What would lead a company to walk away from negotiations for a coveted federal loan guarantee, as solar company Suniva did recently? As I learned while reporting this article for Earth2Tech, it has to do with the terms of the government deals, the time it takes to obtain one, and the recovery of private markets. Continue reading
Category Archives: Greentech
A Hunt for the Ideal Internal Combustion Engine
LiquidPiston, a company that got its start as a father-son team in a business plan competition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, aims to build a smaller, quieter and more fuel-efficient internal combustion engine than the ones currently being used in cars. By remixing elements of established engine cycles, LiquidPiston claims it can deliver 20-50 percent greater efficiency compared to a typical diesel engine. LiquidPiston is one company among a raft of VC-backed startups working to make the internal combustion engine more efficient, often with a business plan that involves licensing technology rather than manufacturing engines, and it’s the subject of a profile I’ve written for Earth2Tech.
Tapping into the Electric Power of Heat
What if every gallon of gas in our cars and lump of coal in our power plants did extra duty? What if we could get more work out of our fuel? That’s the basic idea of waste heat recovery systems — a topic I’ve explored (and explained) over on National Geographic in this article about a high-tech startup that aims to give a boost to decades-old cogeneration technology.
By providing a thermoelectric chip that can be inserted into any exhaust flue or engine to convert heat into electrical power, San Francisco, Calif.-based Alphabet Energy hopes to become the “Intel of waste heat.” The company’s efforts fit into a larger drive by researchers, entrepreneurs, and trade groups to make use of heat energy that’s currently thrown away by factories, power plants, cars and even laptop computers. This article is part of a special National Geographic series that explores energy issues.
A123 Spins Off Energy Storage Venture, Drops Chrysler Project
Lithium-ion battery maker A123 Systems quietly cultivated a new energy storage venture and set it loose as an independent company. A123 executives revealed in a call with shareholders this week that the startup, dubbed 24M Technologies Inc., was recently spun out of A123 with venture capital financing and a plan to develop what CEO David Vieau called advanced non-traditional lithium-ion based storage technology. As I reported in this article over on Earth2Tech, the executives also revealed that A123 has dropped out of Chrysler’s scaled-back electric vehicle development program.
Posted in Auto, Energy Storage, Greentech
Tagged 24M Technologies, A123 Systems, Batteries, Chrysler, Earth2Tech, Electric cars
Tesla IPO: A Test for VC Model in the Auto Biz
If and when Tesla Motors goes through with its long-discussed goal of going public, I’ve argued over on Earth2Tech that it will offer a glimpse at the role IPOs will play in the nascent green car market, as the question remains: Is the classic venture capital model (invest early and find a big exit in the form of an acquisition or an IPO) viable for this sector, or will a green-car IPO be more about feeding big capital needs and branding? This article also appeared (through syndication) on BusinessWeek.com.
Tagged Analysis, BusinessWeek, Earth2Tech, Electric cars, IPO, Tesla Motors
The Price of a Stimulus Award, Courtesy of ECOtality
ECOtality subsidiary eTec (with several partners, including Nissan) won a nearly $100 million grant from the Department of Energy in August to deploy 11,210 charging stations — tripling its total number of installations — in five states over the next three years. But the grant didn’t come cheap. I dug through ECOtality’s first report of financial information since the grant award for a sense of how ECOtality’s race to secure the DOE contract reverberated throughout its business, and wrote this post about it over on Earth2Tech.
Applied Materials Buying Advent Solar Assets, Cheap
Chip equipment maker Applied Materials announced today that it is acquiring 7-year-old startup Advent Solar. While the amount for the Advent deal has not been disclosed, Lux Research analyst Ted Sullivan told me for this Earth2Tech post that it, “was done very cheaply….Investors did not get their money back — pennies on the dollar is a very safe assumption.”
Beyond Salt: Desalination Startup NanOasis Eyes Wider World of Clean Water
If you can efficiently separate tiny molecules of salt from seawater, you probably have the technology to filter out larger bacteria, protozoan cysts and other contaminants floating in much of the world’s freshwater. That’s part of what NanOasis hopes will allow the company to not only provide tech for desalination projects in California, but also eventually sell into the market for water filtration systems in developing countries, the startup’s executives told me for an article on Earth2Tech. The piece also appeared (through syndication) on BusinessWeek.com
Posted in Greentech
Tagged BusinessWeek, Earth2Tech, NanOasis, Startup Profile, Water
Why Solar Power Needs a Manufacturing Revolution, Not Just New Materials
“Inventing disruptive manufacturing innovations is every bit as hard as inventing new materials,” says Frank van Mierlo, President and co-founder of 1366 Technologies. Solar power, if it’s going to compete on cost with coal and other fossil fuels, needs both. It’s on that premise that 1366, a developer of new machines and processes that can be easily integrated into solar companies’ existing manufacturing lines, has based its business model. Read more over on Earth2Tech. This post also appeared (through syndication) on BusinessWeek.com.
Tagged 1366 Tecnologies, BusinessWeek, Earth2Tech, Solar, Startup Profile
