Steve Fambro, founder and CEO of the three-wheeled electric vehicle startup Aptera, started building the first designs for what he envisioned as an electric highway-ready vehicle “with zero drag” in his garage five years ago. He reasoned: “Cars are not designed to be aerodynamic, they are […] Read more »
The ever-quotable cleantech venture investor Vinod Khosla gave a speech on Wednesday that managed to hit all of his controversial bullet points in the first 10 minutes. Here’s a video clip of the beginning of the speech, with his statements on replacing oil and coal in […] Read more »
It’s easy to get distracted by the micro moves of companies across the different cleantech sectors, from biofuels to solar to water, so it can be refreshing to step back and remember the planetary picture. Solar expert Yogi Goswami, director of the Solar Energy & Conversion […] Read more »
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Does the future of clean fuel rest on genomics? Craig Venter isn’t the only one that thinks so. OPX Biotechnologies, a Boulder, Colo.-based startup just a few months old, is also working on genetically modifying microbes for biofuel production. And this morning the company said that […] Read more »
The Wall Street Journal today, using the more than $2 billion in clean venture investments as a springboard, does its obligatory “finding the green in clean” article. But the story does do a good job of pointing out the risky and uninformed nature of some of […] Read more »
Where can you find the Earth2Tech crew this Wednesday and Thursday? Kicking it at ThinkGreen, a cleantech industry conference in San Francisco put on by ThinkEquity Partners that has an excellent line up of speakers like Vinod Khosla, new Tesla CEO Michael Marks, and SunPower CEO […] Read more »
Canada Pours C$1.5B Into Biofuels: The Canadian government announced a C$1.5 billion biofuels initiative, and plans to offer domestic biofuel makers incentives — Media.cleantech.com. All Coal All the Time: CNET posts a great FAQ on the dirty coal biz — CNET. Funds for Ottawa Solar Firm: […] Read more »
Holidays are traditionally a time of thoughtless consumption, when we try to justify overeating, overspending, and running our electricity bills sky-high. But that doesn’t mean that when it comes to buying more goods to stuff under the tree, we don’t want to make ourselves feel — […] Read more »
It’s becoming clear that the CEO shuffle at Silicon Valley electric car startup Tesla wasn’t exactly a friendly one. Last Friday, Tesla said company co-founder and former CEO, Martin Eberhard, who had stepped down in August to become the president of technology, will now transition from […] Read more »
It’s the first weekend of the month folks – we made it past Thanksgiving, now it’s a countdown to Christmas. Curl up around the fireplace with our best of last week. What better way to celebrate the holiday season? Check em out: Google Plans to Produce […] Read more »
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First Solar, Inc. (FSLR) the thin film solar company coined by some as the “Google of solar” for its recent meteoric stock rise, announced on Friday that it has acquired Ted Turner’s investment Turner Renewable Energy, for $34.3 million, in a combination of common stock of […] Read more »
Solar startups are winning venture investment like bookies at the Belmont — 35 solar venture deals this year, for a total of $664.6 million. And the Valley has its fair share of well-known, well-funded solar firms. But where can you find new innovation in solar cells […] Read more »
When Martin Eberhard, co-founder and CEO of Silicon Valley electric car startup Tesla, suddenly stepped down from his post last August, we knew it would take some time to find a permanent replacement. Now roughly three months later, the company, which has raised close to $100 […] Read more »
SunPower Gets A SugarDaddy in Morgan Stanley: Solar cell maker SunPower says Morgan Stanley will provide up to $190 million in financing for commercial and public solar installations — WSJ. Zonbu’s Subscription Service Adds a Notebook: The Valley’s energy-efficient PC company says it will sell a […] Read more »
The fact that billions of venture dollars are flowing into cleantech on an annual basis isn’t a real shocker these days, but the latest report out from Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association deserves some attention. The report says U.S. venture capital firms invested […] Read more »
Thorium for Cleaner Nuclear: Senators are pushing legislation to promote thorium, a cleaner-burning fuel for nuclear-power plants, that could cut nuclear-waste in half — MIT Technology Review. How Green is Your Web Work?: “If you telecommute, you’re not tearing up the highways and burning petroleum-based fuels […] Read more »
Google just announced an initiative to develop electricity from clean sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. In true geek fashion, they’re calling it “RE less than C” or “Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal.” The search giant will be looking to hire between […] Read more »
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers might have the green duo Gore and Doerr in their corner, and over at Khosla Ventures, well, obviously the biofuel Boss Vinod Khosla is leading that firm. But according to data from Thomson Financial and a post from Lawrence Aragon on […] Read more »
Here’s something to chew on following your 4-day weekend of successive holiday meals: Recently departed BP CEO John Browne gave a talk at BusinessWeek’s European Leadership Forum in London this weekend and the magazine reprinted the talk in its entirety. Browne is lauded as the first […] Read more »
When Khosla Ventures and Netherlands-based biofuel startup BIOeCON announced their joint biofuel venture KiOR earlier this month, the partners kept the size of the Series A investment hush-hush. But according to a regulatory filing picked up by PEhub.com, KiOR has raised just over $1.4 million. It’s […] Read more »
