Clean Break poll: Solar tops as cleantech investment
A record 138 of you voted in the latest month’s Clean Break poll, which asked “What cleantech area offers the biggest potential payback for investors?”
Is it a surprise that solar PV/thermal related investments got the most votes — 40 per cent to be precise? Surprisingly, wind came in second with 20 per cent of votes, followed closely by biofuels with 17 per cent. I would have thought that biofuels would have been a close second to solar, given all the talk in the U.S. about independence from oil and all the venture capital investment flowing into the area. Battery technologies came in fourth with 15 per cent of votes. Another surprise. I would never have guessed that batteries would be behind wind, what with all the attention these days to hybrid-electric cars (plug-ins as well), pure EVs, and the need for utility-scale energy storage and better backup storage.
I have to say I’m also stunned that investment in water technologies ranked so low at just 5 per cent of votes. This is the sleeper. If we think energy is the big crisis today, just wait until countries begin to be invaded for their water resources.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
July 12th, 2006 at 8:26 am
What people THINK offers the best payback and what actually does are not necessarily the same. Too often today’s media confuses the results of a poll with fact rather than the perception of fact. Maybe you can provide some links to sites that will allow the poll participants to calculate their savings of each of these technologies. Given the results of the poll, I’ll bet they’d all be surprised.
July 12th, 2006 at 8:55 am
What people think, as a matter of perception, is the exact point of this exercise. I don’t think I or anyone reading the results are confusing the poll’s results with fact. But the information is nonetheless insightful — that is, finding out what people are thinking. Don’t take these things so seriously…
July 14th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
Your poll was asking about payback for investors…presumably investors are investing in a company making a better, faster, cheaper version of X. The world loves solar (especially solar pv), it is still sexy, hi-techy and cutting edge after 50 years. Hence making an investment in a better, faster, cheaper solar widget appears that it would yield the biggest potential payback…just look at recent solar IPOs for proof.