If it wasn’t a cliché, you could say that a fair head of steam is building up around clean energy businesses. The report Clean-Energy Trends 2008 from Clean Edge is just the latest to proclaim this as the sector to watch.
As the introduction to the report (available as a PDF file) puts it “2007 was another banner year for clean energy, with no signs of a slowdown in 2008. Solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, energy intelligence, hybrid- and all-electric vehicles, advanced batteries, green buildings, and other clean-energy-related technologies and markets provided bright spots in an otherwise sluggish economy.”
By coincidence, Jeff Skinner, Director of Corporate Affairs at UCL, was similarly upbeat on energy technologies in a throwaway remarks last night at an R&D Society meeting on knowledge transfer from the university sector. Jeff’s point was that the UK seems to have a critical mass in this area.
UCL Advances, which, according to its mission statement, “stimulates collaboration among researchers, business and investors driving innovations that benefit society and the economy, is doing its bit to throw fuel into the debate. In 28 June its holds second Technology Innovation Forum on The Future of Energy and Sustainability. The event “will focus on the variety of ways in which industry, academia and government can work together to meet the challenge of climate change”.
The Clean Edge analysis reveals the extent of the interest in clean energy.
“U.S.-based venture capital investments in energy technologies more than quadrupled from $599 million in 2000 to $2.7 billion in 2007, according to New Energy Finance (with supporting data from Clean Edge and Nth Power). As a percent of total VC investments, energy tech increased from .6 percent in 2000 to 9.1 percent in 2007. Between 2006 and 2007, venture investments in the U.S. clean-energy sector increased by more than 70 percent.”
Whether it is a good thing that, according to the report, production of biofuels rose from 7 billion gallons in 2003 to 15.6 billion last year is another matter.
