Our editor sent me a link to a Time Magazine article titled “Asia Challenges the U.S. for Green Tech Supremacy”
I was enraged at the shallowness of this thought process. Having worked within global manufacturing for over fifteen years. I have seen the “new pink,” the buzz words that become the focus of corporations.

Spoken by the CEO’s to boards, stockholders and management; like “outsource,” ‘DIVERSITY,” “Supply Chain,” all of which have been great ideas that turned scapegoats; used for the purpose of getting a tax advantage, saving money, all about the stock price today. Nothing considered as to the long term ramifications. And this article is that one-dimensional.

With this knowledge, knowing others have similar insights I am throwing this out there to start a discussion. …read more of “Does Asia really challenge the U.S. for Green Tech Supremacy?!” here

Google has teamed up with GE to bring us up-close and personal to the smart grid. They’re developing a personal energy information application called the Google PowerMeter that will show us our energy consumption in near real-time.

We will know how much energy we’re using, which appliance is using more energy, and find out once-and-for-all just how much energy and money we save by unplugging all of those appliances not in use.

A leader in the Silicon Valley internet technology industry starting from modest beginnings with a well-designed search engine, Google is betting we’ll better understand our energy usage by the information we receive from the PowerMeter than what we currently find on our utility bills. …read more of Google and the Grid here

2008 has turned out to be a banner year for clean energy investments by venture capital, which increased 22% from $2.7 billion in 2007 to $3.3 billion in 2008, according to data published by market research firm Clean Edge.

As a percent of total venture capital investments, energy tech grew nearly 30% , from 9.1% of all investments in 2007 to 11.8% in 2008. That’s quite a jump when considering that in 2000, energy tech represented just a half a percent of all venture capital investments.

But given the economic slowdown, investment levels this year are likely to drop.“To a large extent, the clean-energy industry has been a good-news story — what other industry has sustained annual growth rates exceeding 30% for the past decade? But the clean-energy industry is not immune to the forces impacting the overall economy. …read more of Clean Energy Investment Up 22% in 2008 here

When credit tightens — as it has over the past few months — companies looking for capital have a couple of options: They can sell shares or they can sell assets.

Given the Dow Jones’ nosedive over the past few weeks a share offering is not likely. That leaves an asset sale, albeit most likely, at a steep discount.

That’s what Baltimore-based Municipal Mortgage & Equity did last week when it announced that it would sell a portion of its renewable energy business for $19.7 million to Fotowatio, a Madrid-based developer of solar generation projects in Europe and the U.S. …read more of Clean Energy, A Buyers Market here

In the world of mergers and acquisitions, Monday, the day markets open following the weekend hiatus, is often the preferred day for deal announcements.

And so, true to form, First Solar, a Tempe, Arizona-based photovoltaic cell maker, announced its planned acquisition on Monday of OptiSolar’s portfolio of solar generation projects in an all-stock, $400 million deal.

As reported on this blog, last week First Solar announced an “industrial milestone” when it reduced production costs to make solar cells. …read more of OptiSolar Sells Assets in $400M All-Stock Deal here