Post-holiday greentech scuttlebutt and intrigue

Your faithful Avenger likes to think he grew out of his schoolyard intimidation & name calling phase long ago.

But every now and then, something comes along that illustrates just how fun, in a juvenile sort of way, it can be to let the fingers dance over the keys and channel dark musings unfettered by the tyranny of adult supervision.

Some people (a lot of people, come to think of it) even get paid good money to be nasty. And yes - even in the feelgood, let's-all-make-the-world-a-better-place cleantech/greentech biz.

Especially when there's millions of dollars to be made in doing so.

Chapman letter

Investor Robert L. Chapman Jr., whose firebrand firm Chapman Capital is a significant investor in Cypress Semiconductor, sent the board of Cypress a nastygram over the holidays. In it, he encouraged the company to divest itself of SunPower and go private to maximize shareholder returns. See the Cleantech Group's Hedge fund demands Cypress split out SunPower.

In addition to casting general aspersions, the letter makes specific assertions that Cypress founder Thurman J. Rodgers (affectionately known around the valley as "TJ") doesn't deserve much credit for birthing SunPower.

In fact, Chapman put it this way, choosing to imply TJ wears cardigan sweaters and slippers for apparent shock value:

"As many times as I have heard investors dismiss Mr. Rodgers's foresight, I struggle to repose confidence in those who credit pure, random luck (rather than his perspicacity), his hearty appetite, and his shared taste with SunPower Corporation founder Dick Swanson for a certain Silicon Valley coffee shop for the SunPower masterstroke. When Mr. Swanson told T.J. Rodgers that SunPower was two weeks away from laying-off half of its employees, Mr. Rodgers didn't hesitate, reportedly cutting Swanson a $750,000 check 'on the spot to keep the company afloat until [Rodgers] could convince the Cypress Board to acquire SunPower.' In the end, Mr. Rodgers's pulling out his checkbook in December 2001 (reportedly without doing material due diligence) to save his college buddy's company from insolvency, while seemingly making the Nostradamus-like prediction that oil prices were on the cusp of skyrocketing from $18/barrel to $60/barrel, is what gave Cypress pole position on future rounds of SPWR pre-IPO financing."

A leading Silicon Valley company that owes its livelihood, even success, to executives' networking? Say it isn't so!

Would Mr. Chapman be shocked at how regularly that happens in these here parts?

But then, maybe vitriol is just part of his shtick.

Quantum leaps?

Automotive fuel cell components maker Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies has been losing a lot of money lately - $89M in the last quarter alone.

So it was interesting to learn recently that company executives are jazzed these days about new business with General Motors, as reported by the Cleantech Group in November (see Quantum supplying fuel cell vehicle storage tanks to GM) and Quantum's prototype hydrogen vehicles' participation at a recent inauguration of Statiol's first hydrogen filling station in Norway.

Even more interesting are hints about a deal with Ford to be announced "early in the new year," (i.e. any day now) and "gamechanging" discussions with 4 unnamed automakers in China.

Investors might have a hard time mustering a lot of enthusiasm quite yet. The company says it expects to continue losing money through 2007.

And nor will 200 employees of the company be necessarily be singing its praises, having recently lost their jobs in a cost-cutting measure (which we're going to resist the temptation to call a quantum singularity or anything else Star Trek-related.)

Who was first?

the Cleantech Group's introduction of SV Solar last month, (see Silicon Valley Solar outed) suggested the company was onto something with its no-moving-parts solar concentration. And it indeed may be.

And so might be another company just down the street, as it happens, which is doing something surprisingly similar.

NuEdison, on North First Street (who's on first?) in nearby San Jose, CA, cites special concentrating optics, and "total internal reflection" - the same principle that keeps light inside of fiber optic cables - as powering its new solar concentration modules that look surprisingly similar to SV Solar's. It's in prototype right now, and is about about 12 months from shipping, according to spokesperson Pete Brumis, who also says the company is in discussions with investors and suppliers.

Which begs the question, who was first?

Cleantech developments making news in the past 24 hours

• Record 2008 for cleantech with $8.4B in investments
• Evergreen Solar spending up to $30M to close pilot plant
• UK team clears path for massive ocean iron fertilization trial
• Day4 Energy lays off one-third of workforce-UPDATE

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