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Let's be clear: The perception of clean technology these days is far less sunny than the reality.
The perception, at least in the political arena, is that cleantech was a promise that largely failed, like universal health care or a balanced federal budget. After all, 2011 saw a few spectacular swan dives by promising companies, several of which had received US government funding, at least one of whose name is destined to be synonymous with wasteful taxpayer subsidies. The prevailing narrative is that solar and other clean technologies have not lived up to their promise and remain costly and unreliable, out of reach for most mainstream uses.
The reality is quite different. Cleantech is maturing, growing, and doing reasonably well. In 2011, for the first time, power plants operating on solar, wind, and biomass energy garnered more investment than those powered by natural gas, oil, and coal -- $187 billion for renewables compared to $157 billion for fossil fuels, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The group predicted that renewable energy investments will double over the next eight years.
Solar energy, for all the high-voltage company failures, hit record growth in the United States -- more than 1,000 megawatts installed during the first three quarters of 2011, compared with 887 MW in all of 2010, according to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). The solar market grew globally, as well. According to a report by GTM Research and Bridge, India is facing a perfect storm of factors that will drive solar photovoltaic adoption at a "furious pace over the next five years and beyond." And NDP Solarbuzz forecast that in 2011, China would surpass United States and Japanese solar installations for the first time.
2011 was also a boom year for wind energy, which now provides 20 percent of electricity in Iowa and South Dakota, according to the American Wind Energy Association, and at key moments surges to 50 percent in Colorado. The market research firm Lucintel predicts that the world market for wind energy will grow at a compound annual rate of 12 percent for at least the next five years. In some parts of the world -- Brazil, for example -- the price of wind energy is now below that of natural gas.
All this turmoil notwithstanding, the United States became a net exporter of solar products to the tune of $1.8 billion in 2010, according to GTM Research and the SEIA, primarily through sales of solar manufacturing equipment and polysilicon, solar modules' main ingredient.
With all this growth, why are companies failing? It has to do largely with natural technology growth cycles, seen with nearly every technology over the past century, from cars to computers to cell phones. As technologies mature, industries consolidate, with a handful of winners emerging. In the early 1900s, for example, there were more than 1,000 American automobile manufacturers, from Acme (1903-11) to Zip (1913-14). All but a few are gone.
As technologies mature, the winners become the value-added players -- in solar, companies like SolarCity, Sungevity, and SunRun -- nonmanufacturers all -- which provide turnkey solar installation for homes and businesses, often for little or no money down. So, too, with other clean technologies, like LED lighting, where bulb makers are getting squeezed by ever-dropping prices, but downstream value-add players like Adura and Digital Lumens, which package LED bulbs into modules for commercial use, are growing. Rodrigo Prudencio, a partner at Nth Power, a longtime energy-tech investment firm, calls it finding new value in "old" clean technologies, noting: "Value creation around commoditization happens in any industry."
So, cleantech is going through a reset, not a retrenchment. And it portends more roiling of cleantech markets, as competition continues to squeeze out weaker or inefficient players and new, innovative companies enter the field. At the end of 2011, the venerable energy industry journal Platts noted: "Heading into 2012, renewable energy is entering a new phase, with winners and losers emerging both within renewable energy sectors and as part of larger energy markets. Renewables are no longer just one energy source among many but in some markets are a direct competitor with fossil fuels."
Cleantech is more than just electricity, of course, though these technologies often get the most attention. It also includes next-gen electric vehicles, advanced materials, biofuels, water efficiency and purification, and more. Each of these is maturing at its own pace, as technologies and markets develop and grow. And each holds great promise to address critical societal needs.
Put together, it suggests that cleantech still has bright times ahead.
Wind turbine photo via Shutterstock.
I had no idea the wind and
I had no idea the wind and solar industries were actually doing this well... Probably because, you are right, we hear about the large failures. It's great to see the large investments going in though. Hopefully they will result in cheaper, more effective technologies. We have to get there eventually!
Also, I love the picture. I pass through Iowa occasionally and see the massive windfarms there, and the picture really captures them well!
Regarding the "Green
Regarding the "Green Moveent", Sustainability and US Failed Energy Policy, I have an interesting summary of developments that are devasting the "Green Philosophy" that has created a factual link between Obama's Administration and Global Warming Alarmism.
