Following the close of a year which saw the politicization of clean energy technologies, the struggles of dozens of solar manufacturers and electric car companies, and a “cleantech cliff” for startup investing, the 2013 ARPA-E Summit could be a sober affair. Read more »
Education about energy is crucial for smarter decision making, which is why I’m excited that the Energy Literacy document, created by the DOE and many others, is finally out. Read more »
In case you were wondering how KiOR, the biofuel company backed by Khosla Ventures, is coming along, the firm announced its fourth quarter and full 2011 year earnings on Monday. And yep, the company is still in a pre-revenue state. Read more »
Biochemical and biotech company Amyris told investors this week that it will stop pursuing making biofuels, reports MIT Tech Review. Read more »
One of the key misplaced assumptions that Valley VCs made in cleantech boom times is that the rapid progress of Moore’s Law could be created for cleantech with a little bit of VC funding and Valley smarts. Read more »
Asia, with its rapidly growing number of car owners and large pollution problems, could very well be the biggest market for biofuels and green chemicals one day. LanzaTech, which announced Monday it has raised $55.8 million, is certainly finding more willing customers and partners Asia. Read more »
This weekend in New York City, dozens of developers gathered for the second Cleanweb Hackathon, where programmers spent the weekend building mobile and web apps around new ways to manage energy. The event is the latest sign the ecosystem around clean technology is changing. Read more »
One of the difficulties with investing in cleantech startups is that investors sometimes need to take very long term views of the companies they back, despite that companies can be risky. Next-gen biofuel company KiOR is a prime example of this long term, high risk phenomenon. The reality is that the liquidity of KiOR’s IPO could be locked up for a long time, potentially many years down the road, until — and if — the company scales up and meets expectations. This research note examines KiOR’s place in the market and what it means for other early-stage companies when it comes to investment. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Amyris, BIOeCON and Range Fuels and Solazyme. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the difficulties with investing in cleantech startups is that investors sometimes need to take very long term views of the companies they back, despite that companies can be risky. Next-gen biofuel company KiOR is a prime example of this long term, high risk phenomenon. Read more »
Oil giant BP has invested in biofuel startup CoolPlanet BioFuels, according to an announcement on Thursday. CoolPlanet BioFuels is the biofuel startup you have never heard of but that has unusually famous investors like GE, Google, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips. Read more »
Out of all of Google’s close to $1 billion in clean power projects, turning biomass into energy seems like the least relevant technology to Google’s core business. But Google has made a few small investments into biomass projects, including a hog waste to energy project. Read more »
Physics Professor Tom Murphy takes us through the math of the biofuel grind. And it ain’t pretty. Read more »
Genomics guru Craig Venter and his startup Synthetic Genomics might be hitting some hurdles with their partnership with Exxon, but on Monday the company announced that it will create a joint venture with Mexican investing group Plenus to use genomics to create more sustainable crop production. Read more »
Biofuels made from algae that will be able to scale, and compete with oil, will have to be synthesized and will not come from nature, says genomics scientist and entrepreneur Craig Venter. That notion could put a damper on Venter’s current deal with oil giant Exxon. Read more »
Biofuel companies continue to look to the public markets. On Friday, trash-to-fuel company Fulcrum BioEnergy filed for an IPO that could raise up to $115 million. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based company, which has generated no revenues, turns garbage into ethanol using a gasification and purification process. Read more »
Mascoma is the latest biofuel company that plans to go public. Here’s a few red flags, and some other numbers, I found in the filing: Read more »
A new Y Combinator–style incubator that will focus solely on the intersection of energy and information technology is launching in Houston, the founder of the group, Kirk Brand Coburn, told me in an exclusive interview. Read more »
There will be no loan guarantee for recently public biofuel company KiOR, at least this year. According to correspondence with the SEC, KiOR put its application for 2011 on hold in May, with plans to roll it over to 2012 — assuming the program gets funded for 2012. Read more »
Four-year-old OPX Biotechnologies, which uses genomics to make biofuel production more efficient and economic, is in the process of raising a $45 million round, and has closed on $37 million of that funding, according to a filing. Read more »
Biofuel firm KiOR, which debuted on the Nasdaq this morning priced at $15 per share, also closed the day at $15 per share — in other words, as flat as a Britney Spear’s high note. Read more »
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to join the board of biofuel startup KiOr in July. Not coincidentally, the news comes the week that KiOr is reportedly planning to official price its IPO, which could raise up to $241 million on the Nasdaq. Read more »
While Bloom Energy scored a preliminary massive deal to sell fuel cells to Delaware utility Delmarva Power (subject to terms and regulatory approval), utilities in general are not all that interested in fuel cell technology, according to the latest report from consultants with Black & Veatch. Read more »
Despite a series of successful biofuel IPOs recently, and a number of biofuel IPOs in the pipeline, the production of next-gen biofuels, in any kind of volumes that would make a dent in the transportation sector, seems to be creeping, very slowly forward. Read more »
Google Ventures has made its first biofuels investment. On Thursday afternoon, the venture arm of the search giant announced that it has invested in a startup called CoolPlanetBiofuels, which makes what the company calls “negative carbon fuels.” Bill Maris of Google Ventures explains. Read more »
Biofuels took a step away from the limelight in 2010, replaced by the buzz surrounding electric vehicles. But there were still a variety of policy decisions, and economic milestones that made the sector interesting in 2010. Here’s the year in review for biofuels. Read more »
