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Venture capital is one of the pulses of the industry, and so a headline that VC investments are dropping by double digits is enough to catch the eye of anyone involved in the high tech ecosphere. But when you look at more data, things don't look bleak. On one hand, according to Dow Jones VentureSource, investment is down:\n\nIn the second quarter of 2008, quarterly venture capital investment in U.S. companies slipped below the $7 billion mark for the first time in 18 months. According to the Quarterly U.S. Venture Capital Report released today by Dow Jones VentureSource (http://www.venturecapital.dowjones.com), investment fell 12% in the second quarter compared to the same period last year with $6.64 billion put into 602 deals, the lowest quarterly deal count since 2005. The $7.58 billion invested in second quarter of 2007 was the second-highest quarterly totals recorded since the end of the dot-com boom in 2001.\n\nYet it's not all bad news because there was " steady deal activity and investment in the first half of the year," according to Dow Jones VentureSource director of global research Jessica Canning.\n\n"The movement of venture dollars from the traditional areas of information technology and health care toward burgeoning sectors like renewable energy, power management, and agriculture - or 'clean technology' areas - proves that venture capitalists are making good on their promise to tap opportunities in the massive energy market," said Ms. Canning.

Mongolia's political parties are locked in post-election squabbling, but once the dust settles a new government could finally pass deals to tap the coal, copper and uranium that sit beneath its vast deserts and grasslands. But analysts say the deal that goes ahead would be less than ideal for either Mongolia or foreign investors, with the country better served by taxing its mineral wealth, rather than seeking direct government ownership in massive mines. The current law gives the state either a 34% stake or a controlling 51 percent stake in mining projects. An investment agreement with Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto for the Oyu Tolgoi project, still under negotiation, would be the first such deal.

MOSCOW - In what would be one of the biggest mining deals in Russia this year, the metals tycoon Mikhail D. Prokhorov announced on Tuesday that he would sell 16.6 percent of the Arctic mining giant Norilsk Nickel to his former business partner, Vladimir O. Potanin. The two tycoons agreed last year to divide their holdings in Norilsk, a Russian factory founded by Stalin, whose value soared along with high commodity prices. Norilsk is the world's largest producer of nickel, a key alloy in stainless steel. Under the terms, as laid out in a statement from Mr. Prokhorov's investment company, Onexim, Mr. Potanin agreed to pay $10 billion for the 16.6 percent, in $6.5 billion cash and 35.2 percent of the shares in another mining company, Polyus Gold. The deal valued Norilsk Nickel at $315 a share, well above Monday's closing price of $216, and despite a recent drop in nickel prices, concerns of an economic slowdown and diminished demand for stainless steel.

Prysmian Cables & Systems has announced the signing of a four year frame agreement to design and supply flexible pipes for offshore oil and gas extraction with Petrobras of Brazil. Prysmian said it is to invest around $110 million constructing a new plant in Brazil and that the deal with Petrobras represented a major step forward in the company's operations in the Oil, Gas and Petrochemical services industry. Prysmian also announced the acquisition of the German cables manufacturer Facab-Lynen. Facab-Lynen generated sales of €62 million ($96 million) in 2007 and Prysmian said the acquisition will enable the company to further increase its production capacity and develop its market position in the special cables market, particularly in the fast growing renewable energy sector.

Deal worth $900 million

LS Cable and Superior Essex have announced the signing of a definitive agreement for LS Cable to acquire Superior Essex. The board of directors for both companies approved the agreement under which Superior Essex share holders will receive $45 per share making the deal worth $900 million. The acquisition, once complete will create the world's third largest wire and cable manufacturing company with Superior Essex continuing to operate under its current name as a wholly owned subsidiary of LS Cable. Nexans and Prysmian are the world's first and second ranked cable makers. LS Cable has a strong presence in the power and communications cable sector and in the Asian and Middle Eastern markets. Superior Essex is the world's largest magnet wire producer and leads in the North American communications market as well as having operations in North America, Europe and China.

Taihan Electronic Wire Co., South Korea's second largest wire and cable maker, announced on 29th November that it had successfully secured a US$44M contract to supply and install power cables in Saudi Arabia. The deal, which will involve laying 13.4km of 380kv high voltage cable, will provide the power infrastructure connecting Jeddah's international airport to a substation in the northeast of the city. The latest deal adds to the company's strong overseas sales in 2012 which have totalled US$250M, a 20% increase on 2011.

