On Creating Green Jobs
Over at the Right Coast, Tom Smith writes:
Or is it the New Green Deal? Whatever it is, I think it is remarkable and my bet is it is going to be a big fiasco. I think all of the VC money going into it, and I think it is a lot, is spurred on more by the hope of government subsidies in one form or another than by real economics. It strikes me as a strange sort of mania. It looks like we are pouring a lot of money we don’t have into technologies that very well may not work to solve a problem we are not sure we have. It’s very hard to make money even with technologies you already have to solve problems that you are sure you have. VCs are said to be herding creatures and this proves it.
I can’t help but agree with that.
December 1st, 2008 at 2:37 am
I disagree, but only slightly. The VCs are still dumb, but not as dumb as they seem. They’re investing in “green” companies because right now that is what sells. That is because people who are richer and feel guilty about what they do to the environment are willing to spend some of their money to “go green”. So the market actually does exist. What’s stupid about it is how they expect people to keep doing it, even though the items are mostly luxury items. In a time like this, people are going to be less willing to spend money on going green. The amount that this has to do with government subsidies is relatively small. What is true, though, is that some grants for the earlier stages (pre-VC) to prefer greener companies.
December 1st, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Agreed. We should spend the money on rocket ships to send people to Mars. That’s an engineering feat that, once accomplished, would yield serious technological advances in energy efficiency and inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers.