Clean technology, in short cleantech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Clean technology includes a broad range of technology related to recycling, renewable energy, information technology, green transportation, electric motors, green chemistry, lighting and more. Environmental finance is a method by which new clean technology projects that have proven that they are "additional" or "beyond business as usual" can obtain financing through the generation of carbon credits. A project, developed with concern for climate change mitigation is known as a carbon project. Clean Edge, a clean technology research firm, describes clean technology "a diverse range of products and processes that harness renewable materials and energy sources reduce the use of natural resources, cut or eliminate emissions and wastes." Clean Edge notes that, "Clean technologies are competitive with, if not superior to, their conventional counterparts.

Many offer significant additional benefits, notably their ability to improve the lives of those in both developed and developing countries". Investments in clean technology have grown since coming into the spotlight around 2000. According to the United Nations Environment Program, wind and biofuel companies received a record $148 billion in new funding in 2007 as rising oil prices and climate change policies encouraged investment in renewable energy. $50 billion of that funding went to wind power. Overall, investment in clean-energy and energy-efficiency industries rose 60 percent from 2006 to 2007. In 2009, it was forecast that the three main clean technology sectors, solar photovoltaics, wind power, biofuels, will have revenues of $325.1 billion by 2018. According to an MIT Energy Initiative Working Paper published in July 2016, about a half of over $25 billion funding provided by venture capital to cleantech from 2006 to 2011 was never recovered. Clean technology has emerged as an essential topic among businesses and companies.

It can reduce pollutants and dirty fuels for every company, regardless of which industry they are in, using clean technology has become a competitive advantage. Through building their Corporate Social Responsibility goals, they participate in using clean technology and other means by promoting Sustainability. Fortune Global 500 firms spend around $20 billion a year on CSR activities in 2018. Cleantech products or services are those that improve operational performance, productivity, or efficiency while reducing costs, energy consumption, waste, or environmental pollution, its origin is the increased consumer and industry interest in clean forms of energy generation—specifically the rise in awareness of global warming, climate change, the impact on the natural environment from the burning of fossil fuels. Cleantech is associated with venture capital funds and land use organizations; the term has been differentiated from various definitions of green business, sustainability, or triple bottom line industries by its origins in the venture capital investment community and has grown to define a business sector that includes significant and high growth industries such as solar, water purification, biofuels.

While the expanding industry has grown in recent years and attracted billions of dollars of capital, the clean technology space has not settled on an agreed-upon term. Cleantech, is used widely, although variant spellings include ⟨clean-tech⟩ and ⟨clean tech⟩. In recent years, some clean technology companies have de-emphasized that aspect of their business to tap into broader trends, such as smart cities.. The idea of cleantech first emerged among a group of emerging technologies and industries, based on principles of biology, resource efficiency, second-generation production concepts in basic industries. Examples include: energy efficiency, selective catalytic reduction, non-toxic materials, water purification, solar energy, wind energy, new paradigms in energy conservation. Since the 1990s, interest in these technologies has increased with two trends: a decline in the relative cost of these technologies and a growing understanding of the link between industrial design used in the 19th century and early 20th century, such as fossil fuel power plants, the internal combustion engine, chemical manufacturing, an emerging understanding of human-caused impact on earth systems resulting from their use.

In 2008, clean technology venture investments in North America, Europe and India totaled a record $8.4 billion. Cleantech Venture Capital firms include NTEC, Cleantech Ventures, Foundation Capital; the preliminary 2008 total represents the seventh consecutive year of growth in venture investing recognized as a leading indicator of overall investment patterns. China is seen as a major growth market for cleantech investments with a focus on renewable energy technologies. In 2014, Israel and the US were leading the Global Cleantech Innovation Index, out of 40 countries assessed, while Russia and Greece were last. With regards to private investments, the investment group Element 8 has received the 2014 CleanTech Achievement award from the CleanTech Alliance, a trade association focused on clean tech in the State of Washington, for its contribution in Washington State's cleantech industry. According to the published research, the top clean technology sectors in 2008 were solar, biofuels and wind.

Solar accounted for 40% of total clean technology investm

Prey is a novel by Michael Crichton, first published in November 2002. An excerpt was published in the January–February 2003 issue of Seed. Like Jurassic Park, the novel serves as a cautionary tale about developments in science and technology; the book features new advances in the computing/scientific community, such as artificial life, genetic algorithms, agent-based computing. Fields such as population dynamics and host-parasite coevolution are at the heart of the novel. Film rights to the book were purchased by 20th Century Fox; the novel is narrated by the protagonist Jack Forman, an unemployed software programmer who used to work for a company called Media Tronics but was fired and blackballed for discovering an internal scandal. As a result, he is forced to take the role of a house husband while his wife Julia serves as a high ranking executive at a nanorobotics company called Xymos. Julia claims that she is working on a new piece of revolutionary imaging technology with her company, which takes up most of her time and makes her grow distant to Jack and her family.

