I often get the feeling talking with cleantech investor colleagues in California and contacts in D.C. that they don't think about Massachusetts very much.  Perhaps they think of the innovation center in the universities based in the state, but they don't think very often about the state as being a leading market for such innovations.

But it is.

Over the past few years, thanks to the efforts of the Patrick Administration and earlier efforts, Massachusetts has been a quiet trend-setter in terms of how to support implementation of clean technologies, and how to restructure the electricity regulatory scheme so that utilities have an incentive to tackle real efficiency savings, not...

'Tis the season for nor'easters, new year's resolutions, and venture capital prognostications.  All three, basically snow jobs.

2010 wasn't a good year for many cleantech venture capitalists.  I think 2011 will be better... for some.  Here's what I wrote about my 2010 predictions in retrospect.  And here are some of my predictions for 2011:

1. The cleantech venture capital shakeout will become more obvious

I haven't seen too much written about this by those outside the industry, mostly because it's been pretty quietly done.  But as we've talked about here before, there's been an exodus of investors out of the sector lately.  To date, it's been mostly individuals -- either...

Just a few random notes on a snowy Monday afternoon:

1. As it's getting to the end of the year, I'm pulling together some predictions for 2011.  But it's always fun to look back at how I did last year.  The "year of energy efficiency"?  Check.  "Something in carbon legislation will be passed, but it will be more symbolic than meaningful"?  Not quite right, but directionally correct in assuming a more pessimistic stance than many had at that time.  "A pickup in investment activity, including the return of the megadeal"?  Yeah, probably technically correct, although Q3 of this year wasn't encouraging.  "New hybrid investment models will evolve"?  Never wrong, but often early, I like...

Yesterday I drank ocean water and ate 31 day old fish.

And it was tasty.

I don't get the opportunity as a cleantech investor to do many taste-tests, yet funnily enough yesterday I got to do two of them.  First I attended a ribbon-cutting for Oasys Water's new facility in Boston's Innovation District, where Mayor Menino and a host of other folks including yours truly were invited to sample some ocean water that had been desalinated using the company's technology.  Tasted like Dasani.

Later that day I was kindly invited to a dinner hosted by Global Fresh Foods where they celebrated their first commercial shipments of sustainably-farmed salmon from Norway to the U.S., by doing a...

I had the pleasure of taking part in a roundtable discussion at MIT a few days back, with researchers, investors, entrepreneurs and others there to talk about what cheap natural gas might mean for U.S. efforts to combat climate change.  The assumption being that unconventional gas development efforts (shale gas, etc.) and the resultant massive expansion of reserves here in the U.S. points to a prolonged period of relatively cheap natural gas.

Somewhat to my surprise, the group mostly thought this was a bad thing.  Because, many felt, cheap natgas would mean building out more of a power infrastructure based upon gas instead of solar/wind/etc. power.  "We cannot achieve our 2050...

WARNING: Personal political opinion and discussion follows.  Feel free to ignore if you think it's not relevant to you.  But trust me, it actually is...

It is a dangerous time for the cleantech sector, which is now under pressure on multiple fronts.

The moribund economy continues to hinder the revenue growth efforts of many cleantech products and services companies that, often after several years of development efforts, now have a product ready for the market.  

Cleantech VCs are also increasingly tapped out -- at or near the end of their funds.  And as we've discussed here recently, many VCs who had been investing in cleantech are either narrowing where within the sector...