The Future of Cleantech

The end of the year brings, like clockwork, reflections on the year past and visions of the future. For now, we’ll focus on the future, since recounting the past year would be little more than a list of breakthroughs, achievements, and milestones.The future appears to be a little more interesting, though it seems certain that in December of 2008 we’ll be saying much the same thing about the past year. Still, it’s interesting to look forward and see how it might all fall out.One of the biggest influences for 2008 is going to be the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Bali conference at the tail end of 2007. The concessions and agreements worked out there, which would see much cleantech and other green technology headed to developing countries to help them leapfrog to a more sustainable future, should be a significant boost to the cleantech economy in the developed nations. Industrializing nations such as India and China also stand to see major growth in their homegrown cleantech industries as they push to compete with Western technology and corporate interests.But if there is a cleantech “cold war” as Craig Rubens suggests, it could wind up being the best possible circumstance for the industry. Just as the arms race that defined international relations of the 20th century served to beef up the defense industry. But rather than lining the pockets of a few and filling bunkers with weapons we’d never use (thankfully), a cleantech “cold war” could revitalize Western economies and push most of the world dramatically toward sustainability.Beyond Bali, life in the cleantech industry is certainly going to go through some serious upheaval in the next year. With VC money continuing to flow in, and novel methods of financing tangible cleantech projects coming out of the woodwork, the future has never looked brighter for a truckload of technologies that many thought would never be practical solutions to everyday problems. Yet as solar efficiency and battery capacity continue to increase, while decreasing in price, it seems inevitable that both technologies will quickly become major supplements–if not outright replacements–for many traditional energy methods over the next year and beyond.Likely as not there will be some fizzles in the industry over the next year as well, but on the balance cleantech and alternative energy look to be healthier than ever and headed for another year of record improvement and adoption.

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