Silicon Valley's Conflicted Relationship With Cleantech

Energy Gang

Wood Mackenzie

Tech News, Environment, Sustainability, Innovation, Renewable Energy, Technology, Alternative Energy, Energy, News, Cleantech, Wind Energy, Business, Climate Change, Solar Energy

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2016

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2012, Wired magazine ran a prominent feature on why "the cleantech boom went bust." A couple years later, after a slew of venture investment failures in the industry, 60 Minutes ran a major story on "the cleantech crash." The stories were widely criticized by cleantech experts as incomplete or inaccurate (the Energy Gang even ran its own critique of the 60 Minutes story). But they did reveal some hard truths: venture investors lost a lot of money on clean energy investments. There was indeed an investment bubble -- and it popped. Over the last couple of years, investors have taken on a more capital-lite, software-dominant approach to cleantech. But now some of the biggest companies in Silicon Valley are taking on one of the most capital-intensive industries of all: automobiles. So what are we to make of the venture investment climate? This week, we'll talk with Katie Fehrenbacher, a senior writer at Fortune, about trends she's seeing in the sector. Later in the show, we'll take a look at SunEdison's latest troubles. And we'll end with a discussion about the recycling industry's economic woes. The Energy Gang is produced by Greentechmedia.com. The show features weekly discussions between energy futurist Jigar Shah, energy policy expert Katherine Hamilton and Greentech Media Editor Stephen Lacey. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	For the week of February 18th, 2016, this is the Energy Gang from Green Tech Media. Is Clean Tech once again cool in Silicon Valley? This week we talk with a
0:21.5	leading journalist about how tech firms and venture capitalists are thinking about the sector.
0:26.0	Then Sun Edison's financial troubles continue. We'll discuss the latest on the company.
0:31.0	Finally, the recycling industry is in crisis mode. We'll ask what to do about
0:36.2	it and if we need to completely rethink the way we reuse stuff. In Washington, D.C. I'm Stephen Lacy. My co-host are Catherine Hamilton and Jigger Shaw.
0:47.0	Catherine's with 38 North Solutions, usually in Washington now in a hotel room in San Mateo.
0:52.0	What are you doing out in San Mateo.
0:52.6	What are you doing out in San Mateo?
0:54.6	I've been taking a whirlwind tour of a bunch of companies
0:58.4	in San Francisco and Silicon Valley
1:00.0	and it's just been an amazing week, fun factories and such yeah I've seen two
1:06.1	factories and other many other facilities that you know are like virtual factories
1:12.3	Jigger is with Generate Capital.
1:15.0	He comes to us from New York City.
1:17.0	How are you, sir, doing anything interesting?
1:19.7	Any tours for you this week?
1:21.3	Yeah, well, this morning I just stopped by the C. A finance
1:24.1	conference here in New York and I was I was amazed it was a pretty good event.
1:29.7	Oh is that like the corporate solar finance event? That was yesterday and then, yeah, then today and tomorrow is like
1:36.3	finance 101 for people, like, you know, what's an inverted lease, what's a tax equity
1:41.2	structure, what's a partnership flip.
1:43.0	It should actually be required attendance for all 175,000 employees in the solar industry.
	...

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