I did a presentation earlier this week for a class.  I was Thomas Werner presenting at the SunPower annual shareholders meeting.  I decided to make the presentation more of a motivational speech than a summary of financial results, considering that SunPower will likely have negative earnings for 2008 and had its stock price fall 70% since September.  I started by talking about solar and why it was important, keeping it fairly short and relying on pictures of ugly coal plants and beatific solar arrays since I didn’t have the time to go much deeper.  At the end of the presentation I felt like I was simplifying and cheapening the question “Why solar?” but quickly put it out of my mind.

Then, I read this article.  I was fairly surprised that global climate change ranked so low on a list of public concerns—honestly, behind even “moral decline”?  After a moment’s reflection, however, I realized that I should’ve expected this.  I’ve never been a big believer in environmentalism’s ability to change the opinions and actions of an entire population, especially not one so hardwired against it as the US tends to be.  Ultimately, I agree with a recent NY Times article: “…environmental concerns are often the first to fall off the table when any more immediate threat surfaces.”

I think that any long-term, sustained action plan that relies on support from a large population of citizens needs to have more justification than environmentalism.  This is simply realism, not a value judgment of any kind.

So, if I could make my presentation again without relying on the environmentalist’s scare-graphic tactic…why solar?  Or, since the the broader question is just as applicable, why cleantech?

I realized, upon revisiting the question, that every single aspect of cleantech can be justified simply on the basis of making better products.  Renewable energy will eventually be far cheaper than fossil generation and solve many of our energy security issues.  Electric vehicles will actually be far superior machines, requiring less maintenance, costing less, requiring less fuel, and offering better performance.  Green building justifies itself simply on the benefits it bestows upon the inhabitants of a structure. Et cetera.

The combination of dramatic product improvements and huge addressable markets are what attracted $13B in venture capital to the space in 2008.  To care about cleantech one need not care for the environment.  If you do, so much the better.

This entire thought exercise happened on Monday.  Today I was at a conference called Making Energy Work and listening to a panel on renewable energy financing.  The conversation moved to carbon pricing, and the panelists were prognosticating on the speed at which a regulatory regime would be put into place (consensus: 2014).  Jigar Shah broke up the party.  “Forgive me if I’m saying something politically incorrect in this environment, but screw carbon regulation.  I don’t need a price on carbon to make solar work.  I can show you numbers that prove that solar is less expensive than coal today.”

While I personally support carbon regulation, I do applaud Shah’s sentiment.  Solar kicks ass on its own.