cleantech

Stadiums, transportation, food and souvenir vendors, communications infrastructure … hundreds of elements go into planning the Olympic Games.

From the point of view of London’s economic development agency, Think London, that means hundreds of opportunities to test and showcase sustainable, energy-efficient technologies, products and services.

Perhaps more importantly, the Sustainable Games may be a way to attract green businesses and cleantech companies to London — permanently.

NanoH20, a four-year-old startup that spun out of nanotech research at UCLA, could be deploying thousands of its membranes in desalination projects all over the world in the near future. The company was tapped late last year by giant French environmental services provider Veolia to participate in a five-year pilot test of its membrane under various seawater conditions. If the membranes deliver the cost savings they are expected to, Veolia will be looking to install them on its future water projects.

It sounds like a great deal for any startup, but at last week’s Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, Veolia Senior Vice President of Research and Innovation Philippe Martin called it simply “opportunistic.”

“We need to do more,” he said in a keynote address at the forum. "We need [to do] much more. We need to team up and partner. We can provide them with scale-up opportunities.”

That's when the venture capitalists and startup CEOs in the crowd sat up and took notice.

Philippe went on to announce the launch of his company’s Veolia Innovation Accelerator (VIA) program, through which it will be actively looking for companies with products and technologies it can use it is water, waste, energy and transportation management businesses.

Worldwide cleantech investment fell in 2009 just like the rest of the economy, but a recovery appears to be under way, driven by energy efficiency and public offerings in Asia that underscore the global march of the sector, a new report released Wednesday shows.

Overall, "cleantech had a pretty good 2009," said Dallas Kachan, managing director of the Cleantech Group, a research and advisory firm, which issued the preliminary 2009 report with Deloitte.

"Several new records were set in the cleantech sector, and that's despite the lack of a binding agreement in Copenhagen."

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• Stacy Feldman's blog
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The UK’s top clean tech financiers and business moguls see a strong future for renewable energy and smart grid technology, but they also recognize investment risks on the road — and an important role for government.

At a clean tech summit last week, Nicholas Parker of the Cleantech Group, David Blood of Generation Investment, Michael Liebreich of New Energy Finance and other experts postulated what the next few years have in store for clean tech.

Three themes in particular dominated: A robust carbon price is necessary, clean tech economics is about the long-term, and Asia will dominate the clean tech market.

Despite economic uncertainty, the biggest global corporations are investing 3-5 percent of annual revenues in clean tech solutions, and they are poised to invest more, according to an Ernst & Young survey.

With such private investment increasing and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) infusion of over $80 billion into the clean tech sector, the road ahead is looking green.

So, where does the clean tech job market stand today?

If a new international climate treaty is to unleash a worldwide "cleantech" explosion, then countries must go far beyond carbon trading and spotlight the role of technologies in cutting climate change pollution, according to a new analysis.

"There should be an emphasis on the role of technology in reducing carbon emissions and allowing the planet to do more with less," the Cleantech Group writes in an analysis explaining why the Copenhagen climate talks won't drive cleantech for now.

"Carbon trading will help, but the challenge of climate mitigation or adaption goes far beyond regulating the industrial emissions that carbon trading is largely aimed at."

Cleantech refers to the use of technology to boost energy efficiency while slashing costs and consumption. The sector represents "the largest investment opportunity on the planet," said Dallas Kachan, managing director of the Cleantech Group. But the world as a whole hasn't even begun to tap it in the way it should.

The absence of cleantech attention in UN climate negotiations is "a legacy" of them "having traditionally been focused on emissions reduction," Kachan told SolveClimate.

For a "truly meaningful" international climate accord, things must change.

Cleantech investing was on fire in the third quarter of 2009, continuing to rebound as other sectors stayed cool, according to preliminary figures released this week by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte and Touche.

The upshot: Cleantech is now the largest category for U.S. venture capital investment.

That's "a long way for the category to have come from niche status only eight years ago," said Dallas Kachan, managing director of the Cleantech Group.

The key to the jump was Washington, specifically the billions it poured into the slouching sector.

The two largest VC deals of the quarter — solar firm Solyndra and electric car maker Tesla Motors — received hundreds of millions of government dollars. In fact, government-backed companies worldwide took in one-third of all the capital raised.

These taxpayer sums are "helping to loosen the flood gates," Kachan told reporters in a teleconference unveiling the data.

The Cleantech Group just released its first Global Cleantech 100, a ranking by analysts and experts from around the world of the top 100 companies working in the space today.

While there are some obvious picks (among them electric car darling Tesla Motors, smart grid giant Silver Spring Networks, and longtime battery leader A123 Systems, all of which wound up in the Top 10), there are a number of surprises.

Here is a look at the five biggest:

In the laboratory, algae shows more promise than any other biofuel, producing more oil per acre than any other feedstock. According to some estimates, it could produce anywhere from 20,000 to 100,000 gallons per acre a year compared to corn’s 20-30 gallons.

So, why isn’t it fueling airliners and cars around the world?

Because of the financing valley of death – the difficulty that experimental projects, no matter how encouraging, have in obtaining the considerable investment needed for a commercial launch.

With the financial crisis drying up funding for new green technologies even further, lawmakers are recognizing the need to step into the breach.

A movement of lawmakers, energy companies and environmental groups is now promoting the creation of a federal green bank that would finance clean energy and energy efficiency projects.