Lotsa little funding announcements popped up on my radar today, kicking the week off with a feeling that the cleantech investing train won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Plus, it’s helping us ignore that whole recession thing. Following is more than $50 million in green-tinged deal […] Read more »
The fight against climate change in the U.S. is getting billions of VC dollars for tech innovation, the attention of presidential candidates, and game-changing legislation. So what else could it possibly need? Better advertising, at least according to Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. Vice […] Read more »
The fight against climate change in the U.S. is getting billions of VC dollars for tech innovation, the attention of presidential candidates, and game-changing legislation. So what else could it possibly need? Better advertising, at least according to Nobel Peace Prize winner and former Vice President […] Read more »
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Despite the fact that Google said Blackle, the all-black site based on the company’s search engine technology that claimed to save energy, was BS, the search giant turned its home page black for Earth Hour this weekend. Google said the gesture was aimed at raising awareness […] Read more »
Carbon Sponge Box: Researchers at Tucson, Arizona’s Global Research Technologies have built a refrigerator-sized device that acts like a sponge for carbon emissions. Called the Atmospheric Carbon Capture Systems (ACCESS) Air-Capture System, the secretive material used captures carbon from the air (currently at a rate of […] Read more »
If you needed further proof that fuel cells still aren’t ready for mainstream consumer electronics, here you go: Silicon Valley fuel cell maker Jadoo Power has revamped its business to focus on Uncle Sam. The company, which makes a fuel cell in the 50-watt-to-2-kilowatt range that […] Read more »
Update: Bummer. The California Resource Board voted to cut the number of zero-emission vehicles that auto makers would be required to produce to sell in Cali by 70 percent (to 7,500 for the three years from 2012 to 2014.) While that was less than its staff […] Read more »
Looks like Israel isn’t the only place that’s willing to take a chance on Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle infrastructure plan: Denmark has decided to give Project Better Place a go, too. Today Danish utility DONG Energy and Silicon Valley startup Project Better Place said they plan […] Read more »
Updated: If corn-based biofuels are the Britney Spears of the cleantech world (a fallen star but still all over the place), fuel made from algae is the next great American Idol winner (major potential in the pipeline). And despite the fact that algae-to-biofuel startups have been […] Read more »
A startup out of MIT that has developed new ways to manufacture and design silicon-based solar cells launched today with $12.4 million in funding from North Bridge Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners. The new solar firm, 1366 Technologies, was founded by MIT Professor Ely Sachs, […] Read more »
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It was questionable whether the much-blogged-about Toshiba micro nuclear reactor was legit or not, but Toshiba does sell nuclear tech and it’s spending a lot of money trying to break into the U.S. market. The latest comes this afternoon: power company NRG Energy put out a […] Read more »
Let’s face is it: Shame can be a much stronger driver of behavioral change than positive reinforcement. A mandatory note on my Facebook page that lets everyone know how much I’ve driven, or how many plane flights I’ve taken since the beginning of 2008, would be […] Read more »
Xerox has been in a long-term makeover session, attempting to convince customers it’s more than just a copier and printer company (its hard when you’re branded as a verb). Part of that revamp has been a nod towards more sustainability, because, hey, what’s more wasteful than […] Read more »
The Wall Street Journal finally posted its conversation with Kleiner Perkins green VC John Doerr from its recent ECO:nomics conference in Santa Barbara. The eco-biz magnate, who’s firm is investing a third of its portfolio, or $250 million, in greentech, puts greentech investing on a scale […] Read more »
Genomics guru and cleantech entrepreneur Craig Venter is no stranger to finding creative ways to commercialize his scientific and more recent eco-themed research. In a review of Craig Venter’s book A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life in the London Review of Books, writer Steven Shapin […] Read more »
It’s official, Spring is here, and warm weather and bbqs are starting to become regular events around GigaOM’s HQ. But before you go outside and romp on this gorgeous Saturday check out what happened in cleantech this week: Tesla Starts Cranking, Slowly: Tesla started “regular production,” […] Read more »
While Google is busy being a power company, a cleantech VC and an all-round eco do-gooder, the search giant is also working on its plug-in electric vehicle project, on which it plans to spend $10 million and has converted four Toyota Priuses and two Ford Escape […] Read more »
Given the Bush administration’s reputation for failing to lead the fight against climate change, does the White House’s eco policy chief, James Connaughton, have any last-minute regrets? Actually he does, though they’re more a matter of managing PR than actual policy moves. At a talk he […] Read more »
While the solar industry has been shining bright over the past few years, the industry’s forecast isn’t all sunshine, according to a report issued Thursday morning from Lux Research. Even though solar revenues are expected to more than triple to $70.9 billion in 2012 from $21.2 […] Read more »
Some of the most important cleantech innovations can be created by tweaking traditional carbon-emitting sources to make them more efficient. Startup Advanced Power Projects is doing just that with traditional power plants, and has raised a Series A round of funding from Sequoia Capital, Redpoint and […] Read more »
