CleanTech 123

Is Mattel's recalling of toys with lead paint a quality control issue or CleanTech issue? It depends on how you define what's CleanTech. Many people are familiar with Energy and Global Warming related CleanTech topics, but pay less attention to other areas needing equal "clean" treatment, such as safety toys, food etc.

So I try to incorporate as many things as possible into CleanTech by coming up with following expanded definition:

lAny products, services, and processes that harness renewable materials and energy sources, improves natural resources utilization and utility rate, dramatically reduce the use of natural resources , preserve/restore environment ecosystem, and cut or eliminate emissions and wastes.

Thus, the process of eliminating lead in paint or paint product without lead or any other harmful chemicals should be considered CleanTech.

CleanTech can be categorized into following 7 sub-categories:

1. Renewable Energy

lWind Power

lWater/Hydro Power

lHydroelectric

lMicro Hydro

lWave Power

lTidal Power

lTidal Stream Power

lOcean Thermal energy conversion

lDeep lake water cooling

lBlue energy

l
Solar Energy

lPV Solar Cells

lConcentrated Solar Power

lSolar updraft tower

lpassive solar design

lsolar ovens

lsolar-thermal panels

lsolar chimneys

lsolar power satellites

lThin film

lBiofuel 生物燃料

lLiquid biofuel (ethanol, butanol, biodiesel, and straight vegetable oil)

lSolid biomass (bargess, wheat chaff, corn cobs, switchgrass, miscanthus, willow, field pelletize)

lBio Gas

lGeothermal Energy (Dry Stream, Flash, and Binary) 热能

2. Energy Efficiency

lClean Coal

Clean Fossil Fuel

lEnergy Efficiency

lGreen Building Materials

3. Transportation

lElectric Motors/propulsion

lAdvanced Battery Storage (Battery, fuel cells, ultra-capacitors)

lAlternative-fueled Vehicles

lHybrid-electric vehicles

lHydrogen Refueling stations

lFuel Cells

lCoal fuel Cells

4. Smart/Green Power

lDistributed Power Generation & The Virtual Utility

lGreen City

• lWaste streams recycled into new sources of energy, water, and useful materials

• lUtility-scale solar thermal plants

• lSelf driving vehicle

5. Pollution Control

lCarbon emission reduction/offset

lGreen Chemistry

Why Lenovo and ThinkPad Matter?

Only few technology companies wowed me in the past on customer services. Last time when I tried to resolve my old HP/Compaq Laptop issue with HP, I was told that I am on my own: sorry, can't help! So I shy away from buying products with lousy customer service supports.

I have been using ThinkPad for work for over 5 years. I really like the experience very much. So recently I decided to purchase a ThinkPad T60 for myself. The new T60 look-n-feels great. However, the Vista seemed to slow everything down and buggy with many third party applications. So I contacted Lenovo for switching to XP Pro. This is how I was so impressed with Lenovo service team's speed and attention to detail to customer services.

Upon finding that technically it's impossible to install XP Pro on my new T60, service rep Terry and John from Lenovo instead configured a better equipped T60 for me with XP Pro for the same price and shipped that machine to me the third day while I can still use the old T60.

I got the new T60 yesterday. Man, am I delighted with the new T60: the speed, the look and most of all, lenovo's customer services, and how much they are willing to go to make a customer happy with his/her Lenovo experience. I heard many similar happy stories about Lenovo's services. This is a company that you can definitely trust. They will take care of the average WE. Kudo to Lenovo and ThinkPad!

Renewable Energy Series: Solar

It could not be a better time for clean-tech companies, especially those harvesting sun power, to enjoy the market boom for clean energies. Solar Cell/Solar Panel/PV startups like SunTech Power and Sunpower's IPOs have been generating lots of talks and me-too copy-cats. Suppliers of polysilicon, which is used for producing solar cells, are riding the high tide as well since the unit price of polysilicon has been more than tripled in the last two years. However, road for polysilicon based solar ventures are facing harsh competition from disruptive innovations. We already see breakthroughs in both the vacuum deposition CIGS manfacturing platform technology (Miasole) and nano ink based printable CIGS technology (NanoSolar). They are not only cost very competitive, but also quality comparable to/or even better than polysilicon solar technology. Meantime, other disruptive innovations such as Quantum Dots (can utilize 60% sun power)(Edivent) and conductive polymers (Konarka) etc. are going to tightly squeeze current solar technology market in foreseeable future. Even in the polysilicon as feedstock segment, new innovations, such as intelligently using mirrors/fibers to concentrate sun light (Energy Innovations) and intergrated back contact solar cells (Advent Solar), are going to cut down dramatically the demand for polysilicon. It seems that long on polysilicon based solar technology companies is not as sunshine as it appears.

