2 March '10
2:33 PM EST
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Top Ten Players in Green Energy

February Top Ten Players in Green Energy

Green Energy Reporter’s ranking of the top ten players in green energy for the month of February is out! Our top-ten list is based on the players’ influence over green energy policy and their ability to move the debate.

1: Bloom Energy


Whoa! What a launch. The rollout of Bloom Energy’s Bloom Box will likely emerge as a case study of close-to perfect PR execution. One must admit anticipation was high considering that for the past eight years the Silicon Valley company had remained tight lipped about its fuel cell technology. But when the company, which since its inception has raised $400 million, was ready to talk, boy did it talk, culminating with a whole segment on 60 Minutes. All the way through, Bloom Energy’s CEO and backers stayed on message, describing the Bloom Box as a green, clean source of power. And for the most part the media bought the narrative. Although, by the end of the week-long media fest, questions emerged asking how green the Box really was, considering that it does emit C02 when producing energy. Albeit, at the end of the day, thanks to thorough fundamental research (and good strategic PR), Bloom has for the time being anchored itself as one of the “it” players in greentech. However, $400 million later, the question lingers: Will Bloom turn out to be a Google or a Segway? Segway is a losing investment of one Bloom backer, Kleiner Perkins. Read More »

3 February '10
1:59 PM EST
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Top Ten Players in Green Energy

January Top Ten Players in Green Energy: Nos 1-5

Green Energy Reporter’s ranking of the top ten players in green energy for the month of January is out! Taking the lead for the January ranking are British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband (#2 last month). These two are implementing bold green strategies whose impact will be felt well after they leave office, and based on recent polls, showing Conservative leader David Cameron well ahead of  Brown, that could happen soon.

Our latest ranking also includes promising companies prepping for possible IPOs as well as on investors putting their money, where so far only a few have….  One such investor is Microsoft founder and Chairman Bill Gates, who last month announced he was spending $4.5 million on various geoengineering projects. This is a risky proposition but not a  surprising one coming from someone who dropped out of Harvard to launch the startup that’s become Microsoft!

As we like to remind you, every time we publish out ranking, our top- ten list is based on the players’ influence over green energy policy and their ability to move the debate. Other factors that we take into account in making our monthly selection include industry and popular support for their positions, access to capital to fund innovation and the success of their ventures.

1: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown/Secretary of State for energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, UK secretary of state for energy and climate change

From small-scale to ginormous-scale, British politicians rolled out complex plans in the last month to put the country on track to meet 15 percent of its energy needs from renewable sources by 2020. First, they announced a £75 billion ($120 billion) offshore wind project – the so-called Round Three program administered by the independent Crown Estate – that will put thousands of turbines on the country’s seabed. Nine separate consortia won contracts to build the projects. The projects could support 70,000 jobs by 2020, according to Brown.

Then, just this week,  Ed Miliband announced new feed-in tariffs for small-scale and home producers of renewable energy. Homeowners could be paid hundreds of pounds from electricity they generate, even if they use it themselves, Miliband said.

Of course, there are enormous challenges, from lack of manufacturing plants that could actually build these offshore turbines to limited offshore connections to the national electricity grid. There’s also the simple matter of getting citizens to buy into green energy. But these projects show ambition that is distinctly lacking elsewhere in the world.

Image: PA

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3 February '10
12:40 PM EST
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Top Ten Players in Green Energy

January Top Ten Players in Green Energy: Nos 6-10

6: Bill Gates, Chairman, Microsoft

Bill Gates founded one of the world’s most successful software companies. Today, he’s also one of the world’s most ambitious philanthropist. Given that unique background, Gates’ actions carry weight. In an interview last week Gates mentioned that he had invested some money with Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures. As we’ve noted that Khosla’s fund is not your “mom and pop” cleantech fund, as it tends to go after cutting edge outfits backed by promising, out-of-the box ideas. One of its investments is in LS9, the developer of enzyme-based diesel fuel.

A few days after talking about his Khosla investment, Gates announced that he would spend $4.5 million to fund geoengineering projects. You don’t get more cutting edge than that — geoengineering seeks to deliberately change climate pattern on a global scale to mitigate the impact of climate change. Read More »

5 January '10
2:23 PM EST
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Top Ten Players in Green Energy

December Top Ten Players in Green Energy: Nos 1-5

Green Energy Reporter’s ranking of the top ten players in green energy for the month of December is out! Not surprisingly this month’s ranking focuses on Copenhagen and the disappointing outcome of the much-anticipated UN Climate Change Conference.

New inductees include the dead-on-arrival French carbon tax and the promising but challenging quest to develop utility-scale geothermal power. Not returning this month, after two showings, each justified by his company’s substantial green investments and his controversial pro-carbon tax position, is Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson– (number five in the November ranking and number four in October).

As you know this GER ranking is based on the players’ influence over green energy policy and their ability to move the debate. Other factors that we take into account in making our monthly selection include industry and popular support for their positions, access to capital to fund innovation and the success of their ventures.

1: China’s climate change negotiators

President Barack Obama meets with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Copenhagen.
President Barack Obama meets with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen climate change summit became China’s coming-out party as one of the world’s new power brokers. In Copenhagen, China and its team of negotiators became the defacto voices of the world’s developing nations. The fact that its economy is many times larger than some of the countries it spoke for was a fact overlooked by most. If there is a winner left standing after the disappointment that was Copenhagen, it’s China. It came to Denmark not wanting a global binding agreement and left with exactly that. In reaching that goal, it even played hard ball with U.S. President Obama as it met behind his back with South Africa and India to craft their own agreement. Moving forward, China has anchored itself as THE unavoidable hurdle — ahead of other BRIC countries like India and Brazil — standing in the way of a comprehensive climate change agreement.

Photo Credit: The White House via Wikimedia

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5 January '10
1:12 PM EST
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Top Ten Players in Green Energy

December Top Ten Players in Green Energy: Nos 6-10

6:  Utility Scale Geothermal developers

Perpetual motion machines, unicorns… utility-scale geothermal?

Unfortunately for geothermal developers, it seems that tapping the earth’s core to generate energy has increasingly been consigned to fantasy land. Swiss authorities shut down one project, backed by former oilman Markus Häring, because studies showed that it could trigger earthquakes and cause damage to properties.

Then Google-backed AltaRock Energy gave notice to the Department of Energy in early December that it was abandoning its Geysers drilling project near San Francisco. Add these setbacks to the enormous cost and inexact science of drilling holes miles in the ground and you’ve got a technology that appears not to be ready for large-scale development.

The DOE remains keen, saying the technology has “enormous potential.” Recently, however, we’ve only seen enormous setbacks. Read More »

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