Investment

There's no better way to take the pulse of innovation than to survey R&D spending. And there's no better time than during a downturn, because history tells us that this is the opportunity for businesses to gain advantage by investing and growing. Two recent R&D surveys, one from the Wall Street Journal and the other from McKinsey were released recently and both confirm that many companies are still spending on R&D (for now). (Photo: Battelle Institute) So what about green investment? Are companies spending on cleantech? They should be, since transforming energy markets (which is critical) will require an unprecedented level of R&D. But the challenges are enormous. The energy industry is...

Published in 1968 "The Population Bomb" became an enormously influential book, postulating, among other things, that humanity's population growth, at current rates of expansion, would within perilously few centuries become a spherical ball of human flesh expanding at the speed of light in all directions into the universe. Like other such doomsday tracts, the Population Bomb extrapolated select demographic trends into the future, and predicted catastrophic shortages - land, food, energy, water, even the air itself. Now we know better. We know, for example, that greater overall prosperity combined with female literacy - both ineluctable trends - lead to declining human populations, not...

Not a direct part of the economic stimulus package, and only extended by Congress (as of March 20th) for another 60 days, a significant source of funding for primary research by startup greentech companies has been from the EPA's National Center for Environmental Research (http://es.epa.gov/ncer/) which manages the funding of the SBIR - Small Business Innovation Research program, and STTR - Small Business Technology Transfer program. Both SBIR and STTR monies are channeled through as many as 12 other federal agencies. Click on this zyn.com URL to discover the GreenTech funding opportunities within these agencies and sub-agencies: http://www.zyn.com/sbir/#agsites Anyone in the GreenTech business universe ought to recognize the following...

The prevailing challenge facing humanity when confronted with resource constraints is not that we are running out of resources, but how we will adapt and create new and better solutions to meet the needs that currently are being met by what are arguably scarce or finite resources. If one accepts this premise, that we are not threatened by diminishing resources, but rather by the possibility that we won't successfully adapt and innovate to create new resources, a completely different perspective on resource scarcity and resource policies may emerge. Across every fundamental area of human needs, history demonstrates that as technology and freedom is advanced, new solutions evolve to meet...

For decades, California has epitomized America's economic strengths: technological excellence, artistic creativity, agricultural fecundity and an intrepid entrepreneurial spirit. Yet lately California has projected a grimmer vision of a politically divided, economically stagnant state. California has returned from the dead before, most recently in the mid-1990s. But the odds that the Golden State can reinvent itself again seem long. The buffoonish current governor and a legislature divided between hysterical greens, public-employee lackeys and Neanderthal Republicans have turned the state into a fiscal laughingstock. Meanwhile, more of its middle class migrates out while a large and...

About a year ago I participated for a few months with an industry group that was attempting to insert some rationality into what is probably the most irrational, extremist, dangerous, job-killing, regressive laws in the modern history of the United States, AB32, California's Global Warming Act. Unlike renewable portfolio standards, which can at least be justified by virtue of their potential to improve the U.S. balance of trade and promote energy independence, California's global warming act is based on uncertain science and propelled by political opportunism. It is an utterly futile gesture, and even if it weren't, most of the regulations being solidified regulate land use and...

A few innovative people are motivated by ideas that will improve their communities, but the one thing that usually stands in their way is funding. Everything costs money. Tomorrow's sustainable future is REEEP's challenge today (Photo: REEEP) This is where REEEP comes in. This unique organization is backed by governments, banks, NGO's and businesses that all have an interest in the sustainable energy market. REEEP has distributed millions of dollars to fund various projects focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency: In 2005, REEEP disbursed a modest 1.1 million euro throughout the world, but with their constant success and the addition of interested parties, available...

Something we don't hear often enough amidst this era's turbulent convergence of cultures and challenging disruptions of technology is this: Humanity is destined within a tantalizingly few decades to achieve a level of prosperity that can scarcely be imagined today. The ongoing conflicts of nations, continued destruction of the environment, heartbreaking poverty, ruthless injustice - these all constitute a dark fog of tribulations that can appear inpenetrable. But this fog that can seem so thick and toxic is actually disappearing with breathtaking speed. It is often easy to overlook the many positive forces of history, forces that can be identified with Euclidean precision, immutable...

A question of more than passing interest to vehicle owners is at what point the price of gasoline becomes so high that owning an electric vehicle becomes a compelling investment. How that question is answered has implications not only for the emerging EV industry, but cleantech in general. To what extent will low energy prices combined with a slow economy result in entire sectors of cleantech slipping into dormancy, if not oblivion? Here are three factors worth considering: (1) Hybrids never made sense economically, and probably never will unless they cost virtually the same as conventional automobiles. Even when gasoline cost nearly $5.00 per gallon, a high mileage hybrid vehicle was...

On nearly the eve of the new year, a couple of noted industry observers have already gone public with their greentech predictions for 2009. On December 4th, Cleantech Group Executive Chairman Nicholas Parker published their "Nine clean technology predictions for 2009," which, briefly stated, are the following: (1) Energy efficiency infrastructure boom initiated, (2) Global climate talks bog down—no serious deal until 2011/12, (3) U.S. passes national RPS, but cap & trade bill only in 2010, (4) Wind stocks come back; thin film PV shakeout, (5) Clean technology VC stabilizes at $7B globally; Private Equity more active, (6) Failure rate of cleantech startups doubles, (7) IT turns to the energy opportunity, (8) R&D stagnates...

Absent a rigorous examination of statistics, meaningful dialogue about environmental issues is impossible. This is particularly challenging now that environmentalism is generally recognized to be inextricably linked not only with the endlessly complex science of ecology, but with the dismal science of economics as well. To try to quantify the rational basis for a legitimate ideology of environmentalism is not easy. One way to productively further the dialogue of rational environmentalism is to publish online interactive spreadsheets of hopefully instructive simplicity, quantitatively presenting options in terms of costs and benefits for environmental issues management. To this end, we...

The fate of GM, Chrysler and Ford hang in the balance, with widely varying sentiments regarding what can be done, if anything. Both a bailout or a bankruptcy present a set of opportunities as well as negative consequences. If a bailout were structured to include in its terms some of the restructuring benefits that otherwise could only be realized through bankruptcy, however, it would be the preferred option. Indeed, a federal bailout that facilitated fundamental cost cuts for the automakers might set a useful precedent for restructuring other large U.S. institutions that have overpaid workforces and inefficient operations, such as most of our state and local governments. Using General...