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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Are we approaching a bubble in cleantech? Apparently, this is a question on a number of people’s minds; each of the VCs at the New York Venture Summit last week was asked to comment on it. 

I don’t see it. GE and Siemens achieved combined top-line revenues of over $30 billion in 2010 in this space, and continue to invest huge resources so as to “own the world” as it goes green; you can be sure that no one there is too concerned about a bubble.

The way I look at it, clean tech is in its infancy, the way the Internet was 15 years ago. When will it explode? I can’t say, but I recall those early days of the Internet, as it bopped along for a few years, then went right through the roof. You’ll see something quite similar here.

And here’s the reason – as I was explaining to a client this morning: why do we need products and services that provide sustainability? Because what we’re doing now isn’t sustainable. It’s that simple.  Many of our current practices can’t last – even if we want them to.

The boom will be as considerable as it is inevitable.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

I’m delighted to report that EV4Oregon has taken me up on my “Craig Shields…At Your Service” offer. I’ll be shooting up to the Pacific Northwest in a few weeks to be a part of the most exciting launch of EV charging infrastructure in the US to date. Check this out.

I love projects like this: providing strategic business advice in clean energy and electric transportation, the consequences of which are huge for all concerned. 

More soon.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Fossil Fuels

The Mellman Group for Ceres conducted a poll of likely Michigan and Ohio voters, and found that the voters overwhelmingly supported an increase to average fuel economy standards to 60 miles per gallon by 2025.

The poll was conducted between April 9th and April 12th, 2011.  The data comes as government agencies are seeking to develop new economy standards for the years 2017 to 2025.

“The American voter – the American consumer – is speaking loudly in these key states,” said Ceres President Mindy Lubber. “It isn’t just $4 per gallon fatigue. The voters recognize that our economic, environmental and national security (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

As I said, I wasn’t thrilled with the treatment that the entrepreneurs/presenters received at the hands of the venture capitalists who served as the panelist/judges at this year’s New York Venture Summit.  Having said that, there really were some surprisingly lame ideas that made it through the vetting process that the conference organizers claim they imposed on the entrants. 

I’m reminded of what Kleiner Perkins managing partner Ray Lane told me in a meeting a few months ago: 

There are a lot of ideas.  Ideas are pretty cheap actually.  So you can say: what if we did this?  You get very creative and very innovative about an idea that is not well thought through, but here are somethings to consider.  Is it going to be a big enough market?  Is the risk removable?  Can you scale it up?  What are the economics?  Is it disruptive enough? 

There were people targeting extremely small markets, or projecting really unappealing revenues and earnings.  And, of course, there were people who want money to build a prototype of something that I can see is going to be difficult if not impossible to make happen – even in the laboratory, not to mention the real world. 

This, of course, is why I’m left recommending only a dozen of the 600+ cleantech business plans I’ve reviewed over the last two years. 

Also, some of the presenters failed to make important points.  For example, a speaker presented his company that offers a simple, inexpensive breakthrough for delivering chemical pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides in a more effective way – thus agribusinesses can use less.  In this whole presentation he didn’t mention that reducing the use of toxic chemicals has a positive benefit on world health!  Doesn’t that matter?  Eventually, we’re going to realize that ingesting poison isn’t good for us.  That ought to be worth a bullet point on some slide somewhere.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Anyone coming to New York City who expects to see selfless acts of warmth and empathy for one’s fellow man clearly has no understanding of the spirit of the place.  Having said that, my experience at the 2011 New York Venture Summit went beyond the pale in terms of sheer mean-spiritedness.

Let me set the stage:  75 entrepreneurs in life sciences and cleantech each had seven pressure-packed minutes to present their business plans in PowerPoint to a panel of 8 – 10 venture  capitalists.  Most presenters were visibly nervous–and who wouldn’t be?  A room packed to the rafters with judges and fellow contestants, each waiting anxiously for his name to be called.  At the appointed time, the speaker would come to the stage and make a pitch that could either culminate in the few million dollars of funding necessary to get his “baby” off the ground, or, 100 times more likely, rejection.

And when I say “rejection,” you had to see it to believe it.  The VCs were (for some reason) asked to comment on each plan after it was presented.  And these comments were uniformly critical, some in constructive ways, I’ll grant, but, for the most part, they were unkind, and occasionally quite vicious.

A smirking wunderkind from Khosla Ventures (whom I desperately wanted to slap) and the guy sitting next to him from Kleiner Perkins often turned to one another and snickered audibly at presenters’ statements they considered inappropriate.  A panelist from another firm grilled a presenter (a PhD in materials science) on a business point after his talk.  “I understand,” said the presenter humbly in response to the criticism.  “Yeah right,” his tormentor mocked with obvious sarcasm.

Maybe I lack the thick skin required to deal effectively in today’s world.  Or maybe I’m taking too much pity on the victim in this master-slave relationship.  After all, the VCs have the money, and the entrepreneurs desperately need it; beggars cannot demand to be treated with respect and kindness.  But have we come to this?  Some of the smartest, most driven people on Earth, many with fantastic breakthrough ideas–developed over years, in some cases decades of work–being publicly ridiculed by a team of snotty young MBAs?

Had I not been paid to be there, I would have left before lunch.  As I told the conference organizers, “Good conference overall, but this idea of rude, arrogant pigs heckling the presenters–often in the middle of their talks–is really deplorable.  It’s shameful.  Don’t expect to see me next year.”

 

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I’m in New York City this week, doing a consulting project for 2GreenEnergy client Doty Windfuels. I knew going in that this was going to be interesting, but there was no way I could have predicted the drama.

