
August Cleantech Roundup
Clean Energy Trust’s cleantech roundup recaps interesting cleantech news highlights, from policy changes to technology updates and investment news.
Blog Posts
On the CET blog, I wrote about the recent wave of doom and gloom climate change stories, and why we should still be optimistic about America’s ability to act on climate. Link to CET blog post on climate change news
Last month we mentioned Greentech Media’s The Energy Gang podcast episode on Better Place; this month Ben Gaddy dug into Ample, a company that claims it to be “solving the energy delivery challenge for electric cars.” Link to CET blog post on Ample and its parallels to Better Place
And, Ben also share some thoughts on home devices that use up a lot of energy by running 24/7 and how much we should worry about it. Link to CET blog post on energy vampires
Other
After all the craziness that Elon Musk led Tesla through this month, Blackrock (a significant shareholder in Tesla) voted to replace Musk with an independent chairman. This wouldn’t have booted Telsa from running the company as CEO, it just would have taken the board chairmanship Musk has currently and split that off to be a separate function. While this vote was defeated 5–1, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea: having a chairman independent from the CEO is a sound business practice. Link
California’s General Assembly passed a 100% carbon-free electricity standard by 2045, requiring 60% from renewable energy by 2030. Assuming the Governor signs it, this will be a really big deal. While attention is likely to focus on the 100% carbon-free goal, the 60% renewable energy standard by 2030 is the more audacious target. To get there, we are likely going to need better energy storage, namely long-duration storage that can store energy across weeks and months rather than just hours. Link
For Further Reading:
These publications and newsletters are what I typically pay attention to and are great sources for cleantech and investing news.
Energy:
- GreenTech Media — Good source for news and analysis on all kinds of clean energy.
- Axios’ Generate — Daily energy news roundup, with coverage that includes (but is not limited to) federal goings-on
- The Energy Gang Podcast — weekly cleantech news digest podcast produced by Greentech Media
Investing and Technology:
- Benedict’s Newsletter — Ben Evans’ weekly summary of interesting tech and investing news, along with his own interesting takes
- A VC — Blog by Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures — lots of interesting commentary on venture investing in general, and blockchain in particular
- Fortune’s Term Sheet — Weekday morning newsletter by Polina Marinova

