Is America’s Aversion to Risk Threatening Entrepreneurship?
America is a nation that was born by people willing to take extraordinary risks. The settlers who came here put their lives on the l...
Topic
Public Policy
16 recovered essays in this topic.
Now That the Cleantech Hype is Gone, the Real Venture Investment Opportunity Begins
The bubble has burst. The hype and euphoria of 2008 and 2009 is a distant memory. Fueled in part by the externality of the handouts from the stimulus package, and the (now fleeting) spike of natural gas and oil prices,…
A Shining Star of Bipartisan Cleantech Support
Amid all the negative publicity that Solyndra’s failure has brought to the Administration’s cleantech efforts, one cleantech progr...
A Cleantech VC Who is Unconvinced of Man-Made Climate Change
Go ahead -- call me a hypocrite. I claim to be a cleantech venture capitalist yet I tell you here and now that I am not convinced...
Obama Cleantech Stimulus: Bad Policy, Bad Politics and Bad for Cleantech
The Solyndra debacle is no surprise to this cleantech venture capitalist. The inherent conflict between trying to get money out of the U.S. Treasury as quickly as possible to stimulate the economy and, at the same time,…
Renewable Energy Standards: Savvy or Silly?
State renewable energy standards have gained momentum over the past decade with 29 states having put in place various types of standard mandates and five more having implemented voluntary standards (34 total). Now the…
Election Does Not Spell Cleantech Doom
With the recent “shellacking” (as President Obama referred to the election results) of the Democratically controlled Cong...
Meet the Rodney Dangerfield of Cleantech
Wind turbines stand tall and mesmerize with their motion. Solar cells bask in the sparkling sun. Meanwhile, hidden down in the dark dirty underworld, a compelling technology sits quietly and gets no respect. Once…
Cleantech Stimulus Still Not Stimulating
The stimulus bill along with the $31B cleantech element focused on grants and loan guarantees through the Department of Energy was passed into law over 18 months ago. About a year ago I wrote about how the cleantech…
Cap and Trade: Right Debate, Wrong Solution
As we have seen in just the past few years, fossil fuel prices can vary dramatically over very short periods of time. Creatin...
Cleantech Economics 101: Higher Fossil Fuel Prices; More Cleantech
With all the complexities of cleantech policy and technologies, there is only one simple thing needed for an explosion of competitive clean technologies – increased price of fossil fuels. The amount of R&D expenditures…
Will 2010 Be the Year of Cleantech Revenues, IPOs and, Maybe, Even Profits?
As a “gearhead” (engineer) I must admit I truly enjoy looking at all the cool technologies being developed by cleantech companies. The prom...
Feel-Good Government Grants Leading Cleantech Astray
Grants for smart grid projects. Grants for battery manufacturing lines. Loan guarantees for renewable energy project development. Grants ...
Human Capital, Not Venture Capital, the Biggest Cleantech Challenge
Building great businesses typically requires three key ingredients: phenomenal people, compelling technology and investment capital. Cleantech companies are no exception. While cleantech venture capital investments have…
Cleantech Stimulus Not Very Stimulating
The way the Obama Administration used the economic crisis to drive a major policy and spending shift regarding clean technologies was very deft politics. The cleantech stimulus (which represented over $45 billion of the…
The Green Gold Blog Launch
After joining Access Venture Partners over two years ago and heading up our cleantech investments, I contemplated starting a blog. But the...