Renewable Energy is the New High Tech

Way back when, say, 30-plus years ago, when people started to understand the revolutionary power of computers but the technology was not yet brought down to the everyman level in the form of PCs, certain places conjured up images of the "future." I'm thinking of places like the Route 128 Corridor outside Boston or Silicon Valley in California, where intellectual heft and entrepreneurial spirit merged to create the companies of the future, then. There have been imitators since, usually associated with a famous company or university, but none had the staying power in the public mind as the center of that universe.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as just about every day a high-ranking federal official, most likely Energy Secretary Steven Chu, is dispensing a grant or announcing a program that in some way plants a seed for that city to someday claim of ownership of a title like "renewable energy city." Civic and political leaders routinely did this with "high tech" all the time, too.

I was also reminded by reports from many cities and states announcing some grant or academic center. There was one from Ohio I just read, with Governor Ted Strickland announcing a grant to fund alternative energy programs. "There will come a day when Ohio will be the undisputed home of advanced energy," Strickland said. I expect he will have more to say about that at the upcoming EnergyBiz Leadership Forum.

But where can we christen the renewable energy center of the universe in a few years? The same Silicon Valley, as some of the high tech fortunes of recent decades are invested in emerging technologies? Seattle, perhaps, where Google is investing in renewable, but they've instead adopted the smart grid, I suppose. Portland could lay some claim. It certainly has the green ethic and it's also home to two world powers in the renewable energy, Iberdrola and Vestas. But they're transplants and they haven't created an overwhelming presence that makes you think "renewables capital." I suppose Denver could lay some claim, with nearby Golden housing the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, but that government facility toiled in relative obscurity for much of its existence.

Or is renewable energy capital and innovation going to remain "distributed" through pockets of government labs, university collaboration with some companies, with a healthy dose of investment capital pumped in for good measure? Historically, that hasn't worked for the "next big thing," be it electricity, cars or computers.

I'm curious where you think the likeliest places might be, as my short list is, admittedly, very short. I also wonder if you think the historical model is no longer necessary for there to be a "clean energy capital," the type of place in the public mind where innovators and entrepreneurs meet to remake the future.

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