Are we losing the green revolution?
An influential venture capitalist who helped launch google.com
and Amazon claims that America is losing the race for new
”
green
”
technologies.
John Doerr, profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle last week,
said his firm is plowing billions of dollars into green business
development, and some of it is going offshore.
Are we losing the green revolution?
An influential venture capitalist who helped launch google.com and Amazon claims that America is losing the race for new “green” technologies.
John Doerr, profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, said his firm is plowing billions of dollars into green business development, and some of it is going offshore.
Testifying before Congress, Doerr said that of the world’s 30 leading companies dealing in wind, solar and advanced battery technologies, just six are U.S. firms.
“Notice the trend here,” Doerr told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “We won the space race with the Soviet Union. Now, as (New York Times columnist) Tom Friedman says, we’re in an Earth race with other nations to see who can invent the technology so that men and women can stay on Earth. And we are not winning today.”
Doerr, a partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield and Byers, is betting heavily on new technologies, in part because of President-elect Barack Obama’s promises to make global warming a top priority.
Columnist Friedman went beyond Doerr’s warning to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.
Friedman displayed a photo of a billboard in South Africa advertising Daimler’s efficient “smart car,” the ForFour. The billboard reads, “German Engineering, Swiss Innovation, American Nothing.”
“Someone actually thought that the best way to sell their product was to advertise that it had ‘American Nothing’ inside,” Friedman said. “That billboard actually pisses me off on many levels … because I think it’s wrong. But it does reflect a view out there, a view that I feel strongly about. We need to get our groove back as a country.”
Several Democratic senators admitted that Congress’ stalemate over climate-change legislation has left inventors and entrepreneurs working in clean energy looking for leadership.
Doerr and Friedman support a cap-and-trade system or a carbon tax that would put a price tag on emitting pollutants linked to the greenhouse effect. The effect would be to make dirty energy sources like coal more expensive while making wind and solar power more attractive for utility companies.
“We can only innovate our way out of this problem by shaping the marketplace with the right rules, incentives and price signals to stimulate the kind of innovation we need – which is 10,000 innovators in 10,000 garages trying 10,000 things,” Friedman was quoted as saying in the Chronicle.
The energy industry worldwide is valued at $6 trillion annually. By contrast, venture capitalists last year invested $1.8 billion in California and $5 bilion nationwide in green technology initiatives.
By contrast, $80 billion was invested in information technology in 2000.
“It is the mother of all markets – perhaps the largest economic opportunity of the 21st Century,” Doerr told the Chronicle.
Doerr recommended five steps to put the United States on a green track.
– Modernize the grid.
– Put a price on carbon using cap-and-trade and carbon tax
– Set a national renewable energy standard, requiring utilities to generate more power from renewable sources.
– Offer new incentives for utilities. California utility companies are spending $3 billion on efficiency measures over the next 18 months because state rules give companies incentives to conserve. Doerr urges that standard at the federal level.
– Conduct more federally funded energy research. Currently, the federal government spends less than $1 billion a year on renewable energy research.
