The scientific journal Nature featured a loud addition to the climate debate last week by a team of UC-Boulder professors led by Roger Pielke, Jr, a noted climate and policy blogger at Prometheus. The paper (pdf) argues that the Nobel Prize winning IPCC assumed too … Read More »
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Alexis Madrigal
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A few weeks ago, many greens jeered when Richard Branson put a little J05 biojetfuel in the tank of one of his airliners. It was not enough, others said, and at worst, it was a distracting stunt. In the greentech world, we see the ‘problem’ as … Read More »
High oil prices have driven investments into biofuels and alternatives to petroleum-based product options. Even though some of the efforts appear misguided from an environmental perspective, the influx of cash has allowed a variety of new ideas to receive funding. But dirty solutions to the price … Read More »
Investments in Indian cleantech companies increased a dramatic 58 percent in 2007, growing to $210 million from $133 million in 2006. The numbers are part of the Cleantech Group’s new report, “Cleantech India Venture Capital and Private Equity Investment,” and were announced today at the
We all know that corn-based ethanol isn’t the route of choice to a sustainable future, but what if corn wasn’t really corn at all? Researchers at Iowa State have pieced together the genome of maize and will announce it Thursday at the oh-so thrilling-sounding Annual … Read More »
Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic conducted the first flight of a commercial aircraft with some jet biofuel in the 747′s tank. You can basically call it ‘J05′ as the biofuel represented a mere 5 percent of the total fuel mix — three of the plane’s four … Read More »
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When the journal Science publishes two studies questioning the greenhouse gas reduction benefits of biofuels, it’s bound to garner attention even if the cleantech community has long known that first-generation biofuels are not the answer to global climate change. And, combined with a … Read More »
With advocates of “cleanish coal” bummed out about the government’s decision to pull the plug on the FutureGen coal with carbon capture and sequestration facility, we thought you might need some more positive news about sequestering gases. It comes courtesy of University of Calgary … Read More »
A Polish coal plant, which will cofire biomass (burn biomass at the same time as coal) to help reduce its emissions by 25 percent compared with the country’s current coal plants, is due to come online in 2009. A major Polish power group, Poludniowy Koncern Energetyczny, … Read More »
A team of scientists have announced the discovery of a new material consisting of “nanoscopic cages” that are particularly good at trapping and storing methane. The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, suggests that the compound has a 28 percent … Read More »
With its purportedly aggressive plans for the Volt and the Coskata biofuels deal, these days we find ourselves in the somewhat awkward position of rooting for GM. The company has yet to return to profitability, but sees new signs of hope on the horizon … Read More »
Here’s an investing thesis that’s conceptually easy to grasp: India needs to spend $500 billion by 2012 building power plants and infrastructure to deliver power to its citizens, so invest in Indian power plant builders. On the strength and clarity of this seemingly sure winner, … Read More »
Portable fuel cells capture the imagination of just about all laptop warriors with their promise of unending off-grid power on the go. But they remain just a dream. As part of the new eco-focus at CES, Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, headquartered in Singapore, is showing … Read More »
Shares of GreenHunter Energy, the Grapevine, Texas-based owner of the world’s largest biodiesel refinery, debuted on the AMEX this week to a warm reception from investors, who pushed the company’s stock up from its $12 opening level to $15.10. What started as a wind farm company, … Read More »
The news broke earlier this week that Khosla Ventures had placed another chip on the biofuels roulette table, this time betting on the Cambridge startup Ethos, which aims to become a player in Latin American ethanol production. The investment follows more than 10 … Read More »
We recently wrote about the rise of solar services companies, those that will come to your house and install an entire solar system, kind of like DirecTV dish installers (e.g. Ironwood Communications). The rise of these companies is a major signal that renewable energy, … Read More »
If granted patents are an indication of innovation in a sector, clean technology breakthroughs are up significantly over the past five years, but down slightly from 2006. In 2007 a little less than 900 patent applications were granted. That’s compared to 2002, when less than 750 … Read More »
By Alexis Madrigal
Dec. 12, 2007, 12:00am PT
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First BP quietly demoted its renewables division and decided to invest in dirty tar sands oil production. Now Shell has sold off the majority of its solar business. It’s almost like Big Oil, which has invested hundreds of billions of dollars in … Read More »
There’s two ways to build an organism these days: from the top down or from the bottom up. Classic genetic engineering focuses on changing one or two genes out of the whole genome. The emerging field of synthetic biology takes the opposite tack in that it … Read More »
Solar stocks have been volatile, but mostly hot throughout 2007. Jefferies Company put out a notably positive note on a number of solar plays last week, including Suntech and Sunpower. But Day4 Energy’s Toronto Stock Exchange debut last Thursday received a somewhat chilly reception … Read More »
A couple weeks ago, following Trina Solar’s results, we said that the photovoltaics manufacturing industry needed consolidation. Lo and behold, Good Energy, a shareholder in Trina Solar, has upped its stake in Chinese PV manufacturer SolarFun (SOLF) from 6% to 35%. Could a merger … Read More »
Kalama, Wash. is just a speck off the I-5 between Portland and Seattle, but it’s turning into an early battleground over the viability of carbon capture and sequestration. The Washington Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council this week rejected a proposal to build a $1.5 billion coal … Read More »
