPA solar models, was nearly 8 years ago now. And they were ugly then. As in, fully loaded some $0.60-0.90 /kwh ugly, no matter how rosy the solar pollyannas were. That’s why it took a German Feed in Tariff of near [...]
One of my friends, John Moore. the CEO of Acorn Energy (NASDAQ:ACFN), recently sold off their rapidly growing CoaLogix investment for a quick return. I caught up with John to get the story. So John, who the hell is Acorn Energy anyways? Acorn Energy (NASDAQ:ACFN) is the Sun Studios of the energy sector. We have [...]
Yup. Solyndra’s going BK. Taking with it US government loans to the tune of $10 for every taxpaying household in the country and $500K or so for every job it created for one year. But seriously, raise your hand if you DIDN’T see this coming. Like, OK, those with their hand’s raised, you are no [...]
Last night while watching Office reruns, I realized I’d been remiss, and a lot’s had been happening in the public equities end of the cleantech sector. Not to mention yesterday’s billion dollar BK broiler announcement by the one-time Next Greatest Thing, Solyndra. So, with my usual aplomb, I thought I’d simply peanut gallery what’s “Hot or [...]
By Neal Dikeman I had a chance to chat today with Dr. Charlie Gay, the President of Applied Material’s solar division. You may recall, we broke the story in the blogosphere 5 years ago about Applied’s entry into solar, which was anchored with a highly touted and very aggressive strategy for turnkey large format amorphous [...]
Energy is life, the rest runs on it. Since the 70s through every presidential administration and every Congress, we have had an energy policy that boiled down to fighting the cold war through oil and getting lucky on locally sourced coal and gas. It’s not a zero planning energy policy, we’ve spent money, defined policies, [...]
Large scale energy has proven almost as elusive a Yeti, and perhaps almost as all world saving juicy as the silver bullet for the werewolf or the Holy Grail itself (and not the Monty Python kind). Energy storage for nearly 15 years has been the energy tech and cleantech version of the ultimate “but-if”. I.E., [...]
The Economist had an article in a recent issue about the “anthropocene” period, our new geologic era, where mankind is the dominant force in the geology of the planet. A period where our agriculture, cities, dams, etc literally have and will permanently change the face of the earth itself, forever. The article suggests that we [...]
It struck me the other day that I may have been looking at the recent spate of cleantech IPOs backwards. Perhaps instead of lamenting the dearth of profitable healthy companies going public on major exchanges in our sector, what we should be considering is whether early and still risky IPOs mean cleantech venture capitalists are [...]
It dawned on me today, that after buying green ecommerce store Greenhome.com 8 months ago, we put up links to the site on CleantechBlog.com, and included special coupons for all our Cleantech Blog readers and Cleantech.org members in the monthly emailings. Here I thought people who were making a living off cleantech might *gasp* care [...]
Reading cleantech news and SEC filings this last couple of weeks makes for a holy moly OMG damn that takes guts set of moments. Well, the cleantech sector is nothing if not entertaining. I’m obviously going to have to up my game and find more entertaining deals. Total buys controlling stake in Sunpower. Sunpower [...]
A large portion of the energy and ag sectors cleantech targets are strongly backed by liquid and well developed debt markets and lending practices. But in cleantech, basic nuts and bolts debt has been scarce or weird. We have cleantech companies, venture capitalists and pundits babbling self servingly about a “gap in the capital markets” that we [...]
Cleantech has a very short history, and an even shorter memory. I’ve written over and over again about how it’s all about policy, and that there is no disruptive technology in cleantech. Now I’m telling you that’s not quite true, the exception proves the rule. I’d like to ask you to do some reading on [...]
GreentechMedia and Cleantech Group this quarter reported near record levels of cleantech venture capital investment. Nearly $2.6 Billion in deals. No, quantitative easing hasn’t made the dollar slide that much yet, the numbers are real – mainly as the solar and transport deals vintage 2004-07 are getting deep into their capital intensive cycles. But a [...]
I’m watching a CNN special on reinventing Los Angeles, and calling on suburbs as dead, time to move on. But I LIKE suburbs. I like grass. I like trees. I like quiet. I like space – both in my house and between my neighbors. I don’t like my neighbors waking me up with loud sex [...]
Three comments I really liked from the premier conference on cleantech: Art Rosenfeld, California Energy Commission – It’s all about cool white roofs to combat climate change. Art is one of the deans of energy efficiency in California. It’s been long known that white roofs can cool a building and help reduce the heat island [...]
Live from the Cleantech Forum, the largest investor conference for energy and environmental technologies, our take on how to tell if the venture capital investor you are talking to really may be your friend. Only partly tongue in cheek. 1) when you ask how things are going, he moans about all of his portfolio companies [...]
Every few conversations about venture capital, someone laments the “herd mentality” of the venture capital sector. That is, the tendency of venture capital investors to invest in similar areas. It’s a favorite topic of cleantech afficianados as well, both before cleantech got hot, and since then. I’d like to ask though, are we sure the [...]
I drove my first Nissan Leaf on Saturday. The ultimate cleantech car. Not Cleantech Blog’s first EV drive, as our blogger John Addison has blogged on the Leaf and other EVs numerous times before. But only my second EV drive. My Leaf test drive followed a previous conversation with Mark Perry, one of the senior product guys [...]
