A Glimpse from the Bright Side
I am at the RETECH conference in Las Vegas, which captures all of the challenges facing green technology in these heart-in-the-throat times -- and the opportunities as well.
Many of the large companies that enjoyed such significant profiles at gatherings like this in the recent past were absent. Instead, when I participated in a panel, the room was packed with hopeful green technology entrepreneurs. It reminded me of Tom Friedman's admonition that the US needs thousands of inventive minds working on green technology at thousands of workbenches to put the United States back on track. This moment clearly belongs to those who are willing to start out with less.
Our discussion yesterday, chaired by Obama transition figure Howard Learner, explored how a variety of high profile initiatives -- from the recent stimulus package (the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act or ARRA) to a proposed renewable electricity standard to cap-and-trade legislation -- will affect green technology development. There was general agreement that a virtuous cycle is developing: the stimulus package should help pave the way for cap-and-trade because it will help build the constituency for it. Meanwhile, energy efficiency investments will provide a bit of momentum toward GHG reductions in the near future.
More than a plank in a shipwreck, ARRA will make available specific tens of billions of dollars at the very time green technology might have faltered. We spent a great deal of time talking with car battery innovators, solar installers, wind energy project developers, fuel cell companies, energy efficiency retrofit and system designers, and others who have carved out a niche in the green creativity space that more than justifies Friedman's hopes for a sustainability-powered era for US technology.
Yet, we also explored the dark side of this improving picture. Plowing so much money into “shovel-ready” projects so quickly will inevitably benefit some not-so-green projects. Those stimulus expenditures will help entrench an infrastructure that has to be greened all over in the future.
But for now, the bright side seems, here in Las Vegas, to be ascendant.
