I caught up with Elise Zoliat FountainBlue’sForum on Clean Green Transportation this month. Elise is a Boston based partner with law firm, Goodwin Procter, but is a frequently in Silicon Valley to serve her local clients. She specializes in energy, climate change and clean tech law.
We discussed:
Government – Its role as the Grinch and Santa Claus
“The Grinch side is limiting traditional industry and allowing new sectors, new technologies to emerge…with emissions standards, fuel tax…The Santa Claus side – direct funding – grants, loans, loan guarantees, tax subsidies…make a more favorable environment for emerging companies.” (more…)
Kevin Suraceis serious about tackling global warming and argues that producing energy saving building materials can go a long way to cutting down CO2 emissions and reducing energy consumption in the United States. He’s CEO of Serious Materials, a Sunnyvale based maker of eco drywall, windows and other building materials; and frequent speaker * on global warming and the built environment. *His TED speech is worth checking out.
We discussed the influence of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truthin helping create a market for green products; the pace of global warming; and whether consumers are willing to pay a premium for green. Kevin outlined how his company uses new media to get its message out and why his company is growing rapidly, despite the shrinking economy.
Judy Estrinis an influential tech entrepreneur, CEO of JLabs, and author of Closing the Innovation Gap. I caught up with her at SD Forum’s12th annual Visionary Awards in Atherton, where she was one of four recipients. We talked about whether clean energy solutions can save the planet; the importance of new innovation in revitalizing the economy; and the role of government in making it happen.
“For an industry to take off, you need a grand challenge, or a grand problem that needs to be solved and you need research and scientific discovery…In the area of clean energy, it’s a problem that must be solved and it’s very broad in nature.”
Can clean energy save the planet?
“The real question is: will we as a people, our government as leaders, and will our business leaders all have the courage and commitment to understand that along with new technologies and forms of energy has to come behavioral change? It’s not just about inventing something new, it’s going to take change from everybody.”
Our Green Mayor was in fine form at SD Forum’sVisionary Awards on June 25th. He made a convincing pitch about why innovators and visionaries should locate in San Jose. In this photo, he’s pointing out his Economic Development teamto the high profile crowd gathered in Atherton; but I think the subliminal message is: WE NEED YOU!
Chuck’s team is working hard to encourage innnovation in San Jose, yet San Jose didn’t make the top ten Green Cities in the U.S. this year, as ranked by Mother Nature Network. Why not? Are these other cities, like Portland (#1) and San Francisco (#2) really doing more, or are they just talking louder about their green achievements? Perhaps San Jose needs an ‘artist in residence at its recycling facilities’ like Mayor Newsom has in San Francisco?
In this Fresh Green Minute highlight, the mayor outlines why a little clean tech startup from, say Kansas, should relocate to San Jose.
I caught up with Vinod Khoslaat SD Forum’sVisionary Awards. In this exclusive interview, Vinod, a pioneer in clean tech investment, describes how in 2000, he started “looking for something new, something difficult and something large to invest in.” He found his first clean tech investment in Bloom Energy and has since gone on to invest and nurture dozens of clean tech businesses including Ausra, AltaRock and Stion
KR Sridharof Bloom Energyintroduced Vinod by saying: “We all need to root for his success, because his success is this planet’s success.”
And Vinod’s recipe for success? The freedom to fail. “The Silicon Valley ecosystem allows me to fail…you get more shots at goal.” Vinod Khosla
