Tech leaders call for 'green' policies

A group of technology executives said Wednesday that the world is facing an energy crisis, and they called on U.S. policymakers to embrace a "green tech" agenda focused on encouraging energy conservation and reducing U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources.

Members of TechNet, a network of tech-company CEOs, asked the U.S. government to double its funding for basic energy research, to designate a federal agency that would oversee energy research and technology solutions and increase tax incentives for new energy technologies. Six tech executives were in Washington, D.C., to push the green tech policy agenda, saying a government partnership is needed to make the U.S. the world leader in new green technologies.

But the group said they also see profit in new energy technologies. "It's a crisis that's going to bring about huge opportunities," said K.R. Sridhar, CEO of Bloom Energy, a fuel-cell startup. "New opportunities will make energy abundant, sustainable and available for all mankind."

While some executives compared the predicted energy crisis to the U.S. sending astronauts to the moon, John Doerr, a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, said that comparison understates the problem. "We need much more than ... an Apollo Project," he said. "This is no single silver bullet. This is an entire re-industrialization of the planet."

Without green-friendly policies from the U.S. government, new energy technologies will flourish in other countries that subsidize the industry, the executives said. Although solar-power technology was invented in the U.S., Germany now creates more than half of the world's solar power, said David Pearce, CEO of Miasolé, a manufacturer of solar cells. The executives said they aren't asking for subsidies, but for more friendly U.S. policies.

"I think it really does take the entrepreneurs, the companies and the government working together," Pearce said.

Among the pieces of the TechNet green policy agenda:

-- The U.S. government should fund new university partnerships and research focused on energy technologies.

-- The government should increase consumer incentives for reducing energy consumption.

-- The government should establish minimum standards for the amount of energy coming from renewable resources.

In addition, individual companies are working on their own to reduce energy consumption, said John Chambers, chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems Inc. Cisco is working to reduce its employee travel by 20 percent in the next year and has 70 current energy conservation programs, he said.

Much of the motivation for energy reform comes from ideas of good corporate citizenship and a potential for profits, the executives said. But some motivation comes from their own families, with teenage children telling them they have a responsibility to fix the U.S. energy problems, Doerr said.

"If we don't change the way we do energy, we are telling our children and grandchildren they will have a lower standard of living than we had," Sridhar added.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.