Green Wombat

photo originally uploaded by prad
Go to any green tech conference and one thing you can count on, other than running into Vinod Khosla, is that participants will spend some time debating whether the alt energy boom is a fad or a phenomenon of world-changing proportions. If this week’s Cleantech Forum in San Francisco was any sign, those doubts have disappeared. The discussion these days is about how Silicon Valley venture capitalists can replicate in Washington, D.C., their behind-the-scenes success in getting California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to enact the nation’s first greenhouse gas emissions cap. During a panel discussion Wednesday evening about green tech opportunities in the post-2006 election season, environmentalists urged investors and VCs to continue exerting their political muscle.

"Suddenly, the venture capital industry has become so involved. This
is critical because to a very large extent these are policy-driven
markets," said Christopher Flavin, president of the Worldwatch Institute, a non-profit environmental research organization based in Washington. "I’ve been surprised at just how aggressive and assertive leaders in the venture capitalist community in California are. I’ve been at a number of meetings with venture capitalists where I thought I was talking to someone from Greenpeace. They’re aggressive and willing to go knock on doors. Some of my environmentalist colleagues in Washington seem conservative compared to some VCs. We may be at some kind of tipping point." 

Daniel Kammen, director of the University of California, Berkeley’s Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory, said the passage of California’s global warming law and the Democrat’s 2006 election victory has changed the game in Washington. "It opens up incredible opportunities," said Kammen, whose lab will contribute to the new $500 million biofuels research center being funded by oil giant BP (BP). "I literally get four to five calls a day from lawmakers asking what would be the key thing to pass to open up green tech opportunities, from plug-in hybrid cars, to putting solar on an even footing."

Stephane Dupont, executive vice president of the Washington-based National Venture Capital Association, said his trade group is beefing up its staff to focus on green tech. He said now’s the time to press the clean tech cause in the capital. "There’s a desire by the political elites in Washington to recapture that technological leadership, not only for political reasons but for job creation."

Flavin welcomed the green-green alliance between environmentalists and VCs as well as the willingness of Silicon Valley’s heavyweights to take on the brown lobby led by oil companies like ExxonMobil (XOM). "I’m excited to see that some of the troglodytes who have been holding things back are now up against a group that is not only as well funded but that is more intelligent."

Of course, companies like ExxonMobil appear to be in on the defensive these days as fellow members of the Fortune 500 like Alcoa (AA), Caterpillar (CAT), DuPont (DD), General Electric (GE), Lehman Brothers (LEH) and Duke Energy and PG&E (PCG) lobby for national limits on greenhouse gas emissions.