When a company is developing battery technology for eco-chic plug-in hybrid vehicles (including work on converted plug-in Priuses), it’s not hard to become a well-known name in the cleantech industry. And being high-profile is helpful when it comes to raising funding — this afternoon the six-year-old […] Read more »
Niche video just got even more specialized with the addition of a “green” video-sharing network. emPivot, which has been in public beta since August, offers a combination of video hosting for green organizations as well as a green-tailored search engine to deliver environmentally relevant media. Founded […] 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 aren’t generating […] Read more »
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What do thin-film solar, traffic-management technology and power storage all have in common? They’re all innovations that can help fight climate change, and they’re all getting investments from Battelle Ventures and its affiliate fund, Innovation Valley Partners (IVP). The firms said this morning that they will […] Read more »
It was only mid-August when we heard that HelioVolt had raised a whopper of a $77 million Series B round. But given it’s taking many thin film solar startups a lot of capital to get to the production stage, we’re not surprised that this morning the […] Read more »
In our increasingly digital world, power is one of the main “cost centers” and most large Internet and telecom companies are grappling with this problem in unique sort of ways. Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) are putting their data centers right next to hydroelectric power generation […] Read more »
Trying to bring the production of biofuels closer to their consumption destination — be it the feedstock or the pumping station — isn’t a new idea. Several of Vinod Khosla’s biofuel investments are focused on cutting down the energy, and thus the cost, expended in transportation. […] Read more »
Vinod Khosla gave a speech down at Sand Hill Road yesterday in which he offered the most detailed description of his portfolio companies that we’ve heard. Breaking it down into four categories — the war on oil, the war on coal, efficiency and materials — he […] Read more »
Given Tesla’s first electric car model won’t reach customers until next year, the hundreds of its eco-conscious sports car-loving (occasional celebrity) customers that have actually made it onto the waiting list are likely getting a bit antsy. And they probably wouldn’t like to watch the six […] Read more »
Paul Dickerson, the COO of the federal government’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), says he has two goals: One, show industry and the venture capital worlds that his department is a friend to business – not isolated and bureaucratic, like government divisions tend […] Read more »
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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 millions. […] Read more »
Solar Thermal Trend: Ausra’s John O’Donnell leads us through the trend in utility-scale solar thermal plants — BusinessWeek. Grid Gear: Utilities are checking out battery options to beef up the power grid — MIT Tech Review. Power grid watchdog, we need power lines: The group that […] Read more »
There’s a lot of obvious costs of climate change — you know, like making the Earth uninhabitable. Some of the lesser known costs to industry can be quantified and the University of Maryland’s Center for Integrative Environmental Research put out a report recently looking into some […] Read more »
One day, the old-skool electricity grid will have the smart network capabilities of the Internet — distributed, self-healing, maybe even peer-to-peer. It’s a huge future business opportunity that’s prompting investors to put money into startups like GridPoint, which this morning said it closed a $48.5 million […] 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 told a conference […] Read more »
Climate change means we’ll be facing more unpredictable weather — and if you’re in a weather-sensitive business like farming or owning a ski resort, unexpected weather can mean a significant loss of sales. San Francisco startup WeatherBill, founded by former Google (GOOG) exec David Friedberg, offers […] Read more »
Ztek to Bloom Energy, Stop Infringing: Fuel-cell company Ztek has accused competitor Bloom Energy of patent infringement, according to a Calif. government document reported by Greentech Media. Branson’s BioJetFuel: Richard Branson said Virgin Group wants to make biofuels at the beginning of the next decade and […] Read more »
When Bill Joy was hired by venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Paul Kedrosky wondered if Joy would be a Bob Metcalfe (a high-profile person that moved to VC late and fits the job) or a Stewart Alsop (a high-profile person that moved to VC […] Read more »
Corn-based ethanol just can’t win. Even Biotown USA — a town renamed for biofuels a couple years ago — couldn’t make the economics of an ethanol plant built by VeraSun (VSE) work in this current market. Now another ethanol producer, BioFuel Energy Corp. (BIOF), has said […] Read more »
Despite all the new efforts in clean technology, our world still bears the scars of many years of dirty technologies. One particularly nasty leftover is an industrial degreaser called trichloroethylene (TCE), which is found in more than 60 percent of U.S. Superfund toxic waste cleanup sites. […] Read more »
EnerDel To Power Think: EnerDel says it has signed a deal with Think Global to supply the of choice for lithium-ion batteries — release. Governator Signs Bill for $125M Per Year For Green Cars: The California governor signed a bill to spend $125M annually on alternative […] Read more »
