On cleantech

The poster child of cleantech Tesla Motors is looking to go public heralding the start of good times in the sector.

First of all there is the Federal juice to consider. Now, I think that Obama will be elected President and expect that $150bn to come rushing through the pipes. Inevitably this has got cleantech VCs all excited as they know most of it will flow in their direction. One of the consequences of this amount of money sloshing around is that some utterly, utterly stupid ideas will get funded – the cleantech equivalents of the bridge to nowhere. No matter, this is always the way in human progress and amidst the dross there will be gold. The best innovations will probably come from the more radical but less well funded projects. I think a slew of money is rarely the answer to anything and can often stifle projects as they come under pressure to do everyhting then end up doing nothing. Focus is all important.

The long terms trends are all there, rising energy prices, environmental pressure, increasing instability and so on. In all honesty the sooner oil is condemned to the past the better, more for geopolitical reasons then environmental ones. Mineral wealth almost always curses a country and for every Norway there are plenty of Sudans or Sierra Leones.