Catching up on the news
A lot of stories worth tracking from the last week or so...
- Regarding solar technology, here's an interesting story about the amount of investing China is putting into building their domestic solar industry. Will that be an opportunity or a threat to solar companies elsewhere?
- Should have mentioned the California Clean Tech Open before. Many readers of this site will already be aware of it, but you can read more about it here and here. Terrific idea. Also, Xerox PARC has put out some more information about their own cleantech efforts. Get those business plans going! ...It's also a great sign for us expansion-stage investors for down the road.
- The team at the Cleantech Venture Network is teaming up with hedge fund investors Kurzman Investment Partners. It'll be interesting to see what this partnership looks like as it develops... Also, Kjartan has asked me to make sure and mention again what a great job the Cleantech Venture Network team did with last week's Forum, many kudos all around.
- Here's an interesting article comparing the energy technology market today to the telecom market of a few years back. The author mentions the emergence of distributed generation and energy storage technologies -- I'd also throw in remote monitoring and automated control of energy assets as a key enabling technology. (Thanks to Michael Leyba for pointing us to this article)
- We haven't mentioned geothermal energy much here, as for the most part (with some definite exceptions) there isn't as much entrepreneurial activity with these technologies as there might be for some others. But the industry is apparently expected to grow quickly, take note.
- Green laptops? The really interesting thing here is the use of renewable energy certificates (in this case, from hydro) as part of marketing for the products... A sign of an emerging marketing trend?
posted by Rob Day at 3:28 PM
4 Comments:
Rob, part of the reason I read you daily is because I trust you. Would be nice, next time, when you praise the fine job done by the Cleantech Venture Network, to point out that your firm is on the group's advisory board. Maybe I'm being too anal here, but can't resist making the request.
Your heart's in the right place, Matt. But this seems over the top. I mean, this was a throw-away comment passed along from a colleague.
As always, let me say yet again that I am not a journalist. I don't claim to be. Take anything posted on this site at your own risk, and remember what you paid for it ($000.00). Also, Expansion Capital Partners is not affiliated with this site, it's a personal effort. See the bottom of the home page for a heck of a lot of disclaimers and such, and take them seriously.
I don't take any money for doing all this work, and in fact have turned down opportunities to get revenue from it, because that's not what this site is about. This site is full of opinions and passed along news. In the case of the former, figure out who writes everything on the site, and judge accordingly. In fact, this site's feed is also syndicated on the CTVN site, did you know that? Even a cursory glance at their site (not to mention http://cleantechvc.blogspot.com/2005/09/some-administrative-notes.html) should have revealed that a looooong time ago.
I'm a biased investor who's sharing his biased thoughts and passing along articles and stories that I find interesting from my own biased perspective.
So if that means you don't trust something on this site, more power to you. That's why you do what you do. And that's why I don't do what you do, I'm not a journalist, I couldn't hack it. Keep up the good work, we need it.
Just, you know, pick your battles...
Thanks for the explanation, Rob. Didn't mean to pick a fight/battle, and in retrospect, probably should have just sent you an email -- as it was really just meant to be a request. Perhaps it is a kneejerk reaction on my part because I've been thinking about this a lot lately -- and about how refreshing the rigorous disclosures are, for example, at VC blogger Christine Herron's site.
Thanks for you explanation Rob. Didn't mean to pick a fight, and in retrospect, should have probably just sent you an email -- because it was really meant to be a request. I find your site an excellent read, and know you well enough to trust your writing. Perhaps my response is kneejerk because i've been thinking about this a lot lately, and just today was remarking on the rigorous disclosures over at VC blogger Christine Herron's site.
Post a Comment
<< Home