Energy & Sustainability

On July 10, the SEC adopted a new rule that will permit many private equity funds, hedge funds and venture capital funds to use general advertising and solicitation when offering and selling interests in a fund. Effective in mid-September, this significant change in the law will permit private funds to advertise in any media.

Last night, SiNode Systems, representing the Western Southwest region of the country, was pronounced the winner of the this year’s Department of Energy National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition.

Though Congress is out for Memorial Day recess this week, we anticipate that a significant amount of work will be accomplished in the weeks to follow. Last week, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held its final forums on natural gas, focusing on liquid natural gas (LNG) exports and hydraulic fracturing.

The Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has launched an initiative to build an open-source database of real-world performance from solar facilities across the country. As part of DOE’s SunShot Initiative, the Open Solar Performance and Reliability Clearinghouse (O-SPaRC) goal is to provide the private market tools to develop investment vehicles to tap low-cost public capital.

Although the House and Senate are on recess, April promises to be a busy month—the nominees for the Interior and Energy Departments will have their confirmation hearings in Senate next week, and Congress is expected to consider important energy legislation later this month.

Ultra Light Startups recognizes that game-changing ideas in alternative and renewable energy require capital to develop. Ultra Light also knows that investors are looking for companies and ideas with breakthrough potential.

Mintz’s Energy & Clean Technology Practice was recently recognized by LMG Clean Technology and Renewable Energy, a Euromoney Institutional Investor publication, as one of the top ten firms in the clean technology industry.

The rapid progress of advanced energy technologies and energy efficiency in the “conventional” areas of oil and gas as well as in the “clean” sources of wind, solar, and geothermal energy is allowing countries to do more from less energy.

Greentech Media released their list of green technology’s largest venture capital deals for 2012, and GreatPoint Energy, a coal-to-natural-gas firm, is in first place.

In the wake of Storm Sandy, adaptation to climate change is emerging as a public policy priority.

Orlando Pacheco, the town administrator for Lancaster, Massachusetts, has something to boast about.

On December 12, 2012, the Defense Logistics Agency – Energy (DLA-E), in close coordination with the Army Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF), released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for electrical power from a biomass generation facility for up to 28 megawatts located on or contiguous to Fort Drum in Watertown, New York. 

While completing his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2008, Anurag Bajpayee discovered a simple chemical trick with vast potential—he found that a certain class of oils can remove contaminants from water.

ML Strategies has posted its weekly Energy and Environmental Update.  This publication provides timely  information on the fiscal cliff negotiations in the lame duck session, and other state and federal administrative and legislative activities related to energy and the environment.

Last month, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its revised Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims, also known as the “Green Guides.”

The filed rate doctrine precludes antitrust challenges to rates set or approved by federal agencies. The doctrine is broadly applied and covers, for example, wholesale electricity rates that are filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission), even in circumstances where the claimant alleges that the rates were initially set in a fraudulent or improper manner.

President Obama issued an executive order prohibiting a Chinese-owned company from acquiring and owning four wind farms in the U.S. on September 28, 2012, which marks the first time in over two decades that a U.S. president has blocked a foreign transaction.

While political gridlock at the federal level threatens crucial incentives for renewable power and some states seem to be slowing or at least re-evaluating their policies, a few states are still pressing forward aggressively.

The European Chamber of Commerce in China released a report on August 22 titled “Dulling the Cutting Edge: How Patent-Related Policies and Practices Hamper Innovation in China,” finding that, despite the rise of China to the number one country in numbers of domestic patent application filings, the number of quality, higher-end patent applications has declined.