In a previous post, I wrote about the Canadian Intellectual Property Office’s (CIPO) proposal to implement an expedited examination program for green tech patent applications.

Last month CIPO launched the program. Now applicants can have their green patent applications advanced out of turn (more…)

Richard Bruton TD, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, announced recently that An tSlí Ghlas – The Green Way, Ireland’s first Green Economic Zone, has been accepted as the Irish representative of the Global Cleantech Cluster Association(GCCA).

Membership in GCCA will provide Irish (more…)

Oregon is fast becoming the North American green tech hub. SolarWorld already operates the continent’s largest solar manufacturing plant just west of Portland, Nano solar cell maker Solexant recently announced plans for a manufacturing plant east of the city, and now Vestas, one of the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturers, has chosen the (more…)

In Africa and elsewhere, burgeoning population growth threatens to overwhelm already over-stretched food supply systems. But the next agricultural revolution needs to get local — and must start to see rising populations as potentially part of the solution.

I bring good news from Machakos, a rural district of Kenya, a couple of hours drive from Nairobi. Seventy years ago, British colonial scientists dismissed the treeless eroding hillsides of Machakos as “an appalling example” of environmental degradation that they blamed on the “multiplication” of the “natives.” The Akamba had exceeded the carrying capacity of their land and were “rapidly drifting to a state of hopeless and miserable poverty and their land to a parched desert of rocks, stones and sand.”

Since independence in 1963, the Akamba’s population has more than doubled. Meanwhile, farm output has risen tenfold. Yet there are also more trees, and soil erosion is much reduced. The Akamba still use simple farming techniques on their small family plots. But today they are producing so much food that when I visited, they were selling vegetables and milk in Nairobi, mangoes and oranges to the Middle East, avocados to France, and green beans to Britain.

What made the difference? People. (more…)

After making his fortune with Idealab and a host of technology start-ups, Bill Gross has turned his attention to renewable energy. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Gross talks about the solar power plant technology his company eSolar is developing and about the future of solar.

Bill Gross is not your typical solar energy entrepreneur. In a business dominated by Silicon Valley technologists and veterans of the fossil fuel industry, Gross is a Southern Californian who made his name in software. His Idealab startup incubator led to the creation of companies such as eToys, CitySearch, and GoTo.com. The latter pioneered search advertising — think Google — and was acquired by Yahoo for $1.6 billion in 2003.

That payday has allowed Gross to pursue his green dreams. (As a teenager, he started a company to sell plans for a parabolic solar dish he had designed.) Over the past decade, Gross has launched a slew of green tech startups, including solar power plant builder eSolar, electric car company Aptera, and Energy Innovations, which is developing advanced photovoltaic technology. (more…)

Whether you’re looking to share your expertise or just curious about the cleantech space, the CleanTechies Events and Conferences Calendar may feature a must-see event in your part of the world.

Among the highlights in the coming weeks:

• U.S.-Japan Clean Tech Symposium, Feb. 18, San Francisco, CA

What’s big in Japan’s cleantech sector? This four-hour session explores the state of the overseas market as well as ties between U.S. and Japanese companies. It’s organized bythe U.S. State Department and Japan’s trade ministry officials.

• Texas-Israel Cleanovation Conference, Feb. 22, Austin, TX

The launch of this conference promises to bring together some 200 attendees including from utility and clean energy companies, investors and technologists. Dr. Eli Opper, Chief Scientist of Israel, is among the keynote presenters. (more…)

At a factory in Wuxi, China, workers lift solar panels onto conveyor belts, while others in white lab coats move between machines as they check on a process for etching and engraving silicon wafers to form solar cells.

This scene in itself isn’t remarkable. But there is a new sort of excitement about the work. China’s production of solar panels has grown quickly in the past two years; it is it now the world’s leading exporter. When Matt Lewis, a representative of the California-based nonprofit ClimateWorks, visited the factory in October, he said it reminded him of his native Silicon Valley: The workers, even ordinary line workers, had a sense that they were part of building the future, the hot new industry.

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Tom Friedman spent most of 2009 beating the China-is-winning-the-green-race-drum, and he has started 2010 with the same focus.

In Sunday’s New York Times, the news side of the house joined their editorial page colleague, writing in a front page story that Chinese “efforts to dominate renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.”

To his credit, Friedman’s push has been all about policy. He wants the United States to go all-in in a space-race-like push to match Chinese innovation in energy technology (“E.T.,” as he has glossed it). But, what has eluded his attention – and is absent again in Sunday’s news piece – is the recognition that in order to match Chinese innovation, the policy changes that would be required in the U.S. electricity markets would necessarily have to go far beyond decoupling, one of Friedman’s personal causes.

(more…)

Many green industry professionals and career changers are interested in clean tech conferences and alternative energy events. You can find many upcoming green tech events and clean energy conferences in the United States and worldwide in the CleanTechies Events Calendar, but how do you make the most out of your attendance? No matter whether it’s an event on energy efficiency, solar energy, wind energy, green building or sustainable transportation, there are a few things common to each that will help YOU make your participation a success.

Just in time for your next clean tech event or alternative energy conference, here are our tips:

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Thank billions in government funding for helping to lift clean technology investment in the third quarter, said the Cleantech Group and Deloitte in a report Wednesday.

The quarterly analysis reiterated that the recession has kicked but not killed investments in this sector, which remain down 42 percent from the third quarter of 2008. Biotech and IT combined receive less funding than clean tech, which continues its climb from the second quarter, the report noted.

“The two largest venture deals (Solyndra and Tesla Motors) and the largest IPO (A123Systems) this quarter were all recipients of U.S. government funding,” said Cleantech Group managing director Dallas Kachan in a statement.

(more…)