The Week in Cleantech

Last Week, Jacques Diouf at Biofuel Review reminded us that biofuels are a great opportunity for the worlds poor. James Fraser at The Energy Blog told us about Penn State's new method of converting black liquor into DME for biofuel, and Green Car Congress, told us about the partnership which is exploring commercialization. On Monday, Tyler Hamilton at Clean Break told us about Vinod Khosla's big bet on Concentrating Solar Power.  Excellent article, especially since Khosla slams half-measures that don't make a big difference in the global warming problem.  He also...

On Monday, Michael Kanellos at CNET's Green Tech Blog told us that cellulosic ethanol was to surpass corn...in 14 years. Turns out he got that info from one of the leaders in making enzymes to break down cellulose. So if it takes about 14 years for cellulosic ethanol to scale up production levels to about 15 billion gallons annually, or roughly 10% of current liquid fuel consumption in the US, could there be a risk that cellulosic misses the boat altogether? Most of the estimates thrown out there for the cost of cellulosic to be competitive with corn are...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... Writing in the May edition of Scientific American, economist Jeffrey Sachs showed us the road to clean energy. On Tuesday, Himanshu Pandya at Financial Nirvana told us about a shorting opportunity in First Solar. More on overpriced solar stocks below! On Wednesday, Shruti Basavaraj and Katrina...

On Tuesday, I learned from a reader that a CO2 emissions trading platform for California, called the California Climate Exchange, had just been launched. The new California carbon bourse will look to service organizations with emission reduction obligations under the state's AB 32. Who's behind this? None other than Climate Exchange plc (CXCHF.PK), a company we've discussed on several occasions in the past. On Wednesday, Mark Gongloff at the WSJ's Energy Roundup informed us that HSBC was going green. This is the latest in a series of similar commitments by global financial institutions. Good business sense or a...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Sunday, Marc Gunther told us all about the greening of Goldman Sachs. As our regular readers know, Wall Street's involvement in environmental finance is one of our preferred topic of discussion. On Monday, Dana Childs at Inside Greentech told us that there might be some good...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Tuesday, Tyler Hamilton at Clean Break informed us that solar growth was expected to shine strong. The numbers are very impressive indeed, but it could be argued that a lot of that future growth is already priced in many of the more high-profile solar plays. On...

On Monday, the Boston Globe told us about a new report that sheds some doubt on contentions that cleantech is the new darling of venture capitalists. Thanks to the WSJ's Energy Roundup for this one. Red Herring also published an article on this report last week. On Monday, Eli Hoffman at Seeking Alpha told us about Barron's latest five cleantech stock picks. Of those, I am particularly familiar with SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR) and Fuel Tech (NASDAQ:FTEK). Both are a bit rich at the moment but I like Fuel Tech's exposure to China, especially at a time when the country...

jcwinnie at After Gutenberg detailed the Mcgyan process which promises to convert a much array of oil feedstocks into biodiesel with a reusable catalyst and less waste. AutoblogGreen plugged us in to Zap's new Prius PHEV conversion kit, but Green Car Congress brought us a study that warned we might need to do some serious water planning before such too many people start using them. On Monday, Craig Rubens at Earth-to-Tech painted a picture of a new photovoltaic coating from Corus Colors. On Wednesday, David Erlich at Cleantech.com rolled out the story of GE's...

What were Cleantech bloggers blogging about in 2007?  We don't have to wonder... instead, I asked Brian, AltEnergyStocks.com's web guru, to do a special run of our Cleantech News Algorithm. The Cleantech News Algorithm automatically by scans nearly 300 cleantech blogs and news sources, selected for their cleantech content. It takes three main criteria into account: 1) what other bloggers are saying about a news item, 2) how users across the Internet prefer a news item (which we call 'social popularity'), and when the item was written.  Normally it gives high priority to fresh news items, but this...

On Tuesday, Andrea Quong at Red Herring told us that investors reaped returns on clean energy. A quick look at returns in the European cleantech VC and PE spaces. On Wednesday, Emily Gertz at World Changing gave us the run-down on the legal climate on climate change. This action by NY's Attorney General formalizes what many have been saying for a while - certain power gen companies, and the investors that own them, could be exposed to serious regulatory risks related to global warming in the years ahead. Strangely, those companies and their investors often seem to favor...

Last year, I used a special run of AltEnergyStocks.com's new Cleantech News (CTN) aggregator to bring you the ten stories of 2007 which bloggers found most interesting or controversial. Continuing the tradition, below are the ten stories of 2008 which Cleantech and Green Bloggers were talking about. One of my favorite features of CTN is how it not only provides links to the original articles, but also links to the articles referencing it. Hence the list below includes links to the entire conversation. Unsustainable Biofuels In January, The Gaurdian kicked things off with an article saying...

Over the Weekend, Craig Mackintosh at Celsias struck a note of cautious optimism about the outcome of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. Jim Fraser at the Energy Blog transmitted the findings of a study of interconnected wind as baseload power. On Monday, The Biopact team reported on as study the potential for bio-based bulk chemicals to cut the consumption of non-renewable energy and greenhouse gas emissions. On Tuesday,  Rachel Barron at Greentech Media splashed the news of PG&E's agreement to purchase wave power from Finavera Renewables...

Technology Review, my favorite science publication, gave us last week a wrap-up of the year in energy. It's a recap of the main energy-related stories the magazine published in 2007, and is well-worth a read if you want to start 2008 up-to-date on where the science is on most issues of relevance to alt energy investors. On Monday, Jerome Ball at Alternative Energy Trading argued that the solar PV industry would veer into oversupply in 2008. This is one of the most cogent analysis of the solar PV market I have read in a while, and it takes...

On Wednesday, Energy Tech Stocks gave us the heads up on a recent warning by Raymond James & Associate about declining oil production. Interesting to see a thesis that was derided as pure fantasy as recently as two years ago slowly creeping up into the mainstream. On Thursday, Sam Abuelsamid at Autoblog Green opined that CO2 regulations in Europe could place the balance of power on the auto parts suppliers' side in the fight for profit margins. We have noted in the past how some of the most interesting (and 'safest') clean car investment opportunities rested with parts...

The Week in Cleantech is a weekly roundup of our favorite cleantech and alt energy blog posts and stories from across the web. If you know of a good piece that you think should be included here, don't hesitate to let us know! This week, we particularly liked... On Monday, I received an email from the good folks at Lux Research informing me that they had just released a study looking into the 2006 cleantech VC investment numbers (PDF document). Before I had a chance to go over the press release, The New York Times had...

On Sunday, Rob Day at Cleantech Investing (now part of Greentech Media) reflected on CEO turnover in the cleantech industry for us. This is an interesting piece and a good reminder for public market investors that the management team is a key success factor for any company. The ability to execute effectively on a business plan is more than half of the equation - a good idea or technology alone won't get you very far. On Monday, Mike Millikin at the Green Car Congress us told us about a new web-based resource for carbon capture and storage (CCS)....