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 [...]
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 [...]
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. [...]
It’s virtually impossible (for me, at least) to understand or keep track of the organization of the U.S. Department of Energy. And so, when I encountered the booth at the recent Energy Innovation Summit (as reported last week) for the generic-sounding DOE group called “Office of Science”, I had to stop and ask to find out [...]
Dr. Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy and co-winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (1997) delivered this speech “Meeting the Energy and Climate Challenge” at Stanford University on March 7, 2010, where he was formerly a professor. Dr. Chu called on the students and faculty to take part in a new Industrial Revolution. At the [...]
by Joel Serface I just spent an amazing year at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), but have no start-ups to show for it (yet).A year ago, I was asked by Kleiner Perkins to be the first Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at NREL. As a person who has been into energy and environmental technologies since [...]