Windfuels is one of 75 companies “pitching” its business concept to a large group of venture capitalists.  Each entrepreneur has a highly refined PowerPoint deck, and uses carefully chosen works to describe his “baby,” in the hopes of landing a workable relationship with a VC partner.  All of these 75 have some merit, it seems to me; in fact the group was screened, eliminating those whose ideas clearly didn’t merit further attention.

Yet the evaluation of a business idea is clearly a bit subjective; some people have an understanding of a certain type of technology, an appetite for a certain type of risk, etc.  Yet VC’s have little compunction about telling entrepreneurs that their baby is ugly.  In a session yesterday, someone responded to the Windfuels concept, “I don’t doubt the science, but I don’t see the business case.”

I, for one, can see that, after a development period of 2 – 3 years, Windfuels is a very good bet to be able to demonstrate a pilot plant in which high-grade fuel is being produced from energy, water, and CO2, using processes that can be expected to scale, making the price competitive with oil at $55 a barrel.  That doesn’t have value?  Imagine you’re an ExxonMobil or a Chevron, you’re running out of oil to extract, and your costs are rising.  At the same time, you’re trying to convince the world that you’re not an oil company; you’re an “energy company.” You visit a facility where your product is being made cost-effectively without a molecule of crude.  Sounds pretty appealing to me.

Fortunately, some people really “get it” when it comes to the concept, and see that the world’s first workable approach to synthetic fuels has potential that dwarfs literally every other idea here.  We’re talking about a trillion dollar market; this is not a better approach to spear fishing, or something like that.

Well, today is another day, and a new set of VCs.  It only takes one.  And, in truth, Windfuels is a better fit for a different type of investor anyway; I’m going to try to find them someone who may be more appropriate.  Let’s see what happens.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

Frequent commenter John Sullivan asks:

How can you cite “eviscerating environmental regulations” as a factor in our lack of competitiveness, when China has a horrible record and is arguably using their “green” investments as a shield for now?

It’s probably true that the reason for China’s investment in renewables has little or nothing to do with environmentalism. But I’m not sure I see the relevance to what we’re trying to in the West. There is no doubt in my mind that environmental regulations in a market economy spur innovation in cleantech, and that their removal provides additional incentive to pursue the status quo. (In the meanwhile, such regulations protect our health and safety, and there’s something to be said for that as well.)

I sat next to an extremely senior Australian scientist/businessman during lunch at the energy storage show last week. My jaw almost fell into my arugula salad when he told me about the firm but simple carbon tax his country is deploying. It’s not 1500 pages of pork-barrel back-room deals; it doesn’t have cap and trade, loopholes, wormholes, or buttonholes. It’s extremely plain and direct, phasing in over a few years, giving everyone plenty of time to understand its impacts and make whatever adjustments to their businesses they see fit.

Australia has a well-deserved reputation for being straightforward in its approach, and this strikes me as the perfect example. Here, they perceived that they faced a serious problem with a social ill (like cigarette smoking), and simply put a tax on it. Instantly, they created incentive for innovation in clean energy; in fact, they’re using the revenue to provide further incentives for the development of green solutions.

Miraculously, it didn’t take years of political posturing and grandstanding; they just did it. Try to imagine that in the US.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

Clean energy investment worldwide was up 30% in 2010, after a steep decline in 2009, says the Pew Charitable Trusts.  “The clean energy sector is emerging as one of the most dynamic and competitive in the world, witnessing 630 percent growth in finance and investments since 2004,” said Phyllis Cuttino, director, Pew Clean Energy Program.

Venture capital investment in U.S. green technology rose 46% in 2010 after a big decline in 2009, says Clean Edge, Inc. Clean tech companies took in 23% of all U.S. venture capital dollars (more…)

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Energy Storage

Before my day in New York City comes to a close, let me mention a highlight: my meeting with Steve Hellman, president of Eos, energy storage giant of the not-too-distant future.  I won’t bore you with the details of his company’s breakthrough in zinc-air battery chemistry; I’ll only point out what I think it will mean in the sexiest aspect of the storage business: enabling electric vehicles in a very big way. 

Steve and I had a very interesting and engaging talk, during which we realized that we share a common viewpoint:

Have you ever noticed that the great consulting companies like Deloitte and Accenture have ridiculously smooth projections for the adoption of cleantech over the coming decades?  These graphs, like all attempts to project the future from the past, are a complete crock. And in no case is this more evident than in automobiles – the place at which we will choose between one great infrastructure and another.  Once the right combination of factors falls into place (an acceptable range, an acceptable price), the change will happen very suddenly – and drive the loser out of business in a very short period of time. 

As I’m about to tell my audience at the upcoming electric vehicle show in Los Angeles at which I’ve been asked to speak next week: once this starts to happen, you will have the same trouble buying a gasoline-powered car that you do now shopping for a turntable for LPs. 

Hey, did the Internet happen slowly?  Or did it come to dominate the way we live in just a few years.  Something to think about – as is Eos.

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by craigshieldsPosted on Posted in Biomass

When I was lucky enough to meet the eminent Bulgarian scientist Dr. Boris Monahov at the Energy Storage conference last week, we spoke about the advanced battery solutions he and his team are developing. But Dr. Monahov is also a proponent of algal biofuels, and sent me the article linked here.

I remain skeptical.  Algae, while it works fine in the laboratory, has presented one problem after another in the real world. And this article suggests that algae can replace 17% of US purchases of foreign oil. In my estimation, that’s good, but not good enough.

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