Daily Archives: July 17, 2007

Government and carbon trading

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Today the Howard government in Australia is set to come out with its cap-and-trade system. In this context it is important to remember the “government risk” in a system like this.

Charles Morand from Alternative Energy Stocks has more on this:

…as the market for carbon emissions grows, the need for standardization and collaboration between governments and regulators will become ever more pressing. This could create problems.

The carbon market is unique in that the commodity traded derives its
value primarily from its ability to meet the requirements set by an
environmental regulator…

As the hype around emissions trading and global carbon markets engulfs you, be sure to always keep in the back of your mind the fact that one of the largest risks this market faces is governments and their regulatory agencies. Like any market, it won’t take much of a faux pas for investor confidence to be severely shook and for millions or even billions of dollars in market value to be wiped out overnight. This would be bad for the market and the environment.

Sunil Paul on Clean Tech

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GigaOm; the technology blog started by Om Malik of Business 2.0 has started morphing into a media network of its own sometime back starting with the move to group blogging and then various tech related blogs and even a jobs section.

Now they are moving into the Green sector; “Apparently like everyone else…”.

The Earth2Tech blog will concentrate on the growing Clean tech industry.

So we envisioned our site this way: One part clean tech startup coverage – (a quick look at clean tech venture numbers shows the growing ranks of startups in hot areas like solar and biofuels); One part reviews of tech giant’s eco-initiatives (is Google’s carbon neutral initiative more marketing or responsible plan?); One part a resource page for entrepreneurs and Valley types looking for green tech [tools, rules, tips] – LBS meets ethanol?

One of the first posts is an interview with VC Sunil Paul who compares the Clean Tech industry with the IT/Internet industry.

One thing that has remained the same is that there are huge amounts of capital required for this business, which is very different from the Internet world. Two opposite extremes.

Another thing to realize is that compared to all the IT sectors, cleantech is a very slow moving industry. For example, batteries, which are fundamentally driven by product cycles at the customer level. Customers expect a product with a 25-year lifetime, or a 10-year lifetime – you’re not going to suddenly have a 6-month product life cycle. That is an important lesson.

Another important lesson is that engagement with government is fundamental. For IT or biotech, you didn’t have to think too much about government. But in the energy world that is just not the case. Regulations are changing all the time.

The clean-tech world has been built by environmentalists going to bat for technologists. The environmentalists have carried our water for us. At some point we will have to step up and be more engaged because this is an important battle.

I blogged sometime back on the Energy investments of Vinod Khosla. Clean tech is growing everywhere and this could be one of the exciting new frontiers for the business world.