DuPont Photovoltaic Fluoromaterials (PVFM) announced that it has signed a Technology Licensing Agreement with Toppan Inc. Printing Co. LTD, located in Tokyo, Japan, to commercialize its new backsheet for solar photovoltaic (PV) modules. This technical and business deal with Toppan is in line with the PVFM strategic intent to significantly increase the availability of DuPont Tedlar films and backsheet for the fast growing PV market, according to the company. "This collaboration combines DuPont's proprietary technology for Tedlar polymer in backsheets, with Toppan's unique coating capability," said Kelly Kolliopoulos, global business manager of DuPont's Tedlar Division. "We view the new backsheet technology as complementary to our continuing activities to increase the supply of Tedlar films in order to meet the industry's growth and demand for Tedlar."

Deal worth $11.5 million

As of the 30th May, the Optical Cable Corporation acquired Superior Modular Products Incorporated (known in business as SMP Data Communications) in a deal worth $11.5 million. SMP Data Communications is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Optical Cable Corporation. The President and CEO of Optical Cable, Neil Wilkin, said the acquisition would enable the company to expand its product offerings with more complete cabling and connectivity solutions, including fibre optic and copper connectivity. SMP Data Communications manufactures more than 2,000 products including cutting edge Category 6a connectivity solutions which offer a 10 Gig throughput.

Chinalco is set to walk away from a $19.5bn deal with Rio Tinto following weeks of wrangling over the terms of the transaction, in a dramatic U-turn that sent shares in the Anglo-Australian miner sharply lower.

"Brazil hands Chinese state-owned company 2GW deal Wu Qi, Windpower Monthly Magazine, 14 December 2010, 11:13am BRAZIL: Chinese state-owned turbine manufacturer Xuji Wind Power is to develop 2GW of wind farms in the southern Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. "

"The move to acquire the assets would deal a blow to Anglo, which has invested $2.8bn in an expansion of the Los Bronces mine. The expansion, which will more than double output at the mine to about 490,000 tonnes per year, is due to start production in the last quarter of this year."

An official from SDI La Farga LLC's said on 11th December that the company is producing limited amounts of wirerod at its new US $39M plant in New Haven, Indiana. The new facility, a joint venture between Spain's La Farga Group and Steel Dynamics Inc, produces wirerod from number 2 scrap copper rather than cathode. The company official said "we've produced quality rod and are in the process of getting approval of customers and we have done so with several customers." He added that plant officials are "waiting for more customer orders to start producing more".

Anhui Jincheng, the Shanghai-listed producer of copper PSSF, said on 26th March that it produced 93,872t of copper PSSF in 2012, a 13% y-o-y increase from 2011. Despite the increase in output, the company made a net loss of RMB57M in 2012 from a profit of RMB24M in 2011 (loss of US$9M from a profit of US$3.8M). Remarking on the results the company said that "uncertainties in the global economy, the euro debt crisis, plus the weak Chinese economy, has negatively impacted demand by the downstream processing sector last year."

Talking at the annual CESCO/CRU World Copper Conference, CRU Principal Consultant Vivienne Lloyd said that up to 2Mt of copper demand could be lost over the next five years due to substitution and consolidation amongst Chinese semis producers. Lloyd said that the areas under the greatest threat from substitution are the automotive wiring harness sector and the HVAC sector. However, CRU believes that the aluminium/copper price ratio is likely to have peaked in 2012 at around 4:1, and will fall back gradually to 2017 reaching 3:1, which should relieve some of the substitution pressures.

"Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy Tweet this talk! (we'll add the headline and the URL) Post to: Share on Twitter Email This Favorite Download inShare Share on StumbleUpon Share on Reddit Share on Facebook TED Conversations Got an idea, question, or debate inspired by this talk? Start a TED Conversation, or join one of these: Green Home Energy=Hydrogen Generators-alternative sources Started by Kathleen Gilligan-Smith 1 Comment What is the real missing link in renewable energy? Started by Enrico Petrucco 8 Comments Comment on this Talk 60 total comments Sign in to add comments or Join (It's free and fast!) Sort By: smily raichel 0 Reply Less than 5 minutes ago: Nice smily raichel 0 Reply Less than 5 minutes ago: Good David Mackey 0 Reply 3 hours ago: Superb invention, but I would suggest one more standard mantra that they should move on from and that is the idea of power being supplied by a centralised grid. This technology seems to me to be much more beneficial on a local scale, what if every home had its own battery, then home power generation becomes economically more viable for everyone. If you could show that a system like this could pay for itself in say 5 years then every home would want one. Plus for this to be implemented on a large scale requires massive investment that could be decades away. Share the technology and lets get it in homes by next year. Great ted talk. Jon Senior 0 Reply 1 hour ago: I agree 100%. Localised energy production would also make energy consumers more conscious of their consumption and encourage efforts to reduce it. We can invent and invent all we want, but the fast solution to allowing renewable energies to take centre stage is to reduce the base energy draw. With lower baseline consumption, smaller "always on" generators are required to keep the grid operational. Town and house-l