Green Wombat

photo uploaded by Phil Ming

On Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley it’s the "S word," mumbled apologetically whenever green tech VCs and entrepreneurs gather to confab about the solar energy boom. "I don’t like subsidies," declared  Innovalight CEO Conrad Burke at yesterday’s ThinkEquity Greentech Summit in the now-ritual denunciation of government incentives that have helped jump-start solar and other renewable energy businesses. Part of the enduring mythology of Silicon Valley is that world-changing technology sprang sui generis from Palo Alto garages, Washington’s creation of, say, the Internet  a minor detail.  But as was apparent Thursday at the green tech event, there seems to be a realization, increasingly vocalized, that when it comes to competing against Big Oil, Big Nuclear and Big Coal, perhaps it’s not quite such a free market after all. "I see as our main competition as the brown rate, the electricity rate we get from dirty coal in places like Texas," said Martin Roscheisen, CEO of solar startup Nanosolar. "It’s an uneven playing field. They utilize an existing infrastructure other people created for them and are harmful to the environment." Later in the afternoon, SunPower president Richard Swanson had this to say: "Do yourself a favor one day and study the oil and gas depletion allowance. Be sure to have a (barf) bag nearby." He was referring, of course, to the multi billion-dollar tax

break that allows the oil industry to basically write off much of the cost of drilling for oil. It’s hard to imagine ExxonMobil’s chief appearing at a fossil fuels conference and expressing remorse about the fact that Congress last year granted his industry more $6 billion in tax breaks for oil exploration or that the oil and gas industry has avoided paying billions in royalties for drilling on public lands. "Once we’re bigger, we’re going to pay more for lobbying," joked Roscheisen. But a Greentech Summit audience member suggested during the Q&A that waiting until then would be too late. The time is now, she said, for green energy proponents on Sand Hill Road to head to K Street in Washington and start an alt energy lobby to get actively involved in the policy debate – especially given that the Democrats are now setting the energy agenda.