Cleantech News Flash – what’s been happening in the cleantech space

Cleantech News – a look at what’s going on in the cleantech/greentech space…

With or Without A Climate Bill, U.S Power Sector is Changing (first published on Energy Boom Sept 10th) and re-posted by Solar Feeds on Sept 14th, the author Mindy Lubber had a decidedly upbeat outlook for solar and renewable power, despite the recent delays to the proposed US Climate Bill:

Now that the climate bill is in hibernation, it would be easy to despair that the US power sector will resume its tradition of burning high-polluting coal to sell increasing amounts of electricity.
The Washington Post opted for such a conclusion in an August 23rd article, “More coal plants are under construction.” The article noted that “dozens” of old-style coal plants – 32, to be exact – have been built since 2008 or are under construction. But there was an important context missing: the article failed to note that wind power production was the largest source of new electricity in the US last year and that for every new coal plant built in the US in recent years, four proposed coal plants have been cancelled or delayed.
The reality is the US power sector is undergoing a dramatic transformation to decarbonize its energy offerings and sell less, not more, electricity.
Source: Solar Feeds – a great source of renewable energy news

Kerry Dolan of Forbes wrote a story on Bloom Energy A Billion-Dollar Company, Says New Report (pub. 14th Sept):

Now, a research report from NeXt Up released Tuesday morning on privately-held Bloom values the company at between $936 million and $1.034 billion if it were to go public.

Bloom Energy made a big media splash last February which had industry heavy hitters and guests like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and senior executives from some of the fuel cell company’s early customers, including Google, Ebay, Coca-Cola and Fedex. The firm has been valued as a Billion dollar company, points out the reporter Kerry Dolan, even though Bloom have not actually disclosed in full detail how their fuel cell works:

In addition, Bloom has not publicly discussed in detail how the fuel cell works, says Balaraman. At the launch event in February, Bloom Chief Executive KR Sridhar kept emphasizing how his solid oxide fuel cells will lead to “clean, reliable power affordable for everyone in the world.” The road to that vision is a long one, since initially the cost is high for each fuel cell.

Harry Tournemille wrote up about GE’s Hydrogen Assisted Renewable Power Project in Bella Coola Now Online on September 14th:

The rugged, scenic town of Bella Coola, British Columbia, Canada is the latest site for General Electric’s (GE) Hydrogen Assisted Renewable Power (HARP) project.
Teaming up with BC Hydro and Powertech, GE’s HARP project is an energy storage system that converts off-peak electricity from a renewable source into hydrogen via an electrolyzer. The hydrogen is then used for energy later on, during times of peak demand.

In biofuel news, Richard Branson has announced further investments in the sector – covered in a previous CTTV post this week entitled “Branson banks on Algae” – and Australian-US based algae company “Algae.Tec” has announced MOUs with Australian company to build it’s demonstration plant in Nowra and another with Hong-Kong based company to take it’s technology to Asia. CTTV Green Reporter, Giles Parkinson, interviewed Roger Stroud about their unique space-saving and industry scale biofuel and carbon sequestration algae technology. Click here to watch the CTTV interview.

U.S. Government Gives W.R. Grace & Co. $3.3 Million For Advanced Biofuel Development on Energy Boom – with the US Department of Energy getting behind W.R. Grace & Co. who have been awarded US$3.3 million to develop thermochemcial conversion technologies of biomass into cellulosic biofuels that are compatible with current fueling infrastructure. Full story available on Renewable Energy News (pub. Sept 13th).

An interesting article was posted by a guest on the CleanTechies blog on the annual Women in Green Forum in Pasadena entitled “Women’s Impact on the Green Economy”

The World Bank has appointed one of UC Berkeley’s top energy experts to be the organization’s renewable power “czar”. Read the article published on 10th September in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “World Bank taps UC Berkeley’s Daniel Kammen” here:

“Energy use is growing rapidly in developing countries, so in terms of implementing new ideas and hardware, developing countries are where it’s at,” Kammen said. “This is really an effort to make sustainable development at the core of what the World Bank does.”
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/10/BU801FBB6V.DTL#ixzz0zZmDKWkz

The New York Times reported on US-China cleantech research deals moving ahead today “Amid Trade Tensions, U.S. Creates More Clean Tech Research Partnerships With China”

Jesse Jenkins wrote this article published on Forbes “Energy Source” blog today looking at what the new GOP developments in the US could mean for cleantech sector entitled “November GOP Win Could Be Win For Clean Energy“:

According to most electoral prognosticators, Republicans are poised to win major victories in the upcoming November midterm elections, with control of both the House and Senate within their reach. That should spell the end for climate and clean energy legislation, according to many observers, at least for the next Congressional cycle.

Also have a read of “Infinity Group launches world’s first Intellectual Property Bank in China to commercialise clean technologies“, “Stanford Supports Energy Research Programs with $7.5 million” “Sahara solar energy could power Europe”

From Australia’s Climate Spectator here are some current stories worth checking out “Solar’s quantum shift” & from Giles Parkinson “The guessing game begins” a look at the future of Australian climate policy:

Julia Gillard’s minority Labor government has been sworn in, Opposition leader Tony Abbott has finalised his A-team, and so begins the guessing game around Australia’s future climate change policy.
The early money is that if Australia is to have any sort of carbon pricing by 2013 then it is most likely to be an abridged form that affects the energy sector and little else directly, and so allows much needed investment to take place.

“Clean appeal – Bloomberg New Energy Finance“:

When Metlife, the biggest US life insurer, bought an equity stake in a Texas wind farm last week, it was far from the first time that a company completely outside the renewable energy sector had bought into green assets. It was not even the first clean energy investment for that company, which claims to have already invested $US1 billion in wind, solar and geothermal projects.
What the latest announcement brought into focus was the quietly rising trend of outside investments into clean energy assets, and not just by US companies either.

“CLEANTECH BUZZ: Divining the sun” by Sophie Vorrath:

Just when you thought you were abreast of the latest solar technology developments, a group of MIT chemical engineers have come up with a way to concentrate solar energy 100 times more than a regular photovoltaic cell using carbon nanotubes. The idea is that these nanotubes – hollow tubes of carbon atoms – could form antennae, or “solar funnels,” that capture and focus light energy, potentially allowing much smaller and more powerful solar arrays, reports Xinhuanet.com.

Lastly, Update: Top Solar Venture Capital Investors – Solar VC investors sorted by style points and vision, not IRR is a great resource from GreenTech Media.