A new cleantech taxonomy

I thank you for the list.

There is value to your list by making methanol a clean fuel in comparison to ethanol. If you would like to see some facts about methanol, please read Robert Rapier's blog, and especially the comments section, which gets into the heart of the details.

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/05/21/methanol-versus-ethanol-t...

This is the most comprehensive, well thought-out work I've seen yet to define cleantech. Congrats. Kudos for putting smart grid where it belongs: under efficiency.

That said, I'd consider making green building its own, standalone separate category--is all green building motivated by efficiency? And perhaps combine water and agriculture; they're both such modest categories when it comes to cleantech investment and innovation (albeit hugely important to us as a species) that maybe they should be collapsed into one.

But again, well done. Not an easy task. Shows a real grasp of the sector. Subject of a few late night arguments internally over pizza and beer?

You need to add a class of fuels that are drop in replacements. Companies like Amyris, LS9 and Virent, to name but a few are using non Cellulosic and non algae feedstocks to create green jet fuel, diesel and gasoline.

This is by far the fastest growing segment of fuels(algae perhaps included) as the Dept of Defense and major airlines all are creating demand.

This really should be combined with algae derived in your category, but renamed "drop-in fuels".

This is a very thoughtful taxonomy. The work your team put into it is both validated and understated by the fact that it seems so obvious when presented clearly as you did here. Thank you!

Under the heading of Renewable Generation > Renewable Fuels you include three specific product types that all use similar technology platforms (grain ethanol, cellulosic ethanol, and biobutanol), plus one micro-crop that is used in multiple dissimilar technology platforms to produce multiple dissimilar products ("algal-based"). You do not include non-algae micro-organisms that can also be used in ways similar to some algae-based pathways. If the taxonomy is supposed to be a "classification for technologies," then you might want to build this piece of the hierarchy around elements like the following, recognizing that all of them are capable of using multiple specific feedstocks, and of delivering a variety of products for different markets:
- Macro-crop fermentation
> Grain starch
> Cellulosic
- Macro-crop gasification
- Micro-crop batch processing
> Algae
> Microbes
- Micro-crop continuous processing
> Algae
> Microbes

Hope that's useful ...

Excellent thought leadership, Dallas. The categories reflect a lot of thought. Overlaps are a challenge. For example, electric cars are facilitiating a smart grid infrastructure which you appropriately put in Energy Efficiency. Specific Level II, Fast Chargers, etc, probably belong in Transportation / Infrastructure. These are some thoughts about enhancing the Transportation category:

Vehicles – good start. If this is a global index, you might consider 120 million e-bikes to LEV in China, 1 billion bicycles globally, and new mobility.

Intermodal Mobility – add transportation smart apps to light-rail to high-speed rail

Services – include current logistics; add System Integration (e.g. Bosch, Eaton, ISE), ITS, vehicles as services (e.g. Car Sharing)

Infrastructure – add Smart Charging, battery switching. Added ideas:
http://www.cleanfleetreport.com/category/electric-vehicles/charging-elec...

Low Carbon Fuels – include CNG, LNG, Biomethane, downstream biofuels production, onsite hydrogen creation, etc. Added ideas:
http://www.cleanfleetreport.com/category/alt-fuels/

I would encourage you to also look at the Wilder NASDAQ OMX Global Energy Efficient Transport Index.

IT heavily impacts clean transportation. Perhaps, we need a Cleantech & IT convergence index.

I hope your work leads to some interesting Indexes.

Every success!
John

This is a great comprehensive list. I wonder if another branch should be incorporated however, along the lines of:

* Regulatory and environmental compliance (within each of the sub-topics)
* "Green" patent (& all intellectual property) management
* Scholarly, media, commercial and governmental reporting (of products, developments, research findings, grant applications)
* Lobbying for favorable tax codes and standards
* National and international standards development for fuel qualities, standardized measurements, etc.

In short, we'll still need a lot of those Communication Majors and GSA people working in the Cleantech field.

