February 2012
5 posts
4 tags
Feb 20th
3 tags
How Old is Too Old to Start a Company? →
Is it only wise to invest in young people? Sure some of the biggest tech companies in history have been built by babies. But should we set those 30 year old dinosaurs packing?
Feb 8th
3 tags
Enerkem's IPO - The 10 Minute Version →
Feb 6th
2 tags
Stump an Expert, Win a Prize
Hey everyone. I will be moderating a panel of cleantech friends on Feb 15 at Innovacorp’s Business Over Breakfast. Panelists include Matthew Nordan of Venrock, Atlee Clark of the C100 Group, Anne-Marie Bourgeois of SDTC and a special guest cleantech entrepreneur. Hit me up with some questions for these fine people. Stump an expert, win a prize. 
Feb 3rd
“Gold star! You move the the head of the class.”
– Honour bestowed upon me by a former Chief Scientist at DARPA. No big deal. A milestone in my quest to be smart.
Feb 2nd
January 2012
29 posts
4 tags
Green Construction is So Hot Right Now →
Bells and whistles (solar panels and HVACs) first, the building blocks of man’s creations (concrete) next. My friends at CarbonCure (carboncure.com) are making cheaper, stronger, greener concrete that is going to fill this demand.
Jan 31st
3 tags
Jan 30th
1 note
3 tags
Congrats Verdant Power →
Congratulations to Verdant on being approved for the first commercial tidal energy project ever in the US. A fantastic milestone for a great company with some serious chops.
Jan 25th
3 tags
LightSail Energy Launches New Site →
Energy storage startup LightSail Energy launched their new site on the weekend. Really like the look and the approach of painting the story up front.
Jan 25th
2 tags
An Interview w/ VantagePoint's Alan Salzman →
Cleantech IPOs and investing in China. Oh, and Tesla is one of theirs.
Jan 24th
3 tags
Heads Up Start-Ups; Scaling is Hard →
Almost as hard as scaling 22 floors up the outside of the Burj Dubai/Khalifa. Say what you want, it was a badass stunt.
Jan 20th
14 notes
3 tags
Jedi Mind Tricks - Polarization on Belief in...
“These are the glaciers you are looking for.” People continue to be fooled and belief in the impact of climate change widens by (surprise) political ideology. Percent of Americans Who Believe the Effects of Global Warming Have Already Begun to Happen, by Political Ideology, from McRight and Dunlap My Obi Wan analogy is actually not that good, because midi-chlorian rich hermits...
Jan 18th
2 tags
You Know What's REALLY Cool? A TRILLION Dollars. →
Not a million dollars, not a billion dollars. One trillion has been invested in cleantech over the past seven years. The biggest chunk went to asset finance of utility-scale renewable energy projects. Cool stuff.
Jan 18th
1 tag
95% is Statistically Significant →
95 percent of single person trips could be made with an electric vehicle. The other 5 percent are trips made by dudes who won’t give up their Hummers.
Jan 18th
5 tags
“I would say that technical credibility and technological simplicity are...”
– Anonymous Angel Investor on Tidal Technology DECC Wave & Tidal Investor Survey
Jan 17th
7 notes
Blake Burris: My Cleanweb Journey →
blakestar: As we roll into 2012, I thought I should explain my fascination with Cleanweb, why it’s had my attention since early last year and what it means for my company, Dynamo. Cleanweb broadly describes transformative opportunities for innovation at the intersection of IT and Energy. This…
Jan 17th
36 notes
Makin' Waves Makin' Blades →
Innovacorp portfolio co Seaforth Energy teams up with Daewoo subsidiary DSTN on advanced blade manufacturing.
Jan 17th
3 tags
KiOR and Swinging for the Fences →
Big bet investments like that made in KiOR have defined the landscape in cleantech. While many shorter term, capital light investments continue to occur, it’s the high risk home run swings that get the press.  It’s no wonder they loved Barry Bonds in San Francisco…
Jan 17th
1 tag
Jan 16th
3 tags
Jan 16th
12 notes
3 tags
Jan 13th
2 notes
5 tags
Jan 11th
10 notes
Special Guests
For the NS Cleantech Open company pitches in Feb, we decided to bring in some outside cleantech superstars from the investment and entrepreneurial world to help us choose the worthy one. Our confirmed guest judges have huge brains and tons of street cred. We look forward to announcing them soon…
Jan 11th
3 tags
Solazyme Can't Make Enough of the Stuff →
Lufthansa flying first cross-Atlantic flight on algal biofuels, but can’t secure sufficient ongoing supply.
Jan 10th
2 notes
3 tags
Trouble w/ Numbers - Cleantech in 2011
Despite some good news, the positive numbers for Cleantech in 2011 hide a few worrisome trends. First, the positive. The numbers make sense and can be correlated! The Cleantech Group LLC’s latest cleantech VC and M&A stats very much back up what was provided last month in the State of Cleantech VC by Matthew Nordan of Venrock. Cleantech investments, across the board, are maturing.   ...
Jan 10th
6 notes
3 tags
Nova Scotia Cleantech Open
One of the projects I have been working on for the past six months is the Nova Scotia Cleantech Open, a global business plan competition for cleantech startups. The competition seeks to find and fund the best cleantech startup in the world.  Getting the message out and drawing in high quality submissions has been an interesting journey. We hit them high by sponsoring best in industry events like...
Jan 9th
3 tags
Jan 9th
1 note
2 tags
“When I started my own firm in 2004, I put out this particular phrase: I prefer...”
– Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures
Jan 7th
2 tags
More Renewables = World Peace? HA. →
Jan 6th
4 tags
The Importance of Being Contextual
Debate continuously swirls around which alternative energy technologies will efficiently and substantially move us away from a dependence upon earth smothering fossil fuels. Experts tend to put solar in the abundant bucket. Solar, under certain assumptions, has the ability to meet ALL of the earth’s energy demand (~13TW). Wind, our other renewable manna, can be dropped in the useful bucket...
Jan 6th
51 notes
Who's on First, What's on Second?
I always drift to the Abbott and Costello sketch when I have a particularly befuddling day. Attempts to research and deeply understand technology markets for Li-ion powered motorcycles, algal biofuels and hydrokinetic generators should not be made concurrently. All said, I still welcome the challenge.
Jan 5th
3 tags
WatchWatch
Danielle Fong is a budding cleantech superstar.  The ‘Did You Know’ is that she is a native Haligonian. For real. For someone like I who pretends that I know what is going on, this was a wonderful surprise. 
Jan 5th
Founders
Founders are some of my favorite people. I feel lucky to meet them and in some cases, work with them. They are sparks, igniting the possible.
Jan 5th
2 tags
WatchWatch
Sunrise at Helm’s Deep. The start to every day in the cleantech biz. Equal parts inspiration and fear.  The analogy somewhat breaks down when I realize we are actually running uphill at the hordes.
Jan 5th
1 note