The Smell Of Money Brings Increased Interest In Energy Technology

Tech Barons Take on New Project: Energy Policy

Like sharks chasing the scent of blood in the water, high technology investors are looking at the new climate of support for alternative energy technologies with a certain amount of drool and hunger. Where were these investors over the past 33 years? Our nation has been under stress and duress because of our dependence upon fossil fuels and the political/economic pressures put upon us by OPEC, and by Saudi Arabia in particular. So where were these high-tech solutions? Why haven't our political leaders sought to create an environment that would support creating high-tech solutions and investment?

The answers to these questions are not that difficult to discern. All we have to do is look at our own history with a fine-toothed comb and realize that we have been manipulated into our current predicament by willing conspirators comprised of our own political, corporate and wealthy investors. We really do need to change our behaviors, not only to a more "green" regard for our world, but also for a more ethical regard for the way we do our politics and business.

President Bush set broad goals last week for the adoption of alternative energy. Hoping to take on the role of filling in the details is an unlikely group: Silicon Valley’s technology investors.

These venture capitalists, backers of giants like Google and Genentech, have traditionally been free-market advocates, favoring ideas and innovation over government intervention. Now they are heading to Washington on a crusade to influence energy policy because they have a big stake in the outcome.

The investors in recent years have poured billions of dollars into alternative energy start-ups in areas like solar and wind power or the production of fuel for cars from feedstock and crop waste. Many of these projects, they say, could stall without subsidies or government mandates for greater energy efficiency.

These barons of the new economy are not new to politics, though their interest in energy places them in a powerful spotlight. And it puts them in conflict with the oil and gas industries, which are more politically potent and have far deeper pockets.

“It’s very different from the business world, where you come in with a good idea and leave with a deal,” said Mark Baldassare, research director for the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research group. The question, he said, is whether venture capitalists “have the patience to be part of the political process.”

The venture capitalists say they have earned political credibility through their track record of creating jobs and technological change. However, if they are to translate their formula for innovation successfully to the world of energy, they say, they need the government to be, in effect, an investment partner.

The message to politicians is that “you have to create a playing field to make it possible for us to back these companies,” said Nicholas Parker, chairman of the Cleantech Group, a research and trade organization representing venture investors in alternative energy.

In recent months, venture capitalists have met with most of the ostensible 2008 presidential candidates, members of Congress, and officials in the Bush administration and the Energy Department, pushing their ideas for things like tax subsidies and efficiency requirements.

With President Bush’s State of the Union address emphasizing alternative energy, and with the ascension of Democrats, who are less aligned with oil interests than the Republicans, the time might seem right for Silicon Valley to speak up.