The Cleantech Avenger

How would the cynic determine whether the emerging cleantech industry has cleared the threshold and become a bonafide full-fledged industry?

Simple. Just count the number of headlines that deal with fraud, corruption and criminal acts and then compare them to headlines dealing with earnings, partnerships and new products.

When the ratio of scandalous headlines to regular business ones reaches the right proportion, the industry has arrived.

Just look back to the go-go days of the telecom industry with its assortment of financial fraud and illicit deals to validate the premise. Remember WorldCom, Enron and Tyco?

Sure seems like those dark headlines have been stacking up lately for the cleantech industry. Which means we might finally be able to make the pronouncement that the cleantech industry has gone mainstream.

Let's take a look at some recent evidence.

Ouch! That stings!

A recent AP report said former North Carolina state official Boyce Hudson had accepted a bribe from executives of Agri-Ethanol Products LLC to help speed the air quality permitting process for the planned $220 million plant.

Hudson got caught in an FBI sting operation where an agent posed as an investor in Agri-Ethanol. Hudson later met with Agri-Ethanol executives, including CEO David Brady, where a deal was reached, prosecutors said.

And who helped tip off the FBI? None other than one of the honest Agri-Ethanol investors, who having heard executives boasting about a state official helping to speed the permitting process decided to help the FBI.

It wasn’t Agri-Ethanol ‘s first bump with the law.

The NC company was founded in 2004 by Jim Perry, a former Wake Forest mayor, and Dave Brady, a Raleigh businessman. And from the get-go the company seemed to have a little more swagger in its step than competitors.

It seems the bluster carried over into the writing of its 2006 company press release that claimed the ethanol company had raised enough financing for up to 20 plants on the East Coast.

Trouble is the company’s accountants must have been on extended leave or couldn’t count. The money never materialized and there was no land purchased for placing these 20 plants. Today, that brash behavior and criminal has no megaphone to push its message what with a closed down web site and phone lines. Hmmm…

UPC Wind's ol' aunty (compete, that is)

Wind farms have also been sharing some of that good ole dark headline love.

In July, Essex Connecticut-based Noble Environmental and Newton, Mass.-based First Wind Holdings, formerly known as UPC Wind, were both served with subpoenas by the New York State Attorney General's office.

The two companies are developing and operating wind farms across New York state. The subpoenas are part of an investigation into whether the companies sought or obtained land-use agreements with citizens and public officials, whether improper benefits were given to public officials to influence their actions, and whether they entered into anti-competitive agreements or practices.

All those dark headlines can’t help the cause of First Wind as it heads toward an IPO for $450 million. Seems like Noble Environmental and First Wind are cooperating with the requests from the New York State Attorney General’s office.