Clean Tech Problems and Solutions Discussed

Green tech:

BOSTON--Even with positive long-term trends at their backs, a huge wave of newly created clean-tech companies will have to navigate a tricky business and regulatory environment to succeed.

At the MIT Enterprise Forum's "Power, Drugs, and Money" conference last Thursday, financiers and business people offered alternating upbeat and cautious advice on the prospects in clean tech, which has become one of the hottest areas for entrepreneurs and investors.

The positive scenario was summed up by Dennis Costello, an investor at Braemer Energy Ventures: the energy field is a great business to be in now because it is changing rapidly--a situation that favors small companies over incumbents.

Still, executives from both new and established clean-tech companies say that energy is complicated by politics, regulations, and large capital requirements on a scale that other industries don't have to contend with.

The question over green-tech start-ups' success--and the role they play in the massive energy industry--is worth tracking closely.

Thousands of new companies have been funded and formed in the past few years. But how and whether new technologies will be adopted is still unclear in many cases--a factor that can make or break new ventures.

For example, bringing energy efficiency technologies to household appliances has been considered "low hanging fruit" for 10 years but there's still much more than can be done, said Stephen Connors, a director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy Initiative who spoke at the conference.

"These things are on the ground rotting at ... Read more