Water companies had quite the showing in 2011 cleantech acquisitions, with Ecolab’s acquisition of Nalco (~$8.4 billion) and CKI’s acquisition of Northumbrian Water (~$4 billion).  The trend continues (albeit, on a much smaller scale!), as Mueller Water Products announced it is selling US Pipe to Wynnchurch Capital for nearly $90 million in cash.  Details on this story and other news items can be found below.

M&A/ Partnerships

• Mueller Water Products has signed a definitive purchase agreement to sell United States Pipe, Foundry Company and Fast Fabricators, which together form US Pipe, to USP Holdings, an affiliate of Wynnchurch Capital, for $89.8m in cash, subject to post-closing adjustments.
  www.water-technology.net/news/newsmueller-water-products-to-sell-us-pipe-to-wynnchurch-capital
• Aqua-Chem Inc has entered into a strategic joint venture with Brazil-based Vicel Group, to manufacture and assemble Aqua-Chem’s fresh water makers at the Vicel facility in Rio Das Ostras.
  www.filtsep.com/view/24428/aqua-chem-forms-jv-with-brazils-vicel-group/
• IBM Research and the Sonoma County Water Agency have joined forces to better manage water resources in Valley of the Moon Water District (VOMWD) in California.  As part of the new initiative, IBM will provide analytics technology to address the problem of water loss and to potentially locate leaks in VOMWD.
  

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Most of us are well aware of the problem.  The world’s population is moving faster than ever into urban areas – 75% of the world’s people will be crammed into cities by 2050.  Many cities are already bursting at the seams and in the decades ahead we will face increasing resource shortages as we struggle to keep up with the basic power, water, waste, and transportation demands of these emerging mega-cities.   These are challenges on a truly epic scale.

Not to worry you say, there’s an app for that!

As they have in industry after industry, information technologists are rushing to the rescue heralding the age of the smart city. There are glowing editorials devoted to the promise of “Big Data” and how, with enough computing power (fueled by renewable energy of course!) we’ll be able to analytically crunch our way out of these problems.

New York City has received praise from the digerati for the city’s BigApps contest where public data is being made available for curious and motivated web developers.  Last week, the good people at the TED Prize announced that this year’s $100K award will be split up amongst the 10…

This week Cleantech Group and WWF published Coming Clean: The Global Cleantech Innovation Index 2012. This first-ever report of its kind looks at cleantech innovation by geography:  where entrepreneurial cleantech companies are growing today and where they will spring-up over the coming years.  Download this report for free.

The report concludes that Denmark, followed by Israel, Sweden, Finland and the US provide the best conditions today for clean technology start-up creation.

The first global cleantech innovation index

In absolute terms, without factoring in economic size, the United States leads in many measures of cleantech innovation: the country has the greatest public cleantech R&D budget, the greatest number of cleantech start-ups and investors, as well as the most venture capital, private equity, and M&A deals in cleantech.

However, when weighted for economic size, the US’s dominance falls into fifth place.  Thirty-eight countries were evaluated on 15 indicators  related to the creation and commercialization of cleantech start-ups.  The index measures each one’s potential, relative to economic size, to produce entrepreneurial cleantech start-up companies and commercialize clean technology innovations over the next 10 years.

Cleantech Group published this report in partnership with the WWF, one of…

Over the past twelve months it has become quite in vogue, to the point of cliché, to discus the importance of partnerships to the development of the cleantech sector.   What started out as a handful of initiatives by major equipment manufacturers, utilities, and service providers to better engage with early stage companies has now become a full fledged movement of cleantech partnership gospel.

If partnerships are indeed the new cleantech religion, we’re about to host the year’s biggest revival in San Francisco.  Appropriately themed, The Power of Global Partnerships, our upcoming Cleantech Group Forum, March 26-28, will bring together corporate executives, investors, and entrepreneurs from around the world to discuss why the power of partnerships is not an empty pleasantry, but rather an indispensable guiding mantra for company’s both large and small.

If you have not yet registered or you are still a skeptical, non-believer who thinks that all of this talk of partnerships is nice and fuzzy, but doesn’t have real tactical bite, here are my top 5 reasons, why partnerships really, truly, sincerely-I-swear, matter to the growth of the cleantech sector.

1) Partnerships bring access to customer relationships: Most cleantech markets are brutally hard to enter.  Unlike…

What types of “innovation” should markets and society value?

What types of products, services, and businesses can justifiably be labeled as “innovation”?

