RENEWABLOG

Vinod Khosla: Cleantech Will Produce Ten Googles

Sarah Lacy has a great interview with Vinod Khosla on Yahoo! Tech|Ticker, talking about the incredible opportunity that the Cleantech Revolution is creating for companies and investors. Khosla basically says that the Cleantech movement will "produce ten Googles."

How is that possible? Khosla says that Cleantech is not about solar, wind or biofuels, but about re-engineering the way society lives, from lighting to concrete. When asked about the size of the problem, Khosla says that he sees only opportunities. Furthermore, he talks about how clean technologies have to achieve unsubsidized market viability within 5-7 years or they will struggle to be an investment and commercial success. Overall, just a very interesting interview with someone with an amazing track record of finding breakthrough technologies and companies.

Do I agree with every thing Khosla says? Nope. However, I do agree that Cleantech is bigger than the Web. This is an important point since many have called it a fad.

Cleantech, green, sustainability or whatever you want to call it, deals with a number of fundamental issues that impact all aspects of human life. Examples include drinking water (desalination) and irrigation in drought-ridden regions of the world, transportation (biofuels, batteries, green auto), remote and distributed energy generation (solar, wind, batteries), manufacturing, consumer products, energy efficiency (smart grid, energy management), etc.

I also agree with him that every technology gets overhyped at some point and many cleantech PR campaigns have contributed to that problem by pushing hyperbole when there was nothing behind the courtain. Biofuels are feeling the backlash now and wind is starting to be questioned because of energy storage problems. But will they go away entirely or will they just evolve into something stronger, with savvy entrepeneurs overcoming many of today's challenges? I think it is definitely the latter.

Will the Cleantech movement create ten Googles? I wouldn't bet against it...or Khosla.

Posted by Jason Morris on June 3, 2009 at 4:39 PM
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