The Next Big Thing - Alternative Energy


by Michael Dawson - Date: 2007-03-09 - Word Count: 336 Share This!

I live in Massachusetts and formerly worked for a high-tech company, so I witnessed first hand the benefits of the dot com boom. It was unbelievable as start-ups with nothing more than Power Point slides and a recognized technologist on staff were receiving multi-million dollar investments from the venture capital community. It would have been a great time to be invested in limousines as the parking lots of these companies were filled with deal makers. Towards the end of 2000 the excitement disappeared and the Venture Capitalist (VC) where nowhere to be found. Over the next 6 years, start-ups were few and far between. Power Point was no longer good enough, the companies needed proven technology with real customer commitments in hand.

My friends and I would often wonder where did the VCs go? Well wonder no more - according to a recent edition of The Economist the money is going into "Green" technologies. One estimate puts the total investments going into clean energy at $63 billion up from $49 billion in 2005 and $30 billion in 2004. That represents almost a tenth of America's venture capital. A group of Silicon Valley "deep pockets" in June invested $100 million in Nanosolar, a firm which hopes to cut the cost of producing solar panels dramatically. Sun Power, the solar subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor, is now worth almost as much as its chipmaking parent company. Green is definitely in.

Although much hope is in clean energy, there is a significant price gap between energy generated by fossil fuels and alternatives. Coal, the dirtiest of all energy sources, is by far the cheapest. Therefore almost all clean energy relies on government subsidies to compete with fossil fuels. Governments are becoming fed up with their dependence on unstable and hostile countries for oil and gas, so maybe the politicians will seriously promote greater use of alternatives.

I have casually been watching the Power Shares WilderHIll Clean Energy ETF (PBW). I think that I will bump it up a few notches on my watch list.


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About the Author

Michael Dawson recently said goodbye to a 20 year career in Engineering, Marketing and Sales to focus on living his dream of financial independence as a full-time trader on his on account. He has also established a financial education company, The Time & Money Group, to encourage others to pursue financial freedom and is publisher of the company's blog "Breaking the Shackles of the 9 to 5." His mantra is "Why trade time for money... when you can have both."



http://www.thetimeandmoneygroup.com/blog

Make sure to read one of Dawson's most popular articles: "Saying Good-Bye to the Time for Money Swap"

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