Climate change is going to cost a lot of money. At this point, the question is whether those costs will be for mitigation and investment — or clean-up. The UN Development Program released a report this week that put a number on the cost of mitigating … Read More »
Remember those old sci-fi movies in which future humans would “terraform” Mars (or some more distant planet) to make it more like the relative paradise of our blue-green Earth? Well, it turns out we’re already honing those terraforming skills, and they’re aimed at making our … Read More »
Trina Solar today reported a third-quarter profit rise of 87 percent, but the results fell short of analysts expectations, sending its shares to close down nearly 24 percent. Yet even with the decline, Trina’s stock is up 84 percent since its December 2006 IPO. Trina’s shortfall also … Read More »
It seems like poplar trees can do everything these days. In addition to naturally absorbing carbon dioxide for us, they’ve been genetically modified to remediate soil. Now, the New York Times reports that North Carolina State researchers have created a poplar variety … Read More »
By Alexis Madrigal
Nov. 19, 2007, 12:02am PT
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists that mainstreamed the idea that carbon emissions were the main cause of climate change, on Saturday released a summary of their findings aimed at policymakers (pdf). It’s being called a “grim report,” with … Read More »
By Alexis Madrigal
Nov. 15, 2007, 7:26am PT
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Enzymes are fragile — they don’t like things such as chemicals or heat. And as enzymes are increasingly being put to work in the cleantech world, stabilizing enzymes that can be used in renewable energy applications is becoming a valuable technology. St. Louis, Miss.-based … Read More »
Scientists at the University of Virginia have announced the discovery of a new hydrogen storage material that could nearly double the capabilities of current storage technologies. If the material turns out to be something that can be commercialized, it could bring hydrogen storage tanks … Read More »
If we end up stuck with corn subsidies built into the new Congressional farm bill, we might as well start looking at making corn ethanol production better. Towards that end, Syngenta said today the FDA has approved “bulk trials” of its new amylase-producing … Read More »
Solar’s banner year on the stock market continued this week with thin-film solar cell manufacturer First Solar breaking the $200 barrier for the first time in its one-year stint on NASDAQ. First Solar (FSLR), which some have called the Google of solar, jumped … Read More »
You’d have to be a real drag to not think underwater robots are cool. OK, but what do they have to do with cleantech? We found a connection. Hydroid, for example, makes Remote Environmental Monitoring Units (REMUS), which can sniff out the source … Read More »
New Earth makes the prettiest small-scale wind turbine on the market — its vertical-axis design uses a double helix to capture wind energy. And the San Diego-based startup is raising money to get its eye-catching product out there. New Earth CEO Ian Gardner … Read More »
A new Ivy League spin-out startup is targeting the off-the-grid power market with a fuel cell and a little dirt. Living Power Systems, formerly known as Fiat Lux (“Let There Be Light”), is the brainchild of Peter Girgius, a professor of microbiology at Harvard. The … Read More »
In the quest to find the best types of tiny algae for biofuel production, Big Oil is teaming up with Big Government. Chevron (CVX) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratories announced yesterday that they are joining forces to select and develop algae that can be … Read More »
A Canadian company may have found a key process that could allow the same crops to produce both food and fuel. Given that a UN expert on food recently called the shift of arable land from food to fuel a “crime against humanity,” … Read More »
The effects of climate change are turning the outlook for long-term food production into an increasingly dire one, according to an MIT study released this week and a report delivered last week by the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Food. UN expert Jean Ziegler is calling … Read More »
A major political selling point of ethanol production is the possible salvation it offers small towns in the center of the United States. But does “the biofuel revolution” actually benefit these communities or just Vinod Khosla? That’s the topic that Kansas State researchers will tackle … Read More »
By Alexis Madrigal
Oct. 26, 2007, 5:00am PT
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The bad news for BP rolled in from all over this week. The company agreed to pay a $50 million fine to settle a refinery blast criminal case. Four of its former traders are facing indictments for their role in a 2004 attempt at … Read More »
While BP is renewing its focus on non-renewable resources, the company has posted a 29 percent drop in third-quarter net income, to $4.4 billion from $6.23 billion in the same period last year. Citing problems in its U.S. refineries, oil and gas production in the … Read More »
Organized by the Council of Science Editors, 235 scientific journals from 37 countries around the world published articles on poverty and human development yesterday. We thought we’d do our part here at Earth2Tech and talk about five companies working on projects that could form part … Read More »
Fuel cells powered by bacteria that produce electrons as they eat are quietly making waves in labs around the world. Traditional fuel cell technology is powered by chemicals like methanol or hydrogen; the bacteria-based kind are known as microbial fuel cells (MFCs). While MFC’s … Read More »
There’s a lot of talk about how many jobs the cleantech revolution is going to create. If you think about all the various sectors — solar, biofuels, water, to name a few — one would think the number of jobs created would be in the … Read More »
A Princeton professor is proposing that coal be combined with biomass to create what’s called synfuels — high-performance, low-emission jet fuel. Combined with a carbon capture and sequestration system, the process could produce “near-zero greenhouse gas emissions.” The announcement came as Richard Branson … Read More »
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