Solar Impulse, the solar airplane of Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg, successfully launched the “Clean Generation” initiative by completing the first leg of the 2013 Across America mission – the first crossing of the United States by a solar-powered airplane capable of flying day and night.
Solar Impulse - the first solar airplane flying day and night without fuel
洁技术集团季度投资监控数据显示交易数量（217）近创记录，但交易总额降至10.7亿美元。
清洁技术集团 （Cleantech Group™）是一家全球市场情报公司，引导大企业高管与清洁技术创新建立合作。公司今天在其i3 平台上发布了2013年第一季度的初步统计数据。公司报道称，2013年第1季度全球清洁技术领域的风险投资总额为10.7亿美元。
仅就投资金额而言，清洁技术领域风险投资比2012年第4季度同比下跌了29%（15亿美元）。2013年第1季度的投资交易数量为217笔，连续两个季度保持较高水平，但是总额走低。一旦所有投资者提交全部投资交易数字，交易总额可能会再次上升。在这些投资交易中，有54％（117）为第二轮融资或更进一步的融资，占本季度总投资金额的90％（约合9亿美元）。
“市场已经越过了非理性繁荣阶段，在资本部署方面显得更谨慎、考虑更全面。” 清洁技术集团副总裁Greg Neichin说， “对于那些在能源和资源领域有长远眼光的企业来讲，这是个不错的征兆。交易数量的增长（特别是早期投资交易数量）加上企业战略性投资的持续关注让我们完全相信，强健的产业基础已经形成。” Read more »
Facebook – a 60-billion-dollar social media titan. Cleantech Group – a preeminent research and advisory firm whose flagship events attract some of the biggest multinationals, from Walmart to Google, GE, and Veolia. When the two companies joined hands to create a contest called “Cleantech Goes Social”, concluded last week during the Cleantech Forum, what made this collaboration interesting is its grassroots direction. Cleantech Group’s expertise helping clean technology innovators scale up by partnering with large industrial corporations is now complemented by a different kind of scaling—that of the human power found in Facebook’s billion-person network.
The contest’s three finalists represent three burgeoning trends in the socio-economic realm: crowd funding, collaborative consumption, and behavioral economics.
From Cleantech Group
The geothermal sector is heating up (pun intended), with technology breakthroughs and expanded capacity making headlines. AltaRock Energy, a developer of enhanced geothermal system technology, announced in January that it had successfully demonstrated multiple stimulated geothermal areas from a single drilled well, bringing down the costs of enhanced geothermal by 50 percent. In addition to technology breakthroughs, traditional geothermal grew by 5 percent in 2012, adding 147.05 MW of capacity in the US. The Geothermal Energy Association estimates that 2,511-2,606 MW of potential capacity are being developed in the US in the next decade. Read more »
This week’s indicator is $700 billion, which is the annual potential savings in global consumer goods from material reduction and reuse. The study by The Ellen MacArthur Foundation points to tactics such as textile collection, reusable packaging, and food waste recovery as ways to capture this value.
The numbers are compelling but, given historical inertia, is it really possible for companies to make the shift towards a so-called “circular economy?” The study’s authors argue that not only is it possible, it is critical that companies evolve their thinking. A convergence of factors, from new business models such as collaborative consumption to the growth of IT capabilities such as RFID chips, are making the previous approaches to efficient manufacturing obsolete. Companies that incorporate systems-level thinking into their value chain will be positioned to capture the long-term value critical for growth.
The Dutch have beautiful bicycles and smart bicycle infrastructure. They are now applying technology, creative design and aesthetics to their highways. A magnetic field in the road to inductively charge the battery as the car drives? That sounds like a more elegant infrastructure solution than building thousands of charging stations!
SingularityHub
Written By: David J. Hill
BBC News
By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst
The EU has launched a campaign aimed at showing how low-carbon solutions can improve quality of life.
The European Commission believes that policies to cut greenhouse gases will only work if individuals share the vision of a low-carbon society.
“It’s perhaps been a bit too much doom and gloom in the past on climate,” one official told the BBC at the launch in London. “We are now emphasising the need to inspire people.” Read more »
Going green helps disaster stricken communities look ahead.
Anyone with a TV is familiar with the tragic results of 2005′s hurricane Katrina for New Orleans or the 2011 tsunami that inundated about 561 square kilometers of Japan. And if this past summer’s record breaking drought in the U.S. isn’t evidence enough, recent studies have have found evidence that climate change will bring increasing devastation to urban areas around the globe. However, once the media frenzy over these disasters subsides, the rebuilding work goes largely unreported. In New Orleans and Northern Japan, many building managers turned tragedy into an opportunity to rebuild these communities into something better with environmentally sustainable, energy efficient building strategies.
The US Department of Commerce announced the preliminary countervailing duties for solar imports from China last Thursday. Depending on manufacturer, the countervailing duties lie between 31% and 250%. This makes duties higher than expected. Experts now anticipate a backlash from China.
Bonn/ Washington. The trade dispute between the USA and China regarding solar imports in the USA has gone into the next round. On May 17th, the US Department of Commerce announced preliminary countervailing duties of between 31% and 250%. Duties imposed on manufacturers are as follow: Read more »
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