As the founder of Green Career Central and the author of Green Careers For Dummies, I've spent quite a bit of time wrestling with how to help mid-career professionals, students, and career counselors/coaching make sense of the emerging green economy.

I can imagine how much effort, thought, rethinking, re-categorizing, and debate went into this cleantech taxonomy! Thank you!

In my efforts to create a map of the Green Economy (www.greencareercentral.com/map) I went through 12 drafts over 2 years before I landed on my current version. (Note I say "current." I constant look at how to update, evolve, and strengthen my map. I've always know nthere would be another version...nothing in the emerging economy stands still for long.)

With your new taxonomy for clean tech as a reference, I'll be taking a new look to see how I can designate cleantech industries within my own map. Thank you again for your important contribution for investors and career seekers!

I also struggled with how to categorize waste.

Although we generally think of waste collection as resource management issue - tied into waste collection, recycling, and landfill management - it's time to see waste as a by product and an input of manufacturing and industry.

I ended up moving waste into the cradle-to-cradle manufacturing/industry cycle. The only way we can become accountable for the waste we produce and its impact is to talk about how to design, manufacture, reduce, reuse, recycle, and dispose of waste in a new way.

Waste that can be repurposed must be seen as a potential income stream for the manufacturer or the waste management company so that it is valuable enough to keep out of landfill. Innovations may come from utilizing waste streams that are readily available and inexpensive to obtain.

So much of our waste (residential, consumer, manufacturing, industrial) can be tied back to how products are designed, manufactured, and distributed.

Although probably not a cleantech application, building demolition and construction waste, which accounts for about 30% of landfill waste, is another important source of waste to consider in the big picture. Most likely it fits into the building cycle.

Hope these insights are helpful in your efforts to finalize your cleantech taxonomy.

Congrats - this is a direct ripoff of the confusing and convoluted frameworks already in the market. You'd think with a clean slate that you would have produced something more intelligible.

Greetings! I've been dealing with renewable energy taxonomy for nearly 20 years now (for both NREL and DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), and overall I think you've done a fine job.

Some minor nitpicks:
1) I'd add a wind measuring and forecasting bullet to wind. There's some interesting innovations going on there that are critical to the industry.

2) Geothermal deserves some subcategories ... I'd say exploration (although that opens the door to a bunch of oil and gas techs, too), power conversion (again, also applicable to other industries, including waste heat recovery) and hot dry rock, which DOE called Enhanced Geothermal Systems. HDR in particular is getting attention from Google and DOE right now, and there are some Australian firms beating their heads against the wall trying to make it work, as well (I wish them the best of luck, they need it!).

3) Smart Grid/Transmission should include a section on thyristors and other such devices to control the grid. Maybe call it "high-voltage control devices" or something like that.

4) Smart Grid/Management should have a bullet on cybersecurity.

5) Under vehicles, I'd combine the hybrid and all-electric categories into one called "vehicle electrification," since many of the same technologies apply to both (it's mainly a matter of degree). I also see some opportunity for innovation in engines for plug-ins, but I suppose that would fit under your improved ICE category.

My main gripe, however, is with the solar section. I think you should clearly separate PV and thermal technologies, as they have little overlap. And "nanotech" is just an enabling tech (it could be a subcategory under most of the categories in this taxonomy!); it shouldn't have it's own bullet. "PPA providers" are also an example of a bigger category that I'd call financing. And there are some innovations in capturing sunlight for direct lighting (using fiber optics and such), so that should be it's own category. So I see the solar part as more like this:

Photovoltaic techs
* Crystalline silicon
* Thin-film
* Organic
* Concentrating
* Module techs: electrical contacts, encapsulation, etc.
* Inverters
Thermal techs
* Non-concentrating thermal
* Concentrating thermal, including CSP
Lighting
Financing
Systems

I struggle with the PV categories, though, since there are some wacky ideas out there that just might work, like antennas designed to capture solar energy. So maybe the "organic" category should be "organic and other"?

I hope this helps!