Here’s betting you’ve never heard of one of the world’s top ten killers: indoor air pollution. Every day roughly 3 billion people around the world cook and heat their homes by burning biomass such as wood, crop waste, and dung without proper ventilation, and, according to […] Read more »
Steve Jobs is probably as tired of Greenpeace watching Apple’s (AAPL) eco moves as we’re sick of hearing about Nicole Richie’s pregnancy — as in, a lot. Greenpeace released a report this morning that says Apple’s mobile game changer — the iPhone — contains toxic brominated […] Read more »
Now that Silicon Valley’s own electric car company, Tesla, is planning on delivering the Roadster at least a year behind schedule, the company is doing some serious PR work in the WSJ this morning, with both an article and a video interview with co-founder and former […] Read more »
If Al Gore is the Nobel Peace Prize-winning embodiment of technology and the environment, the growing masses of eco-bloggers — bloggers waxing on all things earth-friendly — represent the intersection of broadband and the environmental movement. At no other time has the barrier to blogging and […] Read more »
Written by Alistair Croll, vice president of product management and co-founder of Coradiant Virtualization and on-demand computing are giving companies new reasons to worry about code efficiency. Once upon a time, lousy coding didn’t matter. Coder Joel and I could write the same app, and while […] Read more »
They’re on the cover of both this month’s National Geographic and Wired. They were mentioned in the State of the Union address. They’re raising hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital. And they’re on video. Yep, we’re talking about biofuels. Check out these biofuel video […] Read more »
There’s no individual that exemplifies the merging of the environmental movement and the technology industry more than former Vice President Al Gore. By now everyone’s seen his Academy Award-winning plea to fight climate change, and he’s a senior adviser to Google (GOOG), an Apple (AAPL) board […] Read more »
BP‘s new chief executive, Tony Hayward, announced a major business restructuring this week that could result in the company’s clean energy initiatives getting pushed to the back burner. Calling it “a fundamental shift” in the way the oil giant does business, Hayward said BP’s gas power […] Read more »
Vinod Khosla, the 52-year venture capitalist and founder of Khosla Ventures and Sun Microsystems, is leading Silicon Valley’s biofuel gold rush. Controversial to some (corn ethanol critics) and put on a pedestal by others (venture investors that follow his lead), he’s made at least 10 biofuel […] Read more »
SmartSpark Energy Raises $$$: Solar inverter technology (converts DC to AC) is the next place for investment, a VC told me recently. He looks to be right, and SmartSpark Energy said it raised an undisclosed round from Battery Ventures — release. Solar Decathlon Starts Tomorrow: Twenty […] Read more »
The division of the U.S. government’s National Security Space Office known as “Dream Works” (no joke) has formulated a vision for a space-based solar system that would capture sunlight with satellite solar arrays and beam it down to Earth. In a report released yesterday, the NSSO […] Read more »
In the race to produce cheaper solar cells using new manufacturing methods and materials, solar startups have been requiring more and more money to get their products to market. Over the past few months, Konarka, Miasolé, HelioVolt, and Nanosolar have all raised funding in an effort […] Read more »
Perhaps it’s because their conservative base is wary of the environmental issue, or maybe it’s because they don’t want to sound like tax-and-spend liberals, but the Republicans are quieter than the Democrats when it comes to exact figures for funding clean technologies. However, the major Republican […] Read more »
Unless you’re as clued in as Ms. Teen South Carolina, you’ve noticed that corporations are increasingly focused on lowering energy consumption, reducing carbon emissions and touting their general eco-friendliness. Less obvious is that the startups that are in the business of enabling this green trend – […] Read more »
Biodiesel Plant’s New Tech: Benefuel and Seymour Biofuels will build a biodiesel refinery based on solid catalyst that can convert low-grade fats and vegetable oils into biodiesel — Seattle PI. Shell Shilling for Clean Coal: Shell is looking to license its coal gasification technology — Reuters. […] Read more »
We don’t want to kick corn-based ethanol while it’s down, but in another sign that the ethanol boom is coming to an end, Monsanto (MON) CEO Hugh Grant is predicting a slight decline in corn plantings for 2008. This follows a 2007 crop season in which […] Read more »
Where do we tackle the dirty-burning coal dilemma — in the power plant or in the ground? (Or how about neither and we just go with clean energy?) Luca Technologies is betting on the ground, and the Golden, Colo.-based startup that works with naturally-occurring microbes in […] Read more »
Amidst all the inflated rhetoric about the war in Iraq, health care and new taxes, you’ll be forgiven if you’ve had trouble separating one candidate from the next on environmental technology issues. But one of these people might become the next president, and billions in funding […] Read more »
If you can measure it, you can manage it. When the “it” is temperature, even small differences allow you to manage a host of things. Space Instruments, a small San Diego company, has a high-resolution infrared sensing system that helps fight forest fires, contain oil spills, […] Read more »
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