When a company is developing battery technology for eco-chic plug-in hybrid vehicles (including work on converted plug-in Priuses), it’s not hard to become a well-known name in the cleantech industry. And being high-profile is helpful when it comes to raising funding — this afternoon the six-year-old Watertown Mass.-based company A123Systems said it’s raised another round [...]

  Niche video just got even more specialized with the addition of a “green” video-sharing network. emPivot, which has been in public beta since August, offers a combination of video hosting for green organizations as well as a green-tailored search engine to deliver environmentally relevant media. Founded by Chace Warmington and Thom Wallace of [...]

  Fuel cells powered by bacteria that produce electrons as they eat are quietly making waves in labs around the world. Traditional fuel cell technology is powered by chemicals like methanol or hydrogen; the bacteria-based kind are known as microbial fuel cells (MFCs). While MFC’s aren’t generating a lot of power yet, new genomics research could [...]

  What do thin-film solar, traffic-management technology and power storage all have in common? They’re all innovations that can help fight climate change, and they’re all getting investments from Battelle Ventures and its affiliate fund, Innovation Valley Partners (IVP). The firms said this morning that they will invest a combined $8 million into three startups: Aldis, [...]

  It was only mid-August when we heard that HelioVolt had raised a whopper of a $77 million Series B round. But given it’s taking many thin film solar startups a lot of capital to get to the production stage, we’re not surprised that this morning the Austin, Texas-based company said it has closed the second [...]

  In our increasingly digital world, power is one of the main “cost centers” and most large Internet and telecom companies are grappling with this problem in unique sort of ways. Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT) are putting their data centers right next to hydroelectric power generation plants in remote locations. British Telecom (BT) is looking [...]

  Trying to bring the production of biofuels closer to their consumption destination — be it the feedstock or the pumping station — isn’t a new idea. Several of Vinod Khosla’s biofuel investments are focused on cutting down the energy, and thus the cost, expended in transportation. This morning a similarly distributed, mobile biofuel investment bet [...]

  Vinod Khosla gave a speech down at Sand Hill Road yesterday in which he offered the most detailed description of his portfolio companies that we’ve heard. Breaking it down into four categories — the war on oil, the war on coal, efficiency and materials — he discussed at least 32 portfolio companies that he hopes [...]

  Given Tesla’s first electric car model won’t reach customers until next year, the hundreds of its eco-conscious sports car-loving (occasional celebrity) customers that have actually made it onto the waiting list are likely getting a bit antsy. And they probably wouldn’t like to watch the six or seven crash tests that have cost up to [...]

  Paul Dickerson, the COO of the federal government’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), says he has two goals: One, show industry and the venture capital worlds that his department is a friend to business – not isolated and bureaucratic, like government divisions tend to be. And two, educate the world that Americans [...]