Luck Versus Efficiency: VC investment decomposition

Hearing often lately about small VC fund is likely more agile and disruptive and bigger ones will lose out argument/observations, I am wondering whether there are some studies on the VC fund efficiency model. Are there something else, such as partnership dynamics, spread of the investment focuses over time, intimacy and interactive level of the due diligence process, and relationship versus valuation driven portfolio company management approach etc., playing a much larger and telling role in deciding overall success or failure of a fund or a firm? One thing is certain, some of the behavioral finance phenomena can be explained by capital/market efficiency model.

Hard to believe that VC investments are based on secretive luck. So why my luck is less lucky than someone else luck? I have noticed that firms like KPCB changed its value proposition to RELATIONSHIP. Maybe this is one of the key things that have not been paid much attention in the past?

Scare the hot Virus away before it catches you

I got the book "Flu" as a gift from a person I admire very much not long ago, and spent two-flight-time briefly gobbling down the difference between virus and baeteria, and the horror stories of 1918 influenza and worries of potential pandemic of avian flu. Of course, the book's key points sound more serious to me now since my entire family has been fighting a virus flu for three days.

Not surprisingly, KPCB just announced the $200M "KPCB Pandemic and Bio Defense Fund". It takes more than virologists to battle little viruses that plagued human population time and time again in history, and still affect you and me daily. KP has set a good start to combat the problem.

Could we ever win this battle, Or the purpose of the battle should be aimed at figuring out quick responses for damage control so more lives can be saved? We really do not have a clue of virus mutations and how the mutated genes' interactivities cause potential failure of body defense system, nor can we prevent such infinite possiblilities from creeping into our body every second. So our options seem to be more limited than the viruses.

Maybe KPCB's investments will deliver some innovative answers for us in near future.

Gmail glitches: could it ever happen

I am laughing at the title since it not only happened, but lasted more than one hour and during my important VC presentation yesterday afternoon. So the 30 seconds revisit response became an one hour agonizing disbelief. I do not see any report on this service done news and certainly no public apology from Google camp. Interesting!

The Green versus Green

I dragged myself into the renewable energy seminar organized by MIT Club of NCA last night. It was very interesting to hear different aspects over the topic from VC, private equity firm, Commercial banking, and Investment Fund (CalPERS). Mr. Winston Hickox's social and environmental driven investment principle shows to what extent fund managers can deliberately "force" companies/industries do-no-evil. But still in the end, for majority investments, it's not the greener environment will make the fund thrive, it's the other green: ROI. His view point did not resonate well with VC penalists. Nonetheless, how to blend making money and drving social and environmental impact together is worth more thinking from both investors and innovators. I guess it's hard to go with extreme in either direction.

Caldendar N.0 and Web N.0

Many techies and fans are waiting for the final release of gCal. All hopes a potential revolutionalization of PIM (Calendar) by google's entry into this field would come true. And the new Calendar may very well supports AJAX, RSS, Any Sync, Tag, vCAL/CalDAV, and Integration with Gmail/Gmap/Gvite/Gevent/Gnetwork. The list can go on forever. Since Google keeps mum on this topic for a long while, it generates even greater market fanfares - Job well done for Gmarketing team. Jeremy Z. led an interesting discussion on what good features should be included in a good Calendar application, by Google, or if no choice, Yahoo etc. It seems all cadendar applications existing are good at solving one set of PIM management issues. No comprehensive one has yet come out. More fundamental issue is $$$. Yes, the money making model of a business centered around a Calendar application. Sure, convenience and usability count. But how much are you willing to pay for that? $5.00 buying a Calendar from Walmart and hanging it on the wall pretty much keep me busy all year around and do the trick of disguising me as a social being. So calendar (online, offline, web based, or embedded etc.) has to be co-existing with other offerings that make sense of paying installment each month. But what are those killer apps that also make Calendar lethal?

I see two potential improvements that may facelift current Calendar status:

First, Calendar tracks History-Now-Future. Our life and values can pretty much interwovened into either time sequenced or event sequenced trails. New Calendar can do a good job of enriching life values and keeping track of memoriable things which can be ZOOMed in and out easily;

Second, Fun to interact with. Calendar is a social playground. It's invaluable for family, friends, and even your work. I treat calendar as a loyal companion, so at times, it may understands me and call/sync/SSM/MMS/email/RSS me for sharing.

And my appetitie for a good calendar may never stop here since I am a needy being as well. So 100 years later, I may have a calendar chip embedded in my head so I do not have to sync with anything. Sending an email, no problem, I think, it writes and sends right away; Searching for events, no problem neither, even before I ask, it gets everything already in my head, I naturely know what's going on. PC, Cell phones, PDA, Sync, etc.? long gone. Could it happen?

OK. Let's see what google is baking this time.