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The Daily Startup: Clean-Tech Funds Keeping It In The Family

Clean-technology investing is on the decline. Venture capital firms put just $2.74 billion into clean-tech startups in 2013, down from a high of $6.02 billion in 2008, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. A few recent glimmers of hope haven’t caused traditional VC funds to flood back into the sector yet, but family offices have filled the void to some degree. The latest is Prelude Ventures, which has emerged in recent months as one of the more active clean-tech investors, Yuliya Chernova reports for VentureWire.

The ‘black hole’ of Chinese carbon trading

One man is scrolling slowly through his emails. Another is flopped across his desk doing a good imitation of being asleep. It is a Wednesday afternoon at the China Beijing Environment Exchange, a centrepiece of China’s closely watched efforts to test carbon markets, and the action is not exactly frenzied. “There are currently around two to three trades a day,” says Yang Wang, the exchange’s carbon trading centre director.

Energia, 750 milioni dalla Ue per le grandi reti energetiche

La lista delle infrastrutture energetiche di interesse europeo individuate dalla Commissione Ue era stata resa pubblica a ottobre insieme all’ammontare dei fondi a disposizione per il periodo 2014-2020: 5,85 miliardi. Ieri è stato ufficialmente lanciato il bando per accedere alla prima tranche da 750 milioni di euro di finanziamenti che rientrano nella Connecting Europe Faciliy (Cef) per lo sviluppo e il completamento delle grandi reti infrastrutturali energetiche. Il focus sarà su gas ed elettricità per aumentare la sicurezza delle forniture e mettere fine all’isolamento energetico di alcuni Paesi Ue.

Raise the pressure

FOR all the debate about it, Britain’s shale-gas industry is minuscule. Whereas roughnecks in America have sunk many thousands of wells since a boom began more than a decade ago, Britain has fracked at only one test site, in Lancashire, and not since 2011. In a report published on May 8th, an all-party group from the House of Lords said that speeding shale-gas exploration should be an “urgent national priority”. So far, so familiar—and entirely in tune with the position of the coalition government. But the authors go on to blame the government, not green campaigners, for holding the frackers up.

Drones striking a high-tech blow for conservation and the environment

The use of drones has generally been synonymous with controversial globalised warfare, but falling costs and higher performance are now making them increasingly useful for conservation and environmental organisations. In the US, a non-profit group called Conservation Drones is working with manufacturers to scale up production, making drones more affordable for environmental groups and conservation scientists, with results that have already benefited Australian research groups. The founding director of Conservation Drones, Lian Pin Koh, told Guardian Australia the drones were a “game changer” that would “soon become a standard item in the toolbox”.

Wide Impact of Climate Change Already Seen in U.S., Study Says

The effects of human-induced climate change are being felt in every corner of the United States, scientists reported Tuesday, with water growing scarcer in dry regions, torrential rains increasing in wet regions, heat waves becoming more likely and more severe, wildfires growing worse, and forests dying under assault from heat-loving insects. Such sweeping changes have been caused by an average warming of less than 2 degrees Fahrenheit over most land areas of the country in the past century, the scientists found. If greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and methane continue to escalate at a rapid pace, they said, the warming could conceivably exceed 10 degrees by the end of this century.