Michele Kearney's Nuclear Wire

Major Energy and Environmental News and Commentary affecting the Nuclear Industry.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Green-tech companies look overseas for foothold

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Rather than follow a well understood game plan, energy technology entrepreneurs need to think more like chess players on the fast-changing global stage.
A panel of clean-tech entrepreneurs and financiers here at the MIT Venture Capital conference yesterday discussed ways to navigate the regulatory and commercial landscape. Their strategies reflect how energy innovators and their financial backers have had to adjust over the past few years to have a shot at succeeding.
One persistent challenge for energy technology entrepreneurs is getting the money and permits to build either an initial production facility to make goods, such as solar panels or biofuels, or test a product at large scale.
In many cases, young companies are looking outside the U.S., where the regulatory environment is simpler and governments are more welcoming, panelists said. Introducing products for use on the U.S. electric grid, in particular, is very complex because each state can have separate rules.
"If somehow the regulations in the U.S. don't start to be more amenable to the clean technologies we're starting to develop, then I'm already looking to China to move products because I know I will have a lot fewer regulatory issues getting products online there," said Tom Zarella, the CEO of a Dartmouth University spin-off called SustainX, which is making a novel storage system that uses compressed air.


Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20023432-54.html#ixzz15qwR8fdd
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20023432-54.html
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