Green Investments Report by Conservastore week ending 8/31/12- Is Cleantech Investment Drying Up

In this edition of the Green Investments Report by Conservastore we look at why Cleantech Investing has not seemed to shine as much as many of us would like. Cleantech is another word for Green Technology that encompasses anything from water saving to EV’s(electric vehicles) to water conditioning to sustainable living.

Sadly seems as if Cleantech investing has followed the general market more than many including us would prefer. Like it or not and despite any government subsidy, an investment must repay it’s investors and if the general economy is suffering it is more difficult to pay off any investment.

Here are the basics of what the Green Skeptic discusses in his July 20th article, “Is the Sky Falling for Cleantech Investment,”

1.“Measured by dollars invested, cleantech venture investment fell 14 percent compared to the previous quarter ($1.88 billion) and was off 25 percent from 2Q11 ($2.15 billion),” according to the Cleantech Group. “The number of deals recorded in 2Q12 was 155, compared to 197 in 1Q12. The tally may rise 

2. Not totally unexpected since, “We forecasted a decrease in cleantech VC in 2012 due to a tightening in the investor fundraising climate, waning policy support in the developed world, perennial concerns about IRRs in cleantech and macro-economic turbulence and other factors.” says an analyst Kachan and Co

3. But “The largest companies in the world are buying their way into clean technology markets,”the analyst writes Kachan. So this is complementing the previous focus of largely private equity 

We feel that sadly the Solyndra debacle caused a pause in the solar energy market as viewed by the “average investor”

I spoke to a solar electric installer recently that said the furor over Solyndra took an industry that was positive and good for the economy and for getting us off foreign sources of energy, ie solar electric, and partially ruined it in the eyes of the US populace. Even supposedly smart people with advanced degrees who would quickly point out in a conversation with friends that real estate law is very different from personal injury law or that a gynecologist is not the one to chose for brain surgery will lump ALL solar together so if Solyndra was bad  then all solar is bad.
Of course I’ve spoken to Green Builders that liked the Solyndra product and wish it was still available since the reason it was unprofitable as a company was that it was better than the Chinese alternative

But Cleantech is really here to stay basically because it makes sense and can usually provide a solid return over an albeit longer period of time.

Here’s a nice video on the massive Concentrated Solar Facility in California
that will power up to 140k homes. So there you go not all solar is Solyndra.

Here’s the entire article we reference in our blog

Here’s our Green portfolio for the week ending 8/31/12. Finally seeing more Green(+ that is) than Red