Matt Trevithick, a VC helping lead Venrock’s cleantech investments, tells me to Google his name and I’ll find a distant relative – Richard Trevithick –- who invented the first working steam locomotive. I did; he does. Like his inventor ancestor, Trevithick, the venture investor, is driven […] Read more »
We’ve all read that biofuels are driving up the price of [insert food here], from coffee to beer to meat — even gummy bears, for heaven’s sake. Now that it’s gobble day, of course we have to blame ethanol for higher-priced turkeys. CNBC says Thanksgiving dinner […] Read more »
Leave it to the newfound interest in energy savings to liven up decades-old research in what has been a somewhat plodding area of materials science: thermoelectric materials. MIT Institute Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus (check out her amazing volumes of research) and her co-workers are using nanotechnology […] Read more »
Fourth Tech Revolution Needs to Be Green: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a speech in which he says climate change is driving the need for a fourth tech revolution — AFP. Solar Jobs Booming Like It’s 1999: Silicon Valley solar startups are hiring like its […] Read more »
We’ll forgive you if you’ve never heard of camelina, a flowering plant similar to canola that can be used for its oil. But it’s the potential for biodiesel production that’s putting the little seed on center stage. This morning Targeted Growth, a company that modifies plants […] Read more »
Solar technology developer SolFocus keeps adding investors. This morning the startup, which makes arrays with lenses and curved mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells, said it has added $11.6 million to its latest funding round, bringing the total to $63.6 million. This is the close […] Read more »
Thou Shall Not Greenwash: Green consulting firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing released a study that says most eco-labels are down right lame — Joel Makower. New Deets on Aptera’s Eco 3-Wheeler: The Aptera Typ-1 will be ready early next year for less than $30,000 with both an […] Read more »
Throughout 2007, PG&E has touted its renewable energy road map, pledging to add clean power generation from sources like solar and wind as it works to reach the California state mandate of 20 percent of utility power from renewables by 2010. While the utility is close […] Read more »
Chip manufacturing company Applied Materials is continuing to buy its way into the solar markets. This morning, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said it plans to acquire Italy’s Baccini, a maker of metallization and testing equipment for photovoltaic solar cell production, for about $330 million. Baccini […] Read more »
The wheels of a $500 million academic and industry collaboration to fight carbon emissions with bio-energy, are starting to turn. On the 1st of December Christopher Somerville will officially start his work as the Director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, (EBI), a first of its kind, […] Read more »
Cleantech Fringe Photo Spread: CNET has an eye-candy photo essay of cutting edge photogenic clean energy tech. Purdy — CNET Yum, Fat in a Box: Pacific Natural Energy (PNE) has developed FatBox which can transform fat into fuel. I’m sure it’s very useful but it sounds […] Read more »
Enter your zip code into the newly launched Carbon Monitoring for Action web site and you’re likely to uncover some information that will surprise you — there’s really a power plant that close to me spewing hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of carbon emissions into […] Read more »
Venture Vehicles Bruce in NYT: We got a ride with Venture Vehicle’s Ian Bruce a few weeks ago, so we can tell you the NYT’s description of “an Italian-made alligator-skin boot”-wearing Bruce driving his “three-wheel thrill machine” is spot on. Though, still cheesy as heck — […] Read more »
Looks like the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute — a partnership between BP, and the research labs of UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to work on bioenergy technology — is finally up and running. The group said Wednesday […] Read more »
Former VP Al Gore has gone all cleantech VC, so why can’t a presidential candidate use a cleantech venture fund as a platform for election? Illinois Senator Barack Obama said on Wednesday that, if elected, he would create a ‘Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund’ backed […] Read more »
J. Craig Venter says he expects biology to largely replace what has been created by the oil industry. If anyone can comfortably make a statement like that to a room full of venture capitalists, it’s Venter. The genomics guru, who has had his own genome sequenced […] Read more »
Gore NOT Donating VC Stock Options: From the AP, “The donation does not include stock options. Typically, a tiny fraction of a venture capitalist’s compensation is salary; the vast majority of wealth comes from sale of stock options when the companies the firm invests in are […] Read more »
Biofuels, specifically corn-based ethanol, are being blamed for everything from rising food prices and famine to the degradation of land for biocrops (allowing Canada to breathe a sigh of relief). A lot of these critiques are spot on, but when complex politics are involved, it can […] Read more »
Fat Spaniel Raises $3M More: VentureWire says solar management software and hardware startup Fat Spaniel has raised a $3 million bridge round, and raising $20 million for a Series B round — VentureBeat via VentureWire. Canadian Fund Props Up Hybrid Rail: One of Canada’s largest pension […] Read more »
He has the Nobel Peace Prize and an Academy Award for his eco-work, what more could the former Vice President do for green technology? Ah yes, help a Silicon Valley venture firm invest in it. The word is out this morning that Al Gore will join […] Read more »
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