Former Secretary Chu gave the opening keynote speaker at the Energy Summit in Santa Barbara last week. After four years at the head of the Department of Energy, the former Nobel Prize winner decided to go back to academics and research. Often caught in the cross-fire of Washington politics after the Solyndra debacle, he calmly kept acting on his firm belief that technology innovations can tackle humanity's biggest challenges.
This was the underlying theme during the keynote that he gave at the conference. The 4th edition of the Energy Summit hosted by the Institute for Energy Efficiency at UCSB. It was focused on materials for a sustainable future. Dr. Chu described some of the recent scientific breakthoughs in transportation, power electronics, photo-voltaics and energy storage. During the follow-up fire-side chat with Oracle's Chairman Jeff Henley, he called for increasing funding towards research. Yet, he warned that we can not separate innovation in materials from the constraints in manufacturing processes to create jobs in the US. A lot of the past research in materials was started here but ended up overseas for lack of pragmatism.
Sports cars got a fast start at the Detroit Auto Show last week while sales of electric vehicles are growing slowly. Transportation is only one way to reduce carbon footprint, and it seems that environmental concerns are taking a back-seat compared to speed and elegance. Tesla's Model S won the car of the year award in 2012 by surprising the auto fans with its best-in-class performance.
Auto manufacturers are still excited about the potential of EV's. Earlier this year, Ford announced a new energy initiative at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas , in partnership with Eaton, SunPower and Whirlpool. A study done in collaboration with Georgia Institute of Technology shows that a typical American family can reduce its carbon foot-print by 55% by combining renewable energy generation and smart devices such as plug-in vehicles and new home appliances.
I have talked before about the convergence of home and transportation, and the second generation of solar about to take place. I decided to talk to Ford about MyEnergi Lifestyle program, as well as their hands-on experience at the assembly factory in Michigan where they installed 500 kW of solar panels and 2 MWh of energy storage. Their take-aways are interesting.
Climate change was absent during Presidential debates apart from a few Republican jabs at Solyndra and other federal loan guarantees in green energy. It came back strongly to the front scene two weeks ago when Mayor Bloomberg, a moderate Republican who ran last as an Independent , endorsed President Obama for a second term after Sandy Storn hit New York City (picture right).
While some residents of Big Apple are still waiting for their lights to be back on, Obama's reelection is good news for the cleantech sector. But investments have dipped significantly in 2012 due to a lack of profitable exits. So, realistically, what's next for cleantech?
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