He starts believing that during her long hours away from home she is having an affair and becomes watchful of her changes. One night Julia shows Jack a video of her demonstrating the Xymos nanobots. In the video, the nanobots are put into a human test subject, video from inside the body is broadcast in real time. Jack is impressed but becomes more suspicious of her straying when he notices the video was not made on the same day as she said it was. In the night, their baby girl Amanda awakens in agony as her body turns red from an unknown cause. Jack takes her to the hospital, she is given an MRI for more examination suddenly her pain stops and the skin changes disappear. Bewildered and exhausted, Jack returns home to a strangely indifferent Julia who leaves in a hurry, claiming to go on an urgent business trip. Strange events happen that lead Jack to suspect something bigger is going on with Julia as their son Eric claims he saw "silver men" cleaning the house in the middle of the night, Jack finds a strange device found underneath Amanda's bed that wasn't there before, memory chips on their son's MP3 player have turned to dust, Julia has not only become distant but has become abusive to her family, Julia was seen driving one night with an unidentifiable passenger in her car.

On that same night, Julia is injured in a car crash, Jack is recruited to consult at Xymos, because the project manager, Ricky - a good friend of Jack's and former colleague - is having software issues with the nanobots. Jack is taken to the Xymos research facility in Nevada's Basin Desert, where he is given a tour of the lab, meets the programming team, is shown a complicated machine used to make the nanobot assemblers from bacteria. Ricky refuses to show Jack the source code for the nanobots, Ricky claims that building contractors failed to properly install filters in a certain vent in the building; as a result, hazardous elements such as the assemblers, the bacteria, the nanobots were blown into the desert and forming autonomous swarms. These swarms appear to be clouds of solar-powered and self-sufficient nanobots and evolving rapidly; the swarms exhibit predatory behavior and killing animals in the wild, using code that Jack himself worked on. Most alarmingly, the swarms seem to possess rudimentary intelligence, the ability to learn and to innovate.

Jack learns that Julia helped teach the swarms to improve their intelligence and become more benign, but they regressed when she left. The swarms tend to wander around the plant during the day but leave when strong winds blow or night falls; the nanoswarm kills a rabbit outside the complex, Jack goes outside with Mae to inspect. They find that the rabbit died of suffocation resulting from the nanobots blocking its bronchial tubes. While Mae goes inside for equipment, Jack is attacked by the swarms, he manages to get through the airlock into the lab before falling unconscious from anaphylactic shock. Persuaded by Jack despite Ricky's protests, the team decides to destroy the swarm or else risk its reproducing exponentially and becoming a grey goo plague that could endanger humanity, they believe. They attempt to find this nest by tagging the swarm with radioactive isotopes and following them back to their nest at night. Under the cover of a strong wind that forces the swarms to remain dormant, the team goes outside to a storage shack to find the isotopes and build a spray device.

However, the wind dies down, four swarms attack the shack and kill David and Rosie. The rest of the team are forced to take shelter in the cars parked outside; the swarms find a way to enter the cars, but not long before the wind picks up in speed again. Jack and Mae manage to escape to the lab, but Charley falls unconscious outside his car after spraying his swarm with the isotope. Bobby and Ricky refuse to go outside and help Charley. Jack and nauseous, goes back out again to save Charley as the swarms attack again. Using a motorbike found in David's car, Jack manages to get himself and the semi-conscious Charley to the safety of the airlock before Jack falls unconscious again; as night falls, Jack and Bobby set out to find the swarms. While searching for them, they discover that the swarms are moving the now deceased Rosie through the desert; the team is shocked to discover that the swarms can replicate the physical features and motions of humans

"Fletcher's frog" may refer to the long-thumbed frog Fletcher's frog or sandpaper frog is a species of ground frog native to eastern Australia from South-east QLD to Ourimbah, NSW. It ranges; this is medium-sized frog. It is brown on the dorsal surface, however can range from light tan to red brown, its skin feels like sandpaper. There are raised skin folds that run down the frogs back and a distinct triangle of lighter brown on the frogs head. There is a dark line that starts at the nostril, extends through the eye and curves around the tympanum. There are crossbands on the legs, this may cause confusion with similar looking Mixophyes frogs; the toes and fingers are both free of webbing. This species inhabits wet sclerophyll forest, it is active after heavy rains in summer and is seen in drier conditions. Males make a short gar-r-r-up call from leaf litter around temporary small streams. Up to 650 eggs are laid in a foamy mass and tadpoles are notoriously cannibalistic; these frogs camouflage well with leaf litter and can be difficult to find if they are not active.

Frogs Australia Network-frog call available here. Anstis, M. 2002. Tadpoles of South-eastern Australia. Reed New Holland: Sydney. Lemckert. "Lechriodus fletcheri". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN. 2004. Retrieved 6 May 2006.old-form url Database entry includes a range map and a brief justification of why this species is of least concern