Cleantechinvestor.co.uk, Renewable Energy, Biofuel, Investment - Guest Writers

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Cleantech magazine, a Cleantech Investor publication

Guest Writers - Recent

The future’s bright. The future’s green. Or blue, or red, or all of the above.

First published in Cleantech Infocus: Algae Biofuel, November 2008

by Pete Bresser and Roy Williamson of EnviroBusiness

Algae had a pretty bad press until recently; at best they have been thought of as a nuisance, but where algal blooms have smothered water surfaces and prevented oxygen from diffusing into the sea they have poisoned lakes and suffocated fish stocks. This has made them organisms to be eradicated rather than cultivated. However, the characteristic that causes all of these problems is the same one that has such potential to provide ample feedstocks coupled with sustainable methods of refining them to generate biofuels capable of replacing significant volumes of mineral based transport fuels.

Algae’s ability to grow prolifically, given optimum conditions of sunlight, nutrient rich water and carbon dioxide, means they have such great potential because many of the technologies surrounding the area today are close to providing efficient methods of cultivating, harvesting, processing and transporting algae biofuels. Presently, the key focus is understanding exactly what building blocks we have at the beginning; what can algae really do? Which are the best to farm and how do we farm them in a controlled manner to produce a predictable, consistent crop?

Venture Capital - Waste

Strong regulatory and market drivers are pushing growth and innovation in the waste sector

Sam Richardson of the Sustainable Technology Fund discusses venture investment in the waste sector

First published in Cleantech magazine, November 2008

Image courtsey of Alternative Waste Solutions

Venture capital firms take risks: risks on businesses that have exhausted all their other potential sources of funding. It’s almost a last chance saloon. And it’s not an easy one to enter.

By and large the supply/demand ratio is always in favour of the venture capital firms. For every 100 or so proposals that we see, only one will get funding.

The ‘dotcom’ era was the anomaly to that rule: it was too easy to obtain financing when that industry boomed and entrepreneurs raised money with one page business plans. Since then there have been the odd bubbles of investment activity – such as that in early 2007 when there was a large influx of investment into cleantech, driven primarily by a biofuels boom in the US.

Venture capitalists see the waste sector as an offshoot of cleantech, and it’s an industry that is proving attractive to investors currently due to the strength of the regulatory and market drivers pushing growth and innovation in the sector.

Accelerating Clean Technology Commercialisation

Richard Franklin of Sindicatum Carbon Technology assesses ways of increasing the survival rate and accelerating the pace of commercialisation of viable technologies.

Working with the public and private sectors in Kyoto signatory countries, Sindicatum Carbon Capital generates carbon credits through use and abatement of greenhouse gases under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Richard Franklin heads up Sindicatum Carbon Capital Technology, the clean technology commercialisation business. www.carbon-capital.com

This is the first of a series of two features. In the next issue of Cleantech magazine, Richard Franklin will review the role of the CDM in achieving technology commercialisation.

Much thought and analysis goes into risks facing technology developers in the early R&D stages, in obtaining funding to achieve successful demonstration of the technology and in subsequent scale up and future commercial success. The concept of the innovation gap, in which companies struggle to graduate from pilot scale to initial commercial scale operation, is already well known, yet a large number of technologies fail to make it through the next stage – what I call the ‘commercialisation gap’, beyond which lies commercial success and expected financial returns.

The Run of River Energy Sector

The renewable hydro electricity market in British Columbia

by Yingheng Chen and Roger Hardman

This is an abridged and edited version of a sector report on the Run-of-River Energy Sector in British Columbia which was published by Hardman & Co in September 2008. For more information visit www.hardmanandco.com

Image courtsey of Yingheng Chen

BC Hydro, one of the largest electricity utilities in Canada, serving more than 1.7 million customers in an area containing over 95% of the population of British Columbia (BC), forecasts energy demand in BC to grow by 23 – 37% over the next 20 years, while the projection of current supply capacity falls short significantly. BC Hydro estimates that the current contracted clean electricity sources can meet just 41% of BC’s incremental energy demand over the next ten years. To match this increase in demand, BC Hydro intends to acquire electricity from independent power producers (IPPs) to help mitigate the projected supply deficit.

Are Fuel Cells the Future for Distributed Generation?

First published in Cleantech Infocus: Distributed Generation, September 2008. Copyright Cleantech Investor 2008

by Dr. Kerry-Ann Adamson, Fuel Cell KTN

Distributed Generation (DG) is the production of energy close to its point of use. The traditional view of DG is micro renewables such as solar roofs in grid-tied locations or propane generators powering out-of-the-way homes. In reality both of these options have propagated due to financial signals such as government rebates, as in the German Solar Roofs programme, or the high cost of rural electrification. Now, with the changing of the political landscape seeing climate change, sustainability and energy security being built into everyday government speak and business plans, we are witnessing the opening of a window of opportunity for new DG technology such as fuel cells.