The California Academy of Sciences, a collection of exhibits including a massive aquarium, a planetarium and a natural history museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, has gotten a new and much greener home. When the academy’s doors reopen in September, they hope for LEED … Read More »
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Craig Rubens
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The Daily Sprout
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 21, 2008, 5:53pm PT
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Suniva to Supply Titan Energy Systems with $480M of Solar Cells: Suniva has signed a take-or-pay agreement with Indian solar module maker Titan Energy Systems for more than $480 million worth of solar cells over the next five years – Press Release. How to Make Wind … Read More »
The ongoing saga of Planktos, which claimed to have had its ocean seeding plans dashed by environmental groups, took another turn this week. Yesterday, publicly-traded Planktos Corp., which is separate from the recently-launched Planktos Science led by founder Russ George, updated shareholders stating … Read More »
Attero Picks Up $6.3M for Indian e-Cycling
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 21, 2008, 11:13am PT
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Millions of computers and electronics get shipped overseas from the U.S. to the developing world, where they are cheaply, and often haphazardly, broken down for recycling. Now, millions of dollars of U.S. (and Indian) venture capital are following that disassembly chain. Attero, an … Read More »
The Daily Sprout
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 20, 2008, 6:22pm PT
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Nexus India Capital Closes $220M Fund With Cleantech Focus: Mumbai-based Nexus India Capital closed a second early stage fund of $220 million to invest in 20 to 25 startups in clean technology, as well as consumer, business services and media sectors over the next three years … Read More »
With oil and gas prices dropping, some think energy might become a less pressing issue for the remainder of the campaign. But McCain took time to fly to an oil rig this week to continue pushing for offshore drilling. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg … Read More »
Using nanorobots to build circuits is so last year’s fantasy. The latest technology of tomorrow uses viruses to construct everything from transistors to tiny batteries to solar cells. Researchers at MIT published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week … Read More »
More Must Reads
Following yesterday’s news that Google has invested more than $10 million in geothermal R&D, the Australian government has announced a A$50 million (US$43.5 million) project to tap into the nation’s geothermal energy. It’s an avalanche of hot rock investments. Aussie authorities estimate that just 1 … Read More »
Smart-meter deployment is happening all across the continent (and beyond) and the funding keeps rolling in, in increasingly large tranches. Trilliant, a smart-grid startup, announced today that it has raised $40 million in equity investment. … Read More »
Dude, Where’d My Stimulus Go?: A new study from research firm IHL Group says that the intended stimulating effects of the Economic Stimulus Package have been wiped out by a $132.4 billion increase in food and fuel prices – Press Release. Shipping Waste to China Saves … Read More »
The West Virginia state motto goes “Montani semper liberi” or “Mountaineers are always free.” But the coal-filled mountains of the Appalachia aren’t free and for decades have been owned by big coal companies, which have been content to extract the coal and destroy the mountain in … Read More »
Google’s gotten all steamed up on its quest to make renewable energy cheaper than coal and today has announced $10.25 million in investments in geothermal technologies. Specifically, the money is going towards a technology known as “enhanced geothermal systems,” an approach that doesn’t require existing … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 18, 2008, 6:09pm PT
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Corruption in the Wind?: In upstate New York the permitting and zoning laws are controlled by the same people who sell concrete to the wind farms developers – NYTimes. Big Blue Launches “Green Sigma”: IBM has launched Green Sigma, a new consulting practice focused on reducing … Read More »
Trading in preparation for America’s first mandated cap-and-trade scheme for greenhouse gas emissions started on Friday on the Climate Futures Exchange. Futures and options contracts for 70,000 permits were traded under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cooperative of 10 Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic … Read More »
Less than a month after Green Energy Technologies signed a deal for a thin-film solar module production line from Applied Materials, the company says it has already received requests for four times its expected capacity next year, Bloomberg reports. The solar silicon-wafer maker, … Read More »
California utilities continue to snap up large clean energy contracts in preparation for the state’s aggressive renewable portfolio standard. Today, Southern California Edison announced it has signed a 20-year contract for 909 megawatts of wind power from DCE, an affiliate of Caithness … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 16, 2008, 12:30pm PT
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Congress is on vacation and the price of oil is slipping, but the energy debate in America continues to boil. Cleantech startups are still making moves and, in case the Olympics had you distracted, here are the big headlines from this week’s cleantech news. PG&E Signs … Read More »
This week, Democrats are simultaneously edging closer to the middle on domestic oil exploration and trying to coat McCain in Big Oil’s ill-gotten profits. Meanwhile McCain met with one of the biggest former oilmen, T. Boone Pickens. But McCain hasn’t put in the effort to renew … Read More »
The World Bank estimates that some 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas are flared at oil fields annually, adding 400 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere — just because it’s cheaper to burn it than transport it. But Synfuels, a startup … Read More »
The booming U.S. wind market is set to cross the 150 gigawatt mark by 2020, according to a report from market research firm Emerging Energy Research (EER). That includes 5.33 GW installed last year, and another 8 GW currently under construction and planned … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 14, 2008, 5:45pm PT
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T. Boone Pickens: Oil Won’t Go Below $100: The inimitable Mr. Pickens predicted today that while oil may soon drop to $110 a barrel he doesn’t think crude will sink below the $100 mark. Meanwhile Boone’s own business prospects, his BP Capital and his Clean … Read More »
How’s an avid online video watcher supposed to get the latest episodes without leaving the computer on all the time? A new chipset from Intel might solve this problem, and save some energy (I’m repping NewTeeVee sister site Earth2Tech here), by allowing media providers … Read More »
