California hustles in Clean Tech

California leads... but other states and countries are catching up...and bypassing California in clean tech niche.

Fast-growing fields include solar energy, wind power and environmental remediation.

Investment data collected by the Cleantech Venture Network in Brighton, Mich., capture the accelerating interest in green technologies. In 2005, it recorded $1.6 billion of investments in clean-tech startups. In just the first six months of this year, nearly $1.4 billion has already poured into this field, with much of that money flowing to startups in solar, wind or other renewable energies.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr said clean technology could be as big tomorrow as computer chips, biotechnology and the Internet were yesterday

If California has embarked on a race to lead the world into a new energy future, it's going to have to fight many skirmishes on many fronts.

In July, for instance, the American Wind Energy Association reported that "Texas for the first time supplanted historic leader California as the top state in cumulative wind power capacity," ending the bragging rights that the latter first earned 25 years ago when it built its first wind farms.

WIND

Figures from the California Energy Commission show that wind power produces roughly seven times more of the state's electricity than solar, which tends to get far more attention.

SOLAR

Even before passage of the greenhouse bill, solar energy startups were sprouting in Silicon Valley. Firms such as SunPower Corp. are already making what are among the world's most efficient solar energy systems, and startups like Nanosolar -- which in June announced plans to build a $100 million plant in the Bay Area -- are pioneering new ways to turn sunlight into electricity.

Leadership

Margaret Bruce, with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, whose 200 member firms include the current high-tech and biotech leaders, voiced the optimistic opinion that dealing with greenhouse gases would offer business opportunities for this region and for California.

"As we develop the tool bag to respond to global warming, we'll have the tools to sell to the rest of the world," she said.

Craig Cuddeback, senior vice president with the Cleantech Group in Michigan, said the venture capital investments in this emerging field show more money flowing to regions like the Northeast, Southeast and Midwest -- suggesting that California and Silicon Valley are going to have to work harder to satisfy their ambitions of being the world's green tool makers.