I mindlessly use the word “innovation” tens of times every single day without pausing enough to ponder these fundamental questions.  Heck, I’ve helped architect a product called i3 for “insight into innovation”, regularly assist clients build “innovation sourcing” teams, and help host a conference with an “innovation showcase” (don’t forget to join us in San Francisco on March 26-28^th!).  I really should have a thoughtful opinion here.

On one hand, having spent most of my career as an entrepreneur, I think that there is a fair argument to be made that the answer to the question, “what is innovation?” should be “who cares about semantics!”  Let’s go out and build new stuff.  If it replaces the old stuff, makes for a profitable business, and nets a good return for investors, we can call it whatever we want.

On the other hand, I think we, especially in some corners of the U.S. entrepreneurial community, have forgotten what innovation truly looks like.  Jon Gertner presents his case for a definition of “innovation” in this past

As you have probably heard by now, the 2012 edition of the Cleantech Forum San Francisco will be a very special one. The Eco City is one of the features that will make this 10^th Anniversary event unique. Built upon the success of last year’s all-electric car show, the Eco City is designed as a public showcase of the latest clean technologies available on the market. Fifteen hand-picked companies representing the automotive, solar, wind, building materials, energy efficiency and smart grid industries will run the show, displaying their coolest products and illustrating this year’s theme: “The Power of Global Partnerships”. The Eco City will take place on Tuesday 27^th and Wednesday 28^th of March on Justin Herman plaza, in front of San Francisco’s famous Ferry Building and just outside the Hyatt Regency. As a special treat for cleantech aficionados, the event is open and free to the approximately 20,000 pedestrians that walk through the plaza each day.

So what can you actually do at the Eco City? For starters, test-drive Ford’s brand-new electric car. Come over and have a look at SunPower’s latest solar technologies. Sit and enjoy the sun on our green pop-up…

Cleantech Forum San Francisco kicks off in just about a month at the Hyatt Regency on the beautiful Embarcadero.  We can only hope the gorgeous weather we’ve been having will hold out for another four weeks!  I don’t believe I’m exaggerating (or bragging) when I say this is going to be our biggest and best conference ever.

While the two and a half days are packed from morning to night with networking, interesting speakers, and activities, I want to share my top 10 reasons you should go now and register.  Save $300 too with discount code CTSFBLOG.

1. Real deals, real senior executives, real networking.  You attend conferences to meet others actively in search of deals, investments, and partnership opportunities. It’s kind of what Cleantech Forum San Francisco is known for. Top executives, investors and entrepreneurs travel from all around the world to meet, make deals, and set the agenda for the year ahead.

2. Entrepreneurial pitch sessions are so popular, even entrepreneurs with loads of capital still want in!  20 hand-selected entrepreneurs seeking funding pitch during Tuesday’s Entrepreneur Showcase. Companies include LanzaTech (which just recently closed a $50M+ investment), Atmosphere…

Wholesale natural gas prices have been on a steady downward slope, hovering at around $2.50 per million BTU. The latest official supply figures show the US has three trillion of cubic feet of stored gas, up 25% from this time last year. All this talk of cheap and plentiful natural gas has me wondering: What does this mean for cleantech?

Cheap and Abundant Natural Gas

The obvious answer is: This is bad news. Solar, wind, energy storage, demand response, energy efficiency – anything that competes with natural gas peaker plants – will suffer as natural gas becomes an increasingly attractive option for energy companies. As I travel the US, I’m finding increasing evidence from utility and energy company executives to support the thesis that natural gas will put increasing pressure on renewables. The EIA’s prediction for our future energy mix also supports the belief that natural gas will grow its share more quickly than other options including renewables.

Biogas companies will also feel some heat. Efforts to capture, clean and utilize biogas (e.g. from landfills or wastewater treatment plants) make much more sense…

Cleantech Group’s final report on Cleantech investment for 2011 was released yesterday to i3 subscribers.

2011 VC investment in cleantech began the year strong and maintained momentum.  2011 is the first year in our decade of tracking that all four quarters exceeded $2 billion in cleantech venture investment.

Early stage deal count went flat, as investors focused more on re-investing their portfolio companies that are in need of capital for growth.  And while  bankruptcy filings of Solyndra and others raised questions, in the end they did not affect investors’ appetite for cleantech, as total VC investments hit $2.21 billion in 4Q11 to close out the year strong.

i3 subscribers can read the full 86-page report.  Contact us to learn more about a research subscription and the i3 platform.

Walter Frick at BostInno posted a