Even though Apple has yet to show off turn-by-turn directions on the GPS-enabled iPhone, navigation is one of the fastest-growing categories of mobile devices apps. As comScore recently noted, map use on cell phones in the U.S. during the three-month period ended May 31 … Read More »
Amyris Biotechnologies, a startup using synthetic biology to replace petroleum, has added another $21 million to its already sizable $70 million funding round. This brings the total for its ongoing series B round to $91.35 million. The company confirmed the funding with us … Read More »
Could Kevin Rose, Silicon Valley wunderkind and founder of Digg, Pownce and Revision3, be going green? The Internet entrepreneur proposed a gadget idea on his personal blog recently (hat tip Smart Planet) that could potentially be its own cleantech startup. … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 14, 2008, 12:00am PT
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Could Kevin Rose be latest convert from info tech to cleantech? In a recent video blog post, the Digg founder fleshed out an idea for making managing the power consumption of your home’s many gadgets a little more eco-friendly and way more gizmo-geeky. The idea … Read More »
Tesla’s president and CEO Ze’ev Drori has exercised his civic duty via the age-old agent of democracy — the strongly-worded letter. Drori posted a letter on Tesla’s blog to Mary Nichols, Chairperson of the California Air Resources Board, that vehemently disagrees with the Board’s decision … Read More »
In a ridiculous publicity stunt that shows the lighter side of cow power, northern California utility PG&E and BioEnergy Solutions said today they will power a children’s train ride with renewable biogas, courtesy of California dairy cows, at the California State Fair this weekend in … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 12, 2008, 9:00pm PT
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Our list of startups trying to squeeze fuel from pond scum is growing as quickly as an algal bloom. Today we can add AXI, a new startup spun out of the University of Washington TechTransfer program, which has scored an undisclosed … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 12, 2008, 5:30pm PT
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Sam’s Club Selling Solar Panels: Nine Sam’s Club (owned by Wal-Mart) stores in southern California will be promoting rooftop solar installations in the stores and offer $500 discounts. Deals will be offered through residential installers Borrego Solar and BP Solar – CNet. Johnson Controls-Saft Gets $8.2M … Read More »
In the last two days, the Department of Energy has announced $24 million worth of new investments in solar energy while also revealing it’s putting a whopping $340 million into yet more clean coal research. In conjunction with the funding announcements, the DOE says … Read More »
Hot rocks are hot business as geothermal contracts get snapped up by hungry utilities, and those who can tap into subterranean hot pockets are cashing in. ThermaSource, provider of drilling, engineering and consulting services for the geothermal energy industry, has raised $41.5 … Read More »
Q&A with Paul Holland of Foundation Capital: Holland says that “we’re entering the second inning of the clean-tech investing game.” So who’s batting cleanup? – San Jose Mercury News. Barclays Invests in Mainstream Renewable Power: The U.K. bank led a €40 million ($60 million) equity fund … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 11, 2008, 4:08pm PT
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The formerly dry subject of transmission infrastructure is becoming a hot topic as proposals for sprawling wind and solar farms require new lines to be built out in the middle of nowhere. While there’s been a boom in renewable energy projects, the infrastructure to … Read More »
What gets measured gets managed, and for too long the processes that emit carbon into the atmosphere have gone unmanaged. The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), a nonprofit consortium of some 385 global institutional investors with a combined asset base of more than $57 trillion, is … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 11, 2008, 9:59am PT
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GE Energy Financial Services today said it is investing $141 million into a wind farm owned by Spanish renewable energy developer and wind turbine maker Acciona. The 180 megawatt Tatanka Wind Farm, on the North Dakota-South Dakota border, uses 120 Acciona 1.5 … Read More »
An unlikley partnership between an Austin-based semiconductor maker, a Michigan-based engineering firm and a Chinese motorcycle maker is working together to reduce the air pollution coming from Beijing’s many motorcycles. Electrojet is using Freescale’s advanced microcontroller technology in a new fuel injection system … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 9, 2008, 12:30pm PT
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The Beijing Olympics, the supposed “Green Olympics,” kicked off yesterday and America watched on tape-delay as China made its first move at its coming out party. In case you were distracted by the amazing synchronicity of the opening ceremonies, we’ve gathered all the big cleantech headlines … Read More »
The smoggy skies of Beijing might not clear up, but plenty of clean technologies have been deployed in preparation for the Olympic games. And that has meant good business for green firms all over the world. China invested $12 billion in renewable energy … Read More »
The solar arm of Spanish renewable energy and engineering giant Abengoa says it has completed raising funds for four new solar power installations it plans to build across Spain — Over €280 million ($426.33 million) was raised from 14 mostly Spanish banks for the projects. … Read More »
EU and UN to Link Carbon Trading Schemes in 2008: The European Commission and officials at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change say their two carbon trading schemes will be linked before the end of the year, joining two of the largest carbon markets – … Read More »
The EPA has denied a request by Texas Governor Rick Perry to cut the federal Renewable Fuel Standard in half. The RFS mandates the blending of 9 billion gallons of grain-based ethanol into national gasoline supplies this year; the EPA is authorized under law to … Read More »
Cleantech entrepreneurs might consider turning off Sand Hill Road and heading to Park Avenue with today’s news that private equity firm Blackstone Group is establishing a new business group focused on cleantech investment. Blackstone, which has $113.5 billion worth of assets … Read More »
The cleantech industry will see some of its first jail time as a former state official has been sentenced to 40 months of prison for accepting a $200,000 bridbe to expedite permitting of a proposed ethanol plant in North Carolina, the AP reports. Boyce Hudson … Read More »
By Craig Rubens
Aug. 6, 2008, 5:30pm PT
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Tesla Grabs Mazda Design Director: Franz von Holzhausen, former Director of Design for Mazda North America, has joined Tesla Motors as Chief Designer. This is the third auto industry vet Tesla has snapped up recently. The startup got a new EVP of Vehicle Engineering from … Read More »
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