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 [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi This past week in New York, at its annual East Coast investor forum, the Cleantech Group released its 2010 Global Cleantech 100, profiling the private cleantech companies that a set of panelists thinks has the most promise for large long-term impact. Some highlights from the list and the report: In the [...]
Reprinted from CleantechBlog.com A few weeks ago I blogged a very bad experience trying to get an energy audit done on my home. The vendor, Standard Renewable Energy, part of Gridpoint, just didn’t do the job. After our blog article, the company came back to do the audit right for me, complete with a IR [...]
by Neal Dikeman A few of you may have run across the Solar Bill of Rights Petition that’s floating around the web. I was really excited at the idea, until I read it. For a good environmental conservative like me, I had a lot of trouble swallowing the actual demands, despite the fact that a [...]
Classic definitions of cleantech, and the industries under its umbrella, have gotten long in the tooth. The sector has changed, and taxonomies haven’t kept up. Why is a clean technology taxonomy important? As a list of nested categories, it shows where a clean technology “fits”. It helps vendors understand their competitive sets. It defines and [...]
By Tom Rooney, CEO SPG Solar Conservatives, let’s talk about energy. And why so many conservatives are so wrong — so liberal, even — on wind and solar energy. Let’s start with a recent editorial from the home of ‘free markets and free people,” the Wall Street Journal. Photovoltaic solar energy, quoth the mavens, is [...]
by Richard T. Stuebi One of the more promising stories to emerge from Cleveland in recent years is the formation of the Evergreen Cooperatives, a holding company to fund start-up companies that: Employ disadvantaged citizens from some of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in Cleveland Are founded on the principle of being worker-owned cooperatives, to enable [...]
by Jigar Shah, Founder SunEdison and CEO of the Carbon War Room As wind come out at a robust 9.9GW in 2009, Solar at maybe 600MW, etc, it looks like the zero-emissions folks will again install a majority of incremental MWs. The balance is mostly natural gas a little bit of Coal. Getting this number [...]
Bill O, the Art of Journalism and Me.By Tom Rooney, CEO of SPG Solar Journalism, says the wag, is the art of speaking with absolute authority about something you know nothing about. Earlier this week, America’s most dominant cable TV news host, Bill O’Reilly, of course, took that definition to a new level when he [...]
About 2 to 3 years ago, CPV was all the rage among solar startups and especially their venture investors. But none of them ever came to market. I’ve been calling this one a siren’s song since the beginning. An artificial market enabled by venture capitalists desperate to find the next big thing. The story ran [...]
All new industries seem to think they deserve a Moore’s Law. The photovoltaic solar really, really thinks it deserves one, since it kind of sort of looks like a semiconductor business: Photovoltaic Moore’s Law Will Make Solar Competitive by 2015, IEEE.org, Understanding Moore’s Law, DistributedEnergy.com, and Silicon Valley Starts to Turn Its Face to the [...]
Last year I did my first “Power 10″ ranking for 2008 of cleantech companies, and the response was so good we’re doing it again. I spend most of my day meeting and talking to companies in the cleantech sector. And those of you who know me know I have opinions on who is doing it [...]
