I learned two things last week about Sunil Paul, a Silicon Valley
venture capitalist with a passion for clean tech. One is that he thinks
big. The other is that he is very well-connected in Washington.
Paul came to D.C. to release a report called the Gigaton Throwdown
that, in his words, “redefines what’s possible for clean energy by
2020.” It’s roadmap that demonstrates how we can scale up clean energy
to have a major impact in the next decade. Joining him at a news
conference to unveil its findings were an all-star group from the Obama
administration -- green jobs czar Van Jones (check him out on video,
below), White House science advisor John Holdren and assistant
secretaries of energy David Sandalow and Cathy Zoi, key players in
Steven Chu’s brain trust at DOE.
Paul’s timing was excellent. He released the Gigaton Throwdown the
day before the House of Representatives passed the American Clean
Energy and Security Act, the most important energy and environmental
legislation of our era. While Waxman-Markey is far from perfect, it’s a
step towards the ultimate goal: a top-to-bottom transformation of the
global economy into one that is sustainable and just. Paul gets this as
not many business people do.
Sunil Paul
Working with scientists, entrepreneurs and investors, Paul put
together a team to see what it would take to reach “gigaton scale” for
nine technologies -- biofuels, building efficiency, concentrated solar
power (i.e. solar thermal), construction materials, geothermal,
nuclear, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, solar photovoltaics and
wind. As the report explains:
"To attain gigaton scale, a single technology must reduce
annual emissions of carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gases
(CO2e) by at least 1 billion metric tons -- a gigaton -- by 2020. For an
electricity generation technology, this is equivalent to an installed
capacity of 205 gigawatts (GW) of carbon-free energy (at 100 percent capacity)
in 2020."
The report found that eight of the nine technologies -- the exception
was plug-in hybrids -- could feasibly reach gigaton scale in a bit more
than a decade. Paul’s report is significant, in part, because it
reflects the thinking of a many in a hurry -- other studies, particularly
the very good McKinsey study on how to avoid climate disaster, look out 20 or 40 years.
“For investors, those time frames just don’t make any sense,” Paul told
me. “By 2030 or 2050, we’ll either be retired or dead. So we needed
something immediate, so we can be held accountable, so we can see the
results in a a time frame that matters for investors and entrepreneurs
and business leaders -- 10 years.”
“What we learned is that there are no fundamental barriers to
scaling up these technologies to the point where they have massive
impact,” he said.
Paul, who is 44, runs Spring Ventures, a cleantech investment firm
and led a group called “Cleantech and Green Business for Obama” last
year which explains his administration connections. A early employee of
AOL, he was the founding CEO of Brightmail, a leading anti-spam
software company, which was sold to Symantec for $370 million in 2004.
The report has some academic heavyweights, notably Dan Kammen of
Berkeley, behind it, so it is well worth a look. Among other things, it
investments required to bring the different technologies to scale.
Notice, for example, how building efficiency is a much, much cheaper
way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that solar thermal power or
nuclear. Here are some highlights:
• Biofuels can achieve gigaton scale for an investment of $383
billion, and enhance energy security by displacing foreign oil imports.
• Building efficiency can achieve gigaton scale for an investment of
$61 billion, creating 681 thousand direct new jobs. It’s the lowest
cost pathway of the nine in the report.
• Concentrating solar power (CSP) can achieve gigaton scale for an
investment of $2.24 trillion. Because it’s ideally suited to remote
desert areas, new transmission lines will be needed to get the
electricity to cities.
• Construction materials can achieve gigaton scale for an investment
of $445 billion, creating 328 thousand direct new jobs. An example:
low-carbon cement.
• Geothermal can achieve gigaton scale but technological advances
will be needed. The investment required will be $919 million. (If you
missed it, check out this great New York Times story on geothermal, and its risks, and the reactions to it that ran last week.)
• Nuclear power, which already displaces 1 gigaton of CO2
equivalents, can add another gigaton2020 for an investment of $1.27
trillion.
• Plug-in electric vehiles cannot achieve gigaton scale by 2020
because it takes too long to replace the existing global fleet of cars.
(Every new car starting in 2010 would have to be a PHEV to meet the
gigaton goal by 2020.)
• Solar PV can achieve gigaton scale for an investment of $2.1
trillion, creating more than 1.5 million direct jobs. Enough rooftop
space exists in the U.S. alone to achieve gigaton scale.
• Wind is on a pathway to exceed gigaton scale and attract $1.38
trillion in investment. Wind could be cost competitive with fossil-fuel
generation without subsidy in the next 10 years.
My quick takeaway from the study: Let’s ramp up energy efficiency in
a hurry (no surprise there), keep the momentum behind wind (even though
capital costs are high, it’s the lowest-cost form of clean energy, at
least for now) and push R&D in solar PV, solar thermal and
geothermal to drive costs down. And let’s take nuclear energy seriously
as a response to climate change.
Below is a video clip of Van Jones, who spoke at the event (and at Brainstorm Green,
Fortune’s conference on business and the environment.) It’s an
experiment -- I just bought a Flip camera -- and a little jiggly. Guess I
need to get a tripod.
