Amory Lovins
By Brian O'Keefe
FORTUNE – When it comes to green tech, it's easy to dwell on the bad news. A decade of venture capital investments have so far produced mixed returns. The carbon tax hasn't gotten off the ground. And let's just say that U.S. energy policy could be more coherent.
Yet, despite it all, we're poised for a wave of innovation—boosted by information technology—that will transform our energy markets and create huge new business opportunities in coming years.
That was the consensus at a lunchtime roundtable discussion at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech conference in Aspen, Colo. "It's energy meets IT," said Amory Lovins, founder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute. "Pervading the energy system with communication technology, honest pricing, and real-time feedback enables a of things we couldn't do even a few years ago."
That sentiment was echoed by Andy Karsner, of investment firm Manifest Energy. Karsner said that the new fiscal conservatism permeating the country will help focus people on enormous opportunities for energy conservation as megabytes meet megawatts. "We now have the economics and the environment" to go with the technology, he said.
Progress will be aided by a wave of creative destruction, said Peter Schwartz, head of the Global Business Network, a consulting firm that specializes in advanced business planning. The first big wave of clean tech investment that began around 2000 was built around a lot of unrealistic expectations, he said, about the time it would take to bring technology to market. "Energy is not the same as IT and software," said Schwartz. "You don't get a Facebook overnight in energy." Schwartz predicted that a lot of companies would fail in the near-term, but that there would be great investment opportunities for investors to put money into technology that's just getting ripe.
Consumers can expect a proliferation of options for the fuels they put in their cars, the panelists agreed. And Karsner said that a good role for government would be to insist that all vehicles run on multiple types of fuel. "That should be the intervention of the government," said Karsner. "It should be the empowerment of the consumer." There are myriad fuels that could be cheaper and cleaner than gasoline, he said.
The transition period as those fuels come to market will be "chaotic," said Schwartz. But by 2020, he predicted, most new cars will have their wheels turned by electric motors. "Exactly where the electricity comes from is less clear," he said.
That windowpane in your office will soon become valuable for more than the view. Newly developed electrochromic "smart" glass can cloud up for privacy, block the sun's rays to cool you down, or absorb them to power the place. Scientists say the glass will soon enable your office windows to turn into multitouch screens for PowerPoint presentations or videoconferences.
Green glass: Electrochromic glass draws its properties from a thin transparent glaze. MORE
Jessi Hempel, writer - Jul 5, 2011 5:00 AM ET
After taking a long detour into green-tech investments, the storied venture firm is returning to its sweet spot: the Internet.
Just two years ago people (including Fortune) were fretting that venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins -- an early investor in Netscape, Amazon (AMZN), and Google (GOOG) -- had missed the wave on the latest round of hot Internet startups in favor of a slew of risky wagers on "green" energy. (See MORE
Adam Lashinsky, Sr. Editor at Large - Nov 29, 2010 3:00 AM ET
EPA chief Lisa Jackson says tech companies tend to be young, hip and green. Now they need to think about recycling on the front end.
By Shelley DuBois, reporter
EPA head Lisa Jackson at Brainstorm Tech. Photo: Matt Slaby, Fortune
Garbage is money, says Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. She claims that's especially true for tech products that are built with some of the more MORE
Jul 24, 2010 1:10 PM ET
Three critical questions Bloom Energy must answer to succeed.
By Paul Keegan, contributor
Now that Bloom Energy has come out of hiding on Fortune.com last Friday and on a recent episode of CBS's "60 Minutes," you'd think we'd all be able to start celebrating the invention of K.R. Sridhar's magic black fuel-cell box. The CEO claims it can provide abundant, cheap, clean electricity that will finally rid us of our dependence on MORE
Feb 23, 2010 10:50 AM ET
By Brian Dumaine, assistant managing editor
Architecture firm SOM rises to the challenge of designing the most energy-efficient tower, a 71-story building in China.
The Holy Grail of modern architecture is to design a zero-energy building, or ZEB. ZEBs use solar, wind, and geothermal systems to produce at least as much energy as they tap from the grid. In some cases, a building's owner can sell the excess electricity generated by the structure MORE
Feb 23, 2010 10:24 AM ET
Bloom CEO K.R. Sridhar holding the ceramic plates that are stacked up into modules to create the company's "Bloom Box" fuel cells.
The Bloom Energy CEO is finally unveiling his entry in the fuel-cell arena after years of playing it close to the vest.
By Paul Keegan, contributor
K.R. Sridhar looks nervous. The CEO of Bloom Energy, the much-hyped fuel cell start-up, sits in a conference room preparing to show off his MORE
Feb 19, 2010 4:33 PM ET
A business incubator in Detroit wants to launch hundreds of tech companies.
From left: former auto industry engineers Oliver Baer, Chris Channell, and Terri Teller have launched green-tech firm Clean Emission Fluids in Detroit.
Crammed into a small Detroit office filled with pipe fittings, hydraulic tubing, and a device that looks like a gas pump combined with a supercomputer, Dave Shaw sums up how his life has changed. Tipping back in MORE
Michael V. Copeland, Senior Writer - Feb 11, 2010 9:17 AM ET
By Brian Dumaine, assistant managing editor
Quick: which nation builds the most wind turbines? If you guessed America, with its blustery Great Plains dotted with whirring GE blades, you'd be wrong. In 2009, China became the planet's largest producer. What's going on here? While America was digging itself out of its financial crisis, China quietly positioned itself to become a leader in what promises to be the largest emerging industry of MORE
Jan 28, 2010 9:34 AM ET
MIT professor speaks out on transit, technology in emerging economies
Ralph Gakenheimer is a Fulbright Scholar, World Bank Advisor, and MIT professor of urban planning who has emerged as one of the leading experts on transportation in developing countries. In the 1970s he consulted with the mayors of South American cities such as Medellin (for real!) on their transit plans. Today he's working in Asia and Africa.
Fortune contributor Carolyn Whelan caught up MORE
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| Company | Price | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bank of America Corp... | 7.95 | -0.16 | -1.97% |
| Microsoft Corp | 31.27 | -0.17 | -0.54% |
| Ford Motor Co | 12.28 | -0.25 | -2.00% |
| General Electric Co | 19.39 | 0.17 | 0.88% |
| Citigroup Inc | 32.36 | -1.00 | -3.00% |
| Index | Last | Change | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dow | 12,938.67 | -27.02 | -0.21% |
| Nasdaq | 2,933.17 | -15.40 | -0.52% |
| S&P 500 | 1,357.66 | -4.55 | -0.33% |
| Treasuries | 2.00 | -0.04 | -1.96% |
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