First published in Cleantech magazine, May 2009. Copyright Cleantech Investor 2009

Dear Reader,

Clean technology is defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as an “installation or a part of an installation that has been adapted in order to generate less or no pollution.” The OECD definition stipulates that, “In clean as opposed to end-of-pipe technology, the environmental equipment is integrated into the production process”. The organisation defines "end-of-pipe protection" as referring to “added technical installations for environmental control of emissions. They operate independently from the production process or are an identifiable part added on to production facilities”.

The term cleantech, originally coined to describe investments in ‘clean technology’, has come into common usage with reference to a broad range of technologies. We regularly see the term ‘cleantech’ used to describe technologies which, according to OECD definitions, are technically ‘end-of-pipe’.

This issue of Cleantech magazine includes features on several technologies which, according to OECD terminology, might be defined as ‘end-of-pipe’: carbon capture and storage  (at least the ‘post combustion’ CCS technologies); and marine exhaust gas cleaning systems.

We also include a feature on companies developing ‘clean coal’ technologies. ‘Clean coal’ is excluded from some definitions of ‘cleantech’, such as the one adopted by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder in their seminal book on the subject, “The Clean Tech Revolution”. Ironically, since the technologies we discuss deal with the cleaning up of low grades of coal before the combustion stage, they are not, technically, OECD defined ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions.

We take the view that investors concerned with ‘cleantech’, however they may define it, are likely to be interested in all sorts of innovative environmental technologies which are emerging to meet the twin challenges of global warming and population growth. This issue of Cleantech magazine, more than most, focuses on technologies designed to clean up pollutants from existing energy sources – rather than technologies for alternative ‘clean’ sources of energy. But that doesn’t detract from the merits of such technologies, either in terms of their contribution to the challenges facing our planet, or as investment propositions. Whether they will go down in history as components of a ‘cleantech revolution’ remains to be seen.

Anne McIvor

May 2009