It’s that time again: sifting through the detritus of a calendar year to sum up what’s happened over the past 12 months. Everybody’s doing it — for news, sports, movies, books, notable deaths…and now even for cleantech: here’s the scoop from MIT’s Technology Review, and here’s a post on GigaOM. So, my turn [drum roll, please], here’s [...]
The oil gas ratio hit a new record high December 27th with gas trading at $3.11/mmBtu and WTI going for $101.25/bbl yielding an energy ratio of 5.61. In simple terms this means gas is trading at the equivalent of $18.05/bbl crude. The market is starting to notice this rapid shift in natural gas economics. Back [...]
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 [...]
HONOLULU— www.hawaiiredcross.org, www.withaloha.org and www.Sunetric.com — Sunetric, Hawaii’s largest locally owned and operated solar installer, has donated two solar photovoltaic systems to raise funds for two local charities assisting Japan. The first is the American Red Cross Hawaii State Chapter and the second is the “With Aloha” Foundation. Donations raised through the website www.solarforjapan.com will [...]
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 [...]
Our Cleantech Linkedin Group, over 20,000 members strong, has had a seven month running discussion started by Robert Drummond entitled “Renewable Energy that will Really work”, asking for readers views on what’s practical in renewable energy. Kind of crowd sourcing opinion and facts on the subject of renewable energy. Robert’s discussion reached a staggering 1,500 comments this [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi Something grand is emerging on the vast dusty plains of West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. Tres Amigas is an ambitious scheme to interconnect the three primary power grids in the U.S. — the Western grid known as WECC, the Eastern grid known as the Eastern Interconnection, and the Texas grid known [...]
Sandor Schoichet s a longtime Cleantech Blog reader, and Director of Meridian Management Consultants. Sandor has EE and SM degrees in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science from MIT, where he studied artificial intelligence, office automation, and business process reengineering, and completed a joint program in Management of Innovation at the Sloan and Harvard business schools. [...]
Toronto-based EDF Energies Nouvelles Canada (EDF) announced on January 4 that its 12 MW St. Isidore A solar installation successfully joined Ontario’s alternative energy industry when it began operations in late December. St. Isidore is a community of fewer than 1,000 people located in Prescott and Russell County, east of Ottawa, the nation’s capital. The [...]
by David Anthony It’s true. Cleantech investment hasn’t worked out exactly how people dreamt it would back in the overly-optimistic days of the last decade. One of the main obstacles deterring venture capital investors from the sector is the frequently lengthy time lag between investment and commercialization. More importantly, the number of successful cleantech exits [...]
Dear Friends, We think it’s time cleantech grew up and learned to play with the big boys of energy and consumer goods. That means learning cost down and scale like nobody’s business. We think it can. We think green is going mainstream – for good. We think LEDs are going to win. We think wind [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi In early November, I participated in a week-long delegation concerning energy in Israel, at the invitation of Project Interchange, an educational program of the American Jewish Committee. In addition to learning a tremendous amount about Israel’s history, culture and political situation, my fellow travelers and I were fortunate to talk with many leaders active in various aspects [...]
I have seen, with growing frustration, an increasing number of comments on blogs and news sites deriding Ontario’s feed-in tariff (FIT) program and similar government incentives that encourage the use of renewable energy and create green jobs in the province. Comments like this anonymous post continue to stand out in my mind, “…‘greens’ only want [...]
It’s been a long year and a half or so since we published our last Cleantech Blog Power 5 on the top investors in cleantech. Time for round two. As usual the criteria for inclusion. Investor made a significant contribution to the cleantech investment sector More smart looking investments than stupid looking investments On balance, I’d [...]
This week I’m going to break one of my self-imposed ‘blog’ rules and dip into last week’s news. My reasoning will become clear. On Thursday I attended Envirolink North West’s Developing New Technologies for off Shore Wind event at the Met in Leeds. Apart from gaining a new respect for gearboxes (not to mention the [...]
Like it or not, solar is still the crown jewel in cleantech. Whither goes solar, there goes cleantech. So I got to thinking about the next decade in solar, and what will determine which companies achieve primacy. I think there are three races in solar technology to watch these days. Call it the Solar Triple Crown. [...]
We agree with the Solar Alliance and others who urge the PUC and the CEC to coordinate their agency actions so as to accommodate TRECs for DG and to do it soon. Other states are way ahead of California in allowing RECs to stimulate the renewable energy markets.
According to pick your favorite cleantech and carbon media outlet, California is at war. AB 32 is California’s carbon cap and trade law. The law is most the way ready to implement, with the rulemaking in process now. It’s aimed squarely at two goals, one, reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions, and two, since such a [...]
Solyndra CIGS Panels on South Houston High I had a chance to see my first Solyndra solar panels in action today. Three organizations run by friends of mine, HARC, Ignite Solar, and American Electric Technologies, are partnered up to install a 145 kW uber photovoltaic test bed on two schools (Sam Rayburn and South [...]
