A new industrial strategy for the continent aims to unlock €100 billion in private-sector funding through the use of targeted public-sector funding for R&D in the fields of nanoelectronics and microelectronics. Read more »
Is $20 million the final valuation of electric car maker Fisker Automotive? Yikes, that’s what a group is reportedly bidding on Fisker for, and which would be less than 1% of its original valuation. Read more »
Google’s moonshot lab Google X is buying up Makani Power, a startup that makes a kite-like wind power device. It’s probably the best place for the long shot, big idea that is high altitude wind. Read more »
The European Commission-funded project wants data center designers and operators to test prototypes of tools that should, from 2014, make it easier to build data centers that are as energy-efficient as possible. Read more »
An article from Data Center Knowledge points to things robots can do to increase efficiency in data centers. But hurdles lie ahead, and data centers will still need administrators, the article suggests. Read more »
Electric car maker Tesla Motors could make history again, if it pays off its loan from the Department of Energy many years before its due. According to a tweet from the CEO that could be as early as today. Read more »
Entrepreneurs are subject to many of the same biases that cause people to persist with their investments, and don’t necessarily behave to always maximize outcomes when presented with lucrative new opportunities, a new study says. Read more »
Venture capital-backed lithium ion battery startup Amprius is finally moving into commercial production, with an announcement that it has OEM partners in place, and will start making its second-gen batteries later this year. Read more »
Quantum computers, which have recently been bought by Google and Lockheed Martin, aren’t just sophisticated computers, they need to operate at near absolute zero temperatures to deliver their quantum effects, and that’s a tricky problem. Read more »
By the wireless power invested in me, I now pronounce you a couple. Two wireless charging companies combine and agree on a single power standard. That’s great but there’s still much work to be done in this industry. Read more »
An air battery — long the holy grail of battery researchers — could see commercialization next year by startup Eos Energy Storage. Read more »
Power companies in areas with a growing amount of clean power are looking at new ways to store compressed air underground. The Pacific Northwest could get some of these next-gen air technologies in the coming years. Read more »
Imagine if Nikola Tesla had to pitch venture capitalists to fund his idea. The reaction to his crazy ideas would be precisely what you see on this video. Sadly, the video also says a lot about the skewed risk and investment system in Silicon Valley these days. Read more »
Companies are looking to harness underwater pressure for energy generation and storage. Read more »
Startup Re:char hopes to deliver a low cost Android gadget plug-in that can test the moisture content and fertility of soil. Kenyan farmers get ready to meet the latest in data analytics and cloud services. Read more »
Google and the Catlin Seaview Survey are working as fast as they can to map the world’s coral reefs in Google Streetview. But the project’s founder fears he may be too late. Read more »
The first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis is developed for producing hydrogen with cheap components and biomimicry. Read more »
As a boom of solar panels continues to be installed on buildings throughout the U.S., companies, groups and even every day people can make money off of funding this clean energy transition. Read more »
Tesla is now officially a success according to blind-sided investors and media. Tesla didn’t emerge last week with a win, it’s taken a decade to deliver and true game-changing innovation takes a very long time. Read more »
SunPower plans to sell lithium ion batteries — or other energy storage technology — bundled with solar panels. The move follows other solar companies into the energy storage space. Read more »
Tesla could raise another $830 million in a new offering in a combination of selling common stock, and issuing senior convertible notes. That means Tesla can pay back its DOE loan early, among other things. Read more »
Peer-to-peer car sharing startup RelayRides tells us that long-term sharing — over days, weeks and months — makes up the bulk of their sales. Is this an emerging trend for this nascent service? Read more »
The first summit in London, which is produced in partnership with Google’s Solve For X initiative, will focus on emerging tech such as the internet of things, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and sensors. Read more »
SolarCity is one of the leaders when it comes to installing solar panels on home owner’s rooftops. But the company’s $31 million loss, in its latest quarter, shows the growing pains for the retail solar players. Read more »
Orange, the French telco giant, unveiled the first 6 startups in its inaugural accelerator program, including startups building hardware and software for the developing world, and startups using data to make clouds and online identities secure. Read more »
Fifty-seven percent of drivers Cisco surveyed said they would let themselves be chauffeured around town by a driverless car. The number was even higher among Americans. Read more »
Peer-to-peer car sharing company RelayRides has bought up startup Wheelz, partly for its automated system that lets users easily unlock and drive away in a car without having to get a key from the owner. Read more »
Philips is giving its connected Hue light bulb an update that connects it to IFTTT so people can tie their light bulbs into existing web services. It’s also adding a location-aware feature and scheduling. Read more »
After three years of investigation, the GreenTouch consortium issued its first recommendations for energy efficient telecom networks. GreenTouch claims the roadmap, if implemented, would cut the communications industry’s power needs to a fraction of current levels. Read more »
Ventus, a citizen science project based at Arizona State University wants eagle-eyed environmentalists to map power plants and hopes to use the crowdsourced data to improve global carbon cycle models. Read more »
The Valley’s fuel cell startup Bloom Energy has now raised over $1.1 billion, according to a report. While Bloom has gotten strong traction, particularly with data center operators, fuel cell manufacturing is difficult and capital intensive business. Read more »
Can quantum computing be the key to a much safer power grid? A California startup, GridCOM, plans to show just how quantum encryption could be a nearly fail-proof shield against cybersecurity breaches. Read more »
When planning our solar panel home project in 2011, we figured on paper that it would take nearly a dozen years to break even on the investment. Turns out that adding an electric vehicle has cut that figure roughly in half. Read more »
An annual Stanford University startup competition awarded $150,000 in prize money on Friday to ideas in construction engineering and medical devices, among others. Read more »
At our current pace of consumption, the world’s demands for compute power will quickly outpace the energy provided by our data centers. The solution is a global smart grid, and Europe provides a model for what that might look like. Read more »
Mark Zuckerberg’s immigration reform group Fwd.us is losing two big players this week: Elon Musk and David Sacks. A bad sign for the Valley’s latest political group? Read more »
Capturing energy from light and heat using tiny antennas could be a way to produce solar energy at a lower cost, and capture and reuse waste heat from industrial processes. They’re still in the prototype phase. Read more »
Algorithms to manage connected thermostats and collect their data have become a hot property in 2013. Alarm.com snaps up startup EnergyHub for its thermostat management software. Read more »
Following the Fisker debacle, another auto maker with a government loan has stopped operations. Vehicle Production Group, which made natural gas and gas-powered vans for disabled passengers, says it’s closed up shop. Read more »
Google, NASA, USGS and TIME have released a set of photos that show a “picture of Earth through time.” It is stunning to see Amazon rainforest shrink and a glacier vanish. Impressive Read more »
