Solatube, Silicon Genesis, and other news

The big news from the past week has to have been the House energy bill and other related developments inside the beltway, but that's more of a "politics as a spectator sport" event than anything directly affecting cleantech investors in the immediate time-frame. So other than that, it was a slow week in the world of cleantech investing...

• Daylighting system developer Solatube raised an undisclosed amount of "mezzanine funding" from Praesidian Capital. Dow Jones' Clean Technology Investor pegged the round as a $6mm debt financing.
  

• According to PE Week Wire, Silicon Genesis Corp, a developer of engineered substrate process technology for the semiconductor, display, optoelectronics, and notably for kerf-free silicon wafers for solar markets, has raised a $23mm round of financing. From PEWW: "Backers include H&A Asia Pacific, Lake Street Capital, Riverside Management Group, Firsthand Technology Ventures, Convexa Capital Ventures and Spencer Energy AS. Silicon Genesis has raised over $117 million in total VC funding, but this represents its first round since a 2001 infusion of $35 million at a post-money valuation of approximately $166 million."

• Cleantech investors in the news: Here's a nice profile of the role being played by Chevron Technology Ventures.

Other news and notes:

AltEnergyStocks had a very good overview of the opportunities available in large-scale electricity storage... The WBCSD had a nice take on the opportunities and challenges of cellulosic ethanol... And a recent report suggests thin-film solar will be a $7.2B industry by 2015... Here's a good example of the kind of applications for distributed sensor networks that would have been useful to have put in place years ago ("If bridges are a priority", then let's take spending away from other critical infrastructure and energy tech development needs in order to monitor them? Umm, maybe it really shouldn't be either/or...)... Do business travelers care about being green?... "You will never drive a hydrogen car"... But if you drive a biodiesel car, the byproducts may have some useful applications as well... Nathanael Greene points us to the Daily Show's hilarious send-up of the Cape Wind controversy... So I guess the next logical step would be paying people to walk around (hat tip to Matt Lecar of Trinity Ventures for this one)... Finally, deus ex nucleara?