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A Letter from the Cleantech Community

Dear Colleagues:

Out of our garages came the innovations that launched the information technology and biotech revolutions. From those beginnings, we have built a trillion-dollar it economy and a biotech industry. As investors, entrepreneurs, and business leaders, we recognize a similar economic opportunity in clean energy technology. And this prospect isn't just about economic growth. our security and prosperity and that of future generations depend on energy independence and a stable climate, which clean technology can ensure.

As this report shows, clean energy can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the gigatons required to address climate change over the next 20 years. For an entrepreneur, what can be imagined sets the bounds for what can become real. We can now imagine gigaton scale for clean energy technologies, and entrepreneurs can starting building the leading clean energy companies of tomorrow.

All of the technologies that can make major carbon dioxide emissions reductions — energy, buildings, transportation, forestry, and agriculture — have historically had market rules established by local, regional, national and international policy decisions. the future will be no different.

Scaling up clean energy industries requires coordinated action by the entire supply chain. Companies will expand capacity only when there are clear market signals for expected growth. Such signals are also required to increase demand for renewable energy and low-carbon alternatives.

the energy and carbon policies being decided now in the U.S. Congress and in December at the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen can lay the foundations for decades of massive innovation and growth in clean energy. the central reform must be a comprehensive carbon policy that puts a price on carbon for the long term. Without such a policy, cleantech energy pathways will grow slowly and in most cases fail to affect climate change. With such a policy, we can achieve gigaton scale by 2020, stabilize the climate, and create a new industry.

While we did not prepare this report, we agree with its basic findings and encourage our colleagues to use it as a framework for thinking about how to achieve scale in cleantech energy industries. We encourage policymakers to take to heart its central conclusions.

Signatories

Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson

Managing Director, Energy Solutions,
Suntech America

CEO, Foresight Wind

CEO, Renewable Ventures

Chairman and CEO,
Tremisis Energy Corporation

Partner, Mohr Davidow ventures

Founding Partner,
MissionPoint Capital Partners

Chief Business Development Officer,
AltaRock Energy

CEO, eSolar and founder, Idealab

CEO, Recurrent Energy

Senior Director and Director of Climate
Change Policy, Good Energies

CEO, Good Energies

President and CEO, Petra Solar

Managing Director and Co-Founder, Firelake Capital Management

Managing Director,
Firelake Capital Management

Director for Global Foresight + Innovation,
Arup

CEO, Syngest Inc.

Founding Partner,
Spring ventures

Chairman,
Serious Materials, Calstar, and ZETA

Partner, U.S. Venture Partners

CEO, AltaRock

President and CEO,
Solar Energy Industries Association

Managing Partner,
Eko Asset Management Partners

Chief Development Officer,
Horizon Wind Energy

CTO, SunPower Corporation

Vice President,
Advanced Technology Ventures

Partner, New Enterprise Associates