Archive for the ‘ Energy Generation ’ Category

Acquamarine Power gets funding – Atlantis Resources charging ahead?

Acquamarine Power, an Edinburgh based business, received another £11m in funding. One of its Investors, Scottish and Southern Energy wrote an investment case study that is worth taking a look at. Some details on the technology concept can be found here. Another key investor is Edinburgh based Sigma Capital Group. The Press release can be [ READ MORE ]

Capturing the value in Efficiency

Reducing energy use through improved efficiency measures is often a better investment when compared to investing in cleaner energy generation sources as we have noted on this blog. While the returns to the consumer are documented well in our previous posts (3.0x-4.0x ROI)- how do investors capture these excellent returns? Let’s first identify the business. [ READ MORE ]

Path to Greener Flight – Part 2

If we are to consider other forms of energy storage we should also explore how it could be put to use. Developments with superconductors are laying the way for very high power to weight electric motors that could be used for aviation with the potential to be lighter than a turbofan based propulsion system, allowing the use of an [ READ MORE ]

Beneficial Biofuels and the Trilemma

We saw a recent article published by www.sciencemag.org, co-authored by Robert Socolow. The following quote stood out: “The search for beneficial biofuels should focus on sustainable biomass feedstocks that neither compete with food crops nor directly or indirectly cause land-clearing and that offer advantages in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.” The bio-fuels and ethanol discussion is certainly not new. Yet, we agree [ READ MORE ]

Efficiency, King of Power

A recent panel discussion with John Doerr (KPCB), Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures) and John Holland (Foundation Capital) in the WSJ caught my attention. The lesser known of the three panelists, John Holland, had a quote I felt trumped his two better known colleagues when asked what is “hot” in the CleanTech sector. Mr. Holland:  “We’ve [ READ MORE ]

Bloom Energy, or Wilt Energy?

On Sunday, February 21st Bloom Energy was profiled on the American News Show 60 Minutes. Three days later Bloom unveiled for the first time to the public a fuel cell that had been under development for 8 years with Governor Schwarzenegger and General Colin Powell present. Between the media, the hype, the celebrities and the [ READ MORE ]

Collapse

Instead of Clean Technologies- let’s talk oil. Why? Because oil competes with clean technologies, affects government and consumer choices and in large part determines the success or lack thereof of much of what we discuss here. Consumers are much more willing to pay premiums for electric vehicles, biofuels or renewable energy if it does not [ READ MORE ]

Start Ups vs. Large OEMs

Before one can invest in a technology or firm, an investor must first believe in the relevant sector. If this prerequisite is satisfied to a high degree, the next logical step is to decide how to best capture the upside of the sector. In Clean Technology many start up firms hope to be bought out [ READ MORE ]

Clean Invest Poll

(Check all that apply)[ READ MORE ]

Silicon and the Solar industry – a Boston Consulting Group assessment

Phillip Gerbert and Holger Rubel (both Boston Consulting Group) published an interesting review of the Solar sector and its strategic position both in the pre-2009 years and its outlook for the next decade. A research piece by JPMorgan‘s Gokul Hariharan, Shoji Sato and Carrie Liu comes to their support although takes a more holistic, if [ READ MORE ]

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