Green Options

Women entrepreneurs, don’t miss the Keiretsu Forum’s 4th Annual Summer Solstice panel discussion tonight about “How Women Investors and Entrepreneurs Will Revive the California Economy.”

The event will bring together the Bay Area’s most talented minds to:

•          Foster a collaborative atmosphere between women and the angel community
•          Confront the critical issues facing women entrepreneurs and investors today
•          Drive the recovery of the California economy
•          Build businesses and invest in thought out ventures
•          Explore compelling investment opportunities

In [...]

Nissan has announced plans to launch the large-scale production of electric cars and batteries in the United States, with a massive 50 billion Yen ($516 million) facility in Smyrna, Tennessee.

The site will be capable of knocking-out an impressive 50,000 to 100,000 EVs by 2012, with investment possibly DOUBLING to 100 billion Yen (more than $1 Billion).

A new way to treat wood has trees back in the limelight: a hardwood’s reliability that even a rain forest mahogany tree can love.

Check out the world’s first heavy traffic road bridge made from Accoya® wood. The bridge, located in Sneek in the Netherlands, is “the first wooden bridge in the world that can support the heaviest load class of 60 tons”. At this week’s Wall Street Green Trading Summit, a panel on forestation introduced a new way of [...]

The longer I am here at the Wall Street Green Trading Summit, the less this feels like anything to do with environmentalism. At some point, when does off-setting stop being feasible, and when does carbon reduction become the name of the game?

The summit is over for today, but I wanted to throw some concluding thoughts out after an afternoon spent discussing good business models for producing alternative energy and for overhauling our current electrical grid.

Excuse Me, Waiter? What Year is this Carbon?

China has announced plans to take on the US head-to-head in the race to develop low emission vehicles, with a massive $2.2 billion investment in electric cars over the next three years.

The news comes hot on the heels of President Obama’s announcement of a whopping $2.4 billion investment in electric vehicles in the United States.

The Chinese government hopes that the investment will help the country to make 500,000 all-electric and hybrid vehicles a year by 2011 - and encourage organizations like city governments and airport taxi firms to enjoy subsidies of more than $70,000 on fleets of new vehicles.

A “green economy” can be built in China in less than 20 years, argues a new McKinsey report. The new study, “China’s Green Revolution“, offers the most comprehensive quantitative analysis to date of China’s abatement cost curve.

Previous studies of a similar ilk, like the Stern Review, have incorporated social benefits to partially offset the cost of scaling up energy efficient and clean technologies. In contrast, the latest McKinsey report considers only technology-related costs and attaches a figure to the cost of green initiatives in China.

So what is the final damage? While costs are negative for upgrades in some industries, like buildings, due to the savings generated from energy efficiency improvements, a total 1.5-2 trillion yuan (USD 220-295 billion) would have to be spent every year until 2030 in order to reach McKinsey’s alternative scenario.

Hong Kong tycoon Stanley Ho is most famous in business for his vast and infamous casino empire and unofficial title as one of Asia’s richest people (his estimated US$8 billion net worth earned him the 113th rank in Forbes’ 2007 list of “the World’s Billionaires”). Might news of his recent clean energy joint venture with Portugal’s top power company bring him a new title: “the Chinese T. Boone Pickens“?

According to Macauhub, a government-sponsored news publication-cum-commerce division that reports business-related news in the Pearl River region and in Portugese-speaking countries, Ho has created a renewable energy partner firm with Portugal’s Energias de Portugal (EDP), which will be known as EDP-Energy Solutions Asia.

At first glance, the latest numbers from the Cleantech Group look like terrific news. After all, they conclude that 2008 was a record year for cleantech investments, with venture deals in North America, Europe, Israel, China and India reaching a total of $8.4 billion, up 38 percent from $6.1 billion in 2007.

But most of that money was dealt out in the first three quarters, with investment slowing significantly – as expected – in the fourth quarter.

According to preliminary numbers, venture capitalists in these regions committed $1.7 billion in 99 deals in the fourth quarter, down 35 percent from the third quarter and 4 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007. In North America, by far the biggest venture-capital region, fourth-quarter investments totaled $1.14 billion, a decrease of 38 percent from $1.83 billion in the third quarter and of 5.8 percent from $1.21 billion in the last quarter of 2007.

It’s been quite a year for the cleantech industry, with roller-coaster oil and stock prices, multiyear federal tax credits finally passed after more than a year of narrowly failed attempts, the beginning of a recession and the election of a new president.

“It feels like it’s been three years in one just with all the emotions,” said Michael Butler, CEO of investment bank Cascadia Capital. “A lot of people thought they were having a really good year, then they were hit with the negative economic environment. … So many people are saying ‘let’s just shut down until the end of the year.’”