Vinod Khosla emphasized several times Thursday that costs–and not idealogy–will drive the clean technology industry, and said that much of the hype around cleantech is fueled by misunderstood information.
We often cover semiconductors that require less energy, but we rarely talk to the companies behind those chips to find out what else they might be doing to reduce their power consumption. However, Norm Fjeldheim, chief information officer for Qualcomm, recently shared a few tidbits about what the cellphone chip maker is doing to keep corporate consumption down–and it all starts with information technology (not everyone is jumping ship to build “cleantech” firms).
If corn-based biofuels are the Britney Spears of the cleantech world (a fallen star but still all over the place), fuel made from algae is the next great “American Idol” winner (major potential in the pipeline). And despite the fact that algae-to-biofuel start-ups have been taking their sweet time bringing a pond-scum fuel product to market, some inroads have been made recently–GreenFuel is building its first plant, PetroSun starts producing at their farm on April 1, and big-oil Chevron and Shell have made some early bets as well.
Israel’s growing solar industry, early moves on electric vehicles (the home to Shai Agassi’s first electric-vehicle infrastructure project) and recently funded water start-ups are making the state one of the front-runners of the cleantech revolution. And Israel keeps churning out new solar start-ups; on Monday a solar photovoltaic company called Pythagoras Solar said it had raised a Series A round of $10 million.
As the end of the year creeps closer, another well-known clean-tech start-up has parted ways with its CEO. The Friday before Christmas, biodiesel producer Imperium Renewables said its CEO Martin Tobias is being transitioned from his roles as CEO and chairman of its board of directors. Over recent weeks the CEOs of electric sports-car start-up Tesla and thin-film solar company Miasole have jumped ship (or walked the plank).
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