Many reasons for this DDA culmination of change in venue, thwarting the correct Sustainability Message................
a) Obama's mistaken energy policy regarding Solyndra's Gov't Investment of Tax Dollars, as a Political Gift, in return for his political support from private lobbyists. This was a poor business decision with my portion of Tax Dollars, regardless of each arguement for, and against, streching the truth to conjole or volley obtaining converts on the issues. Any business sector can grow, if hundreds of thousands of dollars are thrown, haphazardly into the economic mix. There exists no cost-benefit analysis that could justify the administration's Clean-Energy investments in renewables, efficiency, transportation and infrastructure on such a large scale. Use of taxpayer dollars to support a supply chain and manufacturing base in Solar PV to compete with China.............. where such culture shock indiference exists between Chinese Family Purists and American's Middle-Class Ozzie-Harriet Dreamers, was paramount to irresponsibility. Common sense tells us that human work output at less than $1 per hour cannot strategically compete with $16 per hour in such a over-regulated economy, regardless of heart and vision.
b) Europe's failed EURO under the guise of efforts to create a foreign state monopoly in Clean Energy, in a stagnated effort to compete directly with the US. There is much of a "Lessons Learned" for the US in light of the Euro's fiscal condition at present. The EU wanted to compete and prosper against the US, so that we would purchase their "Clean Energy" Solar, Wind Turbine and Geo-Thermal toys. China won this battle.
c) Wind Energy market sector failure due to the IP nature and intellect of the US constituents' interest and an almost "Worship-like" mezmorizing of Wind Engines, watching them turn. Remember the PinWheel at the fair when you were a kid? The industry, in general has a inescapable teather, tied to a human trait of "Free Energy" that is untrue and inefficient.
d) Solar Energy Panel Mfg. market gluttoness, and the recurring failures of companies such as Evergreen, Solar Skys, etc. along with coincident EPA Regulatory snafu's of current leaderships' distrust by the Oil and Gas Industry. It seems as though much of the cloud is lifting from the Democratic Platform of "False Presentations" doing much injustice toward Clean Energy and it's goals.
e) Current Podesta/Steyer Gov't paid Messer's claiming that Obama's energy policies are linked to US dependency on foreign oil, and are causation for their claim in WSJ - OpEd of 1/26/2012 that US is importing less than 50% foreign oil used, of it's total domestic production. (EIA data for 2010 from the most recent API Data Pole is showing that net imported crude inputs to refineries for 2010 is at 62% (5.78 Million Barrels Produced Domestically, over 9.03 Million Barrels Imported per day)) They are 12 points in error, relative to claim on National TV. Regardles..............maybe good media for political clout, but very audacious claim and fundamentally dishonest. The American constituents deserve correct, more concise, cohesive and timely information. This is a piss poor example of Gov't gone amuck, with it's falling house of cards consisting of multiple agencies trying to report on the same thing, with various skewed publicized results. (This is an explicit example of where Gov't has just grown too damn large IMO.....................Go Gingrich)
f) Current scientific claims about Global Warming not being a pending iminent disaster, but a much more slow and graduated residual effect of Mankind's use of Earth's natural rsources , that can be tolerated. There exists no cost-benefit analysis that can duly justify Obama's administration's clean-energy investments in "renewables, efficiency, transportation and public infrastructure (Municipal and Commercial Office). Obama has became a US "Clean Energy" false-profit and albatross around the DEM's neck. Democratic Politburo cannot shake this iron albatross of Global Warming Alarmism from it's political platform, and US is most likely to continue stagflation, suffering another four years of failed energy policies.
All of these combine attributes does not mean that Clean Energy and Sustainability is wrong.......................it just means that Obama may have not gone about engineering methods correctly, in his effort to convince the American public that it is better to spend extra dollars on Green and Sustainable products, than on that extra cup of Starbuck's Moca!
Global Warming Alarmism over climate change is a benefit to Mankind, providing gov't funding for acadamia, providing necessity for gov't growth and for extending the resouces of which God has blessed our environ. But, Alarmism also offers much excuse for gov't to raise taxes, fund subsidies for businesses knowing how to "Work" the political system, luring big donations to charitable foundations claiming to save the planet, and fiercely defending it's constituents dogma. We must learn to understand that there has been no compelling science based argument for drastic, iminent action to "de-carbonize" the US economy. Obama has taught us that there is a wrong way to go about implementing change in human habit. Use of political platform forcing humans to revise their economic sense of worth, spend greater amounts of money, on "Green Movement" products and convincing industry to invest profit into effort to minimize corporate carbon footprint, is just not worth the "False Causation" linking to Climate Change and Global Warming Alarmism.
There's got to be some
There's got to be some blogosphere rule of thumb that anyone who uses that many unnecessary capital letters is a conspiracy theorist. Am I wrong?