Sunday, August 23, 2015
Keep an eye on the big sell-offs in the Asian stock markets!
Friday, August 14, 2015
Technology to power electric vehicles wirelessly from under the road surface
Technology to power electric vehicles wirelessly from under the road surface is about to be trialed in the UK. Highways England has announced that it plans to carry out off-road (test track) trials with a view to carrying out subsequent on-road trials of the technology, which is designed to increase the range of EVs.
The concept of embedding electric vehicle charging technology under the road has been explored by Stanford University and used to power buses in Korea.
These trials, however, are said to be the first of their kind.
Saturday, July 25, 2015
China sees six-fold increase in carbon trading volumes
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Great all-day event on Investment in Africa at the New York Stock Exchange I attended yesterday 9/22.
It was organized and hosted by African Investor Magazine. Met some really fascinating people.
We talked about renewable energy in a number of African countries including:
Nigeria and Botswana - I met interesting people with their sovereign funds
Senegal - they have a new sovereign fund formed a year ago.
Ghana - the President of Ghana spoke eloquently at the event - and I met several Ghanaian banks interested in renewable energy projects.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
Important update on foreign investment in cleantech in 3/30/14 Boston Globe
Important update
Excerpt below and full article below that.
As foreign investors fill the gap, the United States risks losing its leadership in clean technology and share of a global market that has the potential to grow rapidly in the future, analysts said. In addition, the nation could lose control of technology developed with the support of American taxpayers. “The political climate in the United States is just poisoned around anything in clean tech,” said Mark Bunger, with Boston-based Lux Research Inc. “We’re not just shooting ourselves in the foot, we’re shooting our whole leg off.”
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Full article:
Clean tech sector’s cachet rises abroad
Foreign investors are pouring millions of dollars into US alternative energy companies, seeking new technologies and markets even as enthusiasm for the once hot industry wanes among their American counterparts.
Last week, for example, Japan’s NEC Corp. paid roughly $100 million for a Westborough-based division of the advanced battery maker A123 Systems LLC, which was acquired by a Chinese company, Wanxiang Group, in 2012. Also last week, Cape Wind said it secured $400 million in financing from financial institutions in Japan, France, and the Netherlands to build an offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound. A month earlier, Cape Wind announced that the Danish Export Credit Agency, EKF, would loan it $600 million.
Analysts say several factors are driving the trend, starting with inconsistent US policies on climate change and clean energy technology. It remains uncertain if and when the federal government might adopt climate change laws to limit greenhouse gas emissions, making it difficult for US investors to gauge when alternative technologies would become competitive with fossil fuels, the leading source of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
“Given the US has no overarching energy policy, much less a price on carbon, it’s hard for startups to find investors who have the long-time horizons that clean energy ventures require,” said Richard Martin, editorial director for Navigant Research in Colorado.
Meanwhile, many other countries are adopting such climate and energy polices. In booming China, Martin noted, cutting energy consumption and pollution has become an urgent priority for the central government, which is creating markets for clean energy technologies and spurring a worldwide drive by the Chinese to acquire them.
Despite rebounding a bit a the end of last year, US private investment in clean technology has declined sharply from its peak in the second quarter of 2010, according to data on the sector from PricewaterhouseCoopers, a Big Four accounting firm, and the National Venture Capital Association. Investors have cut their support for the industry by more than 70 percent, to about $418 million in the last three months of 2013 from roughly $1.5 billion in mid-2010.
Brian Carey, US clean tech advisory leader for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said part of the reason may be that certain clean technologies, such as wind turbines, have matured, so there’s not as much need for venture capital, which typically goes into early stage firms.
“There will continue to be some,” he said, “but not the heavy, capital type investments that we saw three or four years ago.”
Foreign investors, however, are still pumping money into the sector.
Wanxiang, the Chinese auto parts conglomerate that purchased A123, has made several investments in US clean technology firms. In 2012, the company invested $1.25 billion to help GreatPoint Energy, a Cambridge startup, build a plant in Western China to convert coal into a clean burning, synthetic natural gas. Earlier this year, Wanxiang spent roughly $149 million to buy Fisker Automotive, a bankrupt California company that makes the Karma electric car.
In 2011, Chinese government and private investors pumped $155 million into Boston-Power, a lithium-ion battery company headquartered Westborough, to get the company to expand in China, where it now has research and manufacturing operations.
Analysts say that many foreign investors see potential in the US market. European investors from countries such as Germany and Netherlands, where climate policies have led to quick adoption of renewable technologies, are seeking new opportunities across the Atlantic, analysts said.
Meanwhile, energy technology companies from Japan and Korea are willing to take risks for the chance of breaking into the huge American market.
“The US is fertile ground for that kind of investment,” said Mackinnon Lawrence, research director with Navigant Research in San Francisco.
US investors appear less willing to take such risks these days, analysts said. The federal government has cut back its support of energy technology following high profile bankruptcies of government-backed firms, such as California solar company Solyndra, A123, and Fisker, and private investors have followed.
As foreign investors fill the gap, the United States risks losing its leadership in clean technology and share of a global market that has the potential to grow rapidly in the future, analysts said. In addition, the nation could lose control of technology developed with the support of American taxpayers.
“The political climate in the United States is just poisoned around anything in clean tech,” said Mark Bunger, with Boston-based Lux Research Inc. “We’re not just shooting ourselves in the foot, we’re shooting our whole leg off.”
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Good analysis on CRS and Bloomberg review of DOE Loan Program
"Today, the White House released Allison’s review. It includes an analysis of every loan guarantee issued from DOE, as well as recommendations for managing this portfolio of guarantees going forward. This independent review was requested by the White House in late 2011, to make sure that the DOE loan guarantee portfolio was cost-effective for taxpayers.
The Allison review confirms what we already know, thanks to the Congressional Research Service and Bloomberg Government. Instead of looking at individual investments, CRS examined the entire DOE portfolio, and concluded that the overwhelming majority of the portfolio was in electrical generation projects, which DOE structured to have very low risk. Bloomberg Government took that a step forward, and concluded that the media’s incessant focus on Solyndra was “not proportional to its impact.”
There are multiple reasons why the risks to taxpayers from this program are so low. First, most of the guarantees went to support projects that have very secure contracts to sell their power to investment-grade rated utilities. Allison and his team of independent auditors endorsed the methodology that DOE initially used to evaluate these types of projects, writing, “The Independent Consultant used the same Nine Criteria as did DOE because, in the opinion of the Independent Consultant, they comprise the salient factors for evaluating the credits and are substantially similar to the criteria that would be employed by private sector credit analysts for these types of loans.”
Second, even in the event that something does go wrong with an investment, there is almost always someone willing to buy the project at a discount. For example, Beacon Power declared bankruptcy after getting a loan guarantee for $43 million. But, this wasn’t a $43 million loss for taxpayers, because Rockland Capital agreed to buy the project for $30.5 million. Obviously, this is not the perfect outcome, but it helps to understand why Beacon’s bankruptcy won’t cost taxpayers the full amount of the guarantee."