Former Vice President-turned-Kleiner-Perkins-green-VC Al Gore and Cisco’s charismatic CEO John Chambers will be giving a virtual talk on how tech innovation can fight climate change this morning. It’s not just a means to educate the world on cleantech opps, the two will be stumping Cisco’s “TelePresence,” […] Read more »
One of the most well-funded cleantech startups in 2007, GreatPoint Energy, is using its more than $115 million in funding to tread a path toward commercializing its clean-coal technology. This week the company, which converts coal and other fossil fuels into pipeline-quality natural gas and then […] Read more »
Note to all those Tesla customers — Gavin Newsom, Flea, George Clooney — that have been waiting patiently for their electric sports cars: The Silicon Valley green carmaker has started “regular” production of the Roadster. Woot-woot! That means customers who managed to get in line for […] Read more »
True Value of Solar: UC Berkeley Haas School professor and director of the UC Energy Institute, Severin Borenstein — the one who said that people who install solar panels today are “throwing money away” — gave a thorough talk on Monday defending his calculations. — UC […] Read more »
When we interviewed Sanjiv Malhotra, CEO of fuel startup Oorja Protonics, last month, the company was still in stealth mode. Guess they decided St. Paddy’s Day should also be their coming out party — they just put out a press release declaring their public launch. Um, […] Read more »
The world’s largest natural gas producer — and Russia’s biggest firm — is getting into the smart metering business. The UK subsidiary of natural gas giant Gazprom says it has taken an equity stake in UK smart metering company TruRead. TruRead’s technology enables the remote reading […] Read more »
It takes a lot of cash to build a next-generation ethanol plant. Range Fuels, the startup that is racing to be the first cellulosic ethanol producer in the U.S., has just raised a massive round of $100 million in funding, according to Venture Wire and PEhub.com. […] Read more »
Boulder Getting Smart Grid: Power company Xcel Energy says it will turn Boulder, Colorado into the first “Smart Grid City” including advanced meters, substations, in home control devices, and infrastructure to support distributed energy generation — Clean Edge. Virgin Not the Only One with Biofuel Flight […] Read more »
The folks behind last months Greener Gadgets conference have put together an edited video clip of the panel Earth2Tech organized, which included execs of several startups that are selling mobile devices powered by alternative sources of energy. The panel included kinetic power startup M2E Power, hand-held […] Read more »
Now that Shai Agassi’s electric vehicle network startup Project Better Place has started to charge ahead in its first market, Israel, the company has begun to put the pieces in place to actually build the 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. First off, the company has named […] Read more »
When Google launched an online carbon footprint calculator in the UK back in October, we overlooked how interesting theopen platform behind the Google product was. It’s called AMEE — which stands for the unsubtle Avoiding Mass Extinctions Engine, and its an API that aggregates the information […] Read more »
If your cleantech company relies on green policies and is even remotely well-funded, chances are there’s a cleantech lobbyist on your payroll. Case in point: biofuel startup Virent Energy Systems, which as Forbes notes in a company profile has been regularly visiting the Hill to generally […] Read more »
Even though ethanol maker Coskata is backed by some of the biggest names in cleantech — Khosla, General Motors — and had one of the splashiest company launches in the industry, the team was reluctant to provide details about their latest funding round. Well, that’s why […] Read more »
Like most conferences that have a hip image to uphold this year, South by Southwest is making a concerted effort to cast an eco-friendly light on their 2008 technology, music and film festival. The organizers are purchasing renewable energy credits from the city of Austin, and […] Read more »
Much like the nagging sustainability issues that are plaguing biofuel production, making solar panels has a dark undercurrent as well. This weekend the Washington Post published an investigative piece looking into Chinese polysilicon manufacturing companies accused of dumping a toxic byproduct, silicon tetrachloride, into local villages. […] Read more »
What do Russian rocket scientists know about wind power? A lot, at least according to entrepreneur Rick Halstead, who is creating a wind turbine design company with a group of Russian engineers that previously built submarine-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles. Not exactly the most common resume bullet […] Read more »
Our favorite genomics guru and cleantech entrepreneur Craig Venter gave a thorough talk on digitizing biology, designing and synthesizing life, and creating “fourth-generation biofuels” (WTF are those by the way?) at the recent TED conference. TED organizers just put the clip up on the site. (TED’s […] Read more »
When we talked with Mike Gering, CEO of thin-film solar company Global Solar back in January, he said the company would start manufacturing at a plant in Tucson, Arizona, near the end of March. Well, this morning Global Solar put out a press release officially announcing […] Read more »
A member of the cleantech elite, Tesla Chairman Elon Musk, has backed Climos, a San Francisco startup that plans to seed the ocean with iron in order to capture carbon. So what does Musk see in the controversial technology, given that other startups that worked on […] Read more »
While GE usually saves its green dollars for renewable energy like solar and wind, the company said this morning that it’s making two investments in the electric vehicle space. The first is Norwegian electric vehicle maker Think Global, in which GE says it has invested $4 […] Read more »
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