Apologies to everyone for the lack of posts for the past couple of weeks. At least I have a good excuse (see pic)...

So what did we miss over the past week-plus? Not much. A few deals (and we'll do a bit of an update on those next week), Google putting money into geothermal, and a coming free-fall in silicon prices. Frankly, my news alerts have been filled with much more generic fluff/ hagiography about "big name VCs are jumping into cleantech, and say it's the next big thing!" than any real news items on the subject.

There was also a brief two-part discussion from Dan Primack of PE Week Wire on the cleantech wave. Dan always takes a good critical eye to any emerging trends, pushing past the fluff to get to real issues, so it's worth checking out his thoughts (here and then here). I find myself largely in agreement regarding Dan's "on the one hand, but on the other hand" take on the sector right now, for reasons regular readers of this column will already find familiar...

One question for Dan, however -- what's the justification for saying that there is "a relative lack of potential acquirers?" Energy, water, and materials significantly touch so many major markets, and so much of the Fortune 500, that it's a very surprising comment. If anything, one thing that has excited long-time investors in the sector is the deep pool of potential acquirers. Heck, if even Google and Bank of America -- which don't make any physical products -- think energy tech is a strategic priority, I'm challenged to think of any industries for which looming natural resource constraints WON'T lead to opportunistic acquisition thoughts. Don't believe me? See the track record even before the latest hype cycle, in this somewhat-dated presentation from the Cleantech Group (note: link opens PPT file). So, Dan, why are there relatively few acquirers for cleantech companies?