Ottawa-area venture capital firm Venture Coaches is preparing to launch a $100 million cleantech fund committed to investment in Canadian companies. According to the firm, the new fund will focus on companies engaged in the research, design, development and manufacture of “energy efficient materials; components; sub-systems, systems and solutions for energy management; and innovative technologies improving fundamental processes with respect to energy and waste stream reductions.”

Money for the fund is in the process of being raised and a spokesman for Venture Coaches said the company is confident it will meet its $100 million goal.

Venture Coaches has been around since 2001, with its first fund focusing on information technology and telecommunications companies. Its new fund, appropriately called the Canadian Cleantech Fund, will be welcome in a country that tends to take a conservative approach to early-stage investing, particularly in the Canadian cleantech sector, where U.S. venture capitalists are beginning to realize there are quality deals to be had.

UPDATE: Here’s an article with some more details.

David Pogue (New York Times blog) has an interesting Q&A with GM’s Bob Lutz about the Volt concept car and GM’s commitment to electric vehicle technology. A few choice comments from Lutz:

A lot of us see it as the most interesting and most fascinating technical challenge of our whole careers. I mean, this car means more to me than anything else I’ve had anything to do with in the 42 years that I’ve been in the business. I think this is because it’s transformational.

AND

There are cynics, and some of them are our competitors, who say, “Don’t be fooled by what General Motors is showing you. They have no intention of building this thing. This is just smoke and mirrors to take everybody’s mind off their sport utilities,” and so forth. And in order to allay that, at various stages of the program, we are going to bring in members of the media. I’m hoping that as early as spring of ‘08, we will have the first rough prototypes running, which will permit members of the media to drive 30 or 40 miles purely on batteries and listen to the internal combustion engine kick in.

AND FINALLY

My personal target still is to bring this car into the market at, you know, nicely below $30,000. And if we achieve that, it will really become a viable solution. If we have to charge 60 or 70 or 80, then it’ll be bought by Hollywood celebrities and other entertainment figures, and the odd politician for going to rallies, and that’ll be it.

These are encouraging words, and an amazing departure from GM’s stance just a year ago. I want to be one of those journalists who get to drive the first prototypes.

I was reading a story in the Wall Street Journal titled “Why Gasoline Prices May Rise,” and the following paragraph grabbed my attention:

Another reason for steady gasoline prices: the use of ethanol as an additive to gasoline is on the rise. While crude prices have soared, ethanol prices have dropped as much as 30% in recent months and are likely to drop more, Eitan Bernstein, an analyst with Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co., said in a report yesterday. Ethanol costs more than 60 cents a gallon less than gasoline, and gasoline suppliers can offset some of the rise in crude-oil prices by blending their gasoline with small amounts of the cheaper fuel.

Would be curious to find out how much of that affordability of ethanol is due to government incentives (mind you, it’s not like the oil industry doesn’t receive its own subsidies). In any event, claims that ethanol will contribute to higher gasoline prices are being proven wrong. The next step is to show that cellulosic ethanol can follow the same cost curve.