VCs pouring money into cleantech

A recent post by Rana Rosen suggest that an increasingly huge amount of funds are flowing towards alternative and clean-tech fuel sources.

Private equity (PE) investors, including early-stage venture capitalists,
have poured more than $433 million (Rs1,775 crore) into environment-related
businesses, primarily wind energy and clean fuel, in the country since 2001.

The number, though minuscule in the context of the estimated $7 billion that
was invested overall by PE investors last year, is a significant achievement for
the cash-strapped sector. Investors and advocates said that closing investments
in such businesses is still difficult but expect the pace to pick up in the next
five years.

....

Food vs. Fuel

Target Ethanol.

[photo courtsey: Worldnews.Com]


There have been many blogs and discussions on the viability of corn based ethanol focusing on 1) food vs. fuel and 2) viability of using gas for production.


Here's a food scentist's take on food vs. fuel I've heard similar (worst tortillla crisis) stories on NPR where the prices of corn based tortillas in mexico is going up and up due to higher demand for ethanol.

Another interesting post referring to putting more farmland for corn production and its impact on the environment.

Powered by Renewable Energy

Its good to know that NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) is generting enough electricity thru solar panels to run their website. It'll be good to see "Powered by Renewable Energy" on more and more websites.

Google announced in Oct 2006 that they are building the largest US solar powered corporate office in California with 1.6 megawatts of solar PV panels.

I'm sure google will get an address for that location as:

Googleplex
100 Solar Powered Office way,
Mountain View,
CA

Renewable Energy Data for western US

I've been using Renewable Energy Atlas for quite a while and thought that it might be useful for others as well. It lists potential, capacities, existing usage and other statistics about western United States namely:


Arizona
California
Colorado
Idaho
Montana
Nevada
New Mexico
Oregon
Utah
Washington
Wyoming

It also lists different renewable sources like Wind, Solar, Biomass and Geothermal data for each of these states.

Anyone looking to start a business in renewable energy can get good forecast and coverage from these reports.

China's renewable energy capacity

China is planning to get 15% of its ever increasing primary energy use to come from renewable sources by 2020.

[courtesy: Renewable Energy World magazine]