How Obama's Stimulus Plan Benefits Clean Tech

Fortune Magazine's Adam Lashinsky talks to Google's Dan Reicher and Foundation Capital's Paul Koontz about how the Obama administration's stimulus money has energized the clean-tech industry. The executives discuss how the money has been used for smart-grid projects and other alternative energy initiatives.

How Obama's Stimulus Plan Benefits Clean Tech Adam Lashinsky: I want to turn the conversation to what role the federal government stimulus money has had in accelerating deployment of new technology. Has it helped? Is it enough? Is it too much? Has it been a hindrance? Will it be there next year? Who wants to start? Dan Reicher: I was on the Obama transition team and helped put the initial package together, and we were gratified to see where Congress ended up. We're seeing all sorts of extraordinary things that, that, that I think could happen. One is money for Smart Grid that, the likes of which we've never seen before you know, massive amount of spending, something very, very different. The Low Income Home Weatherization Program, we were doing on the order of 100,000 homes a year, insulating them and making them more energy efficient. We're now looking at millions of homes that are being weatherized as a result of this. That's got great jobs creation results, but it also gets at real serious economic problems for poor people, which is paying their energy bills. Something very different, this money is flowing into advanced energy technologies of all sorts. One that we're very interested in is advanced geothermal systems, new ways to tap the heat in, in hot rocks, deep beneath the surface. And the stimulus money is making projects happen that frankly would not have happened in this country without it. I think the open question is, are we going to see more stimulus dollars? I think the, the likelihood is no. I think we're going to back to year- to-year normal appropriations of the sort that the world is now facing. So this big multiple tens of billions of dollars in fusion is going to recede. But I think it's going to show very strong results and I think it's going to help build the case for higher levels of regular funding going forward. Paul Koontz: It's easy to get bogged down in the debate about different technical approaches or different companies, who is more deserving. I think what's impossible to argue is if a grant—you've mentioned Tessella, there have been others in the solar area, other large grants that have gone into clean technologies. If those grants put us in a position as a country of having viable competitors in these global markets of the first order in terms of size, then they will seem like extraordinarily effective uses of government capital and taxpayer capital. And we're in a period now where it is too early to know, but I think for all of the skepticism and cynicism about some of these government programs when they were announced and in a sense rushed to market to have impact, I think the technology community feels that the government has been pretty thoughtful about it. And you don't loud deep consistent voices of skepticism, as many were expecting, now that we're a year or so into the, into the work. Adam Lashinsky: It's interesting. The conventional wisdom today in the business community is that our government has an anti-business bent to it. It's not creating a friendly environment for business. And from a technology industry's perspective or energy industry's perspective, maybe, Paul, you're saying just the opposite. Paul Koontz: Political debates are funky things to wade into, and I certainly don't think that any of us wants to. I don't today. Certainly from the point of view of our industry and the industries that we all represent, I would say by in large just within our own four walls, the community that were part of it feels very good about the impact on business, the impact on the innovation, the impact on bringing these technologies to market, the impact on ultimately helping enable Smart Grid or other green technologies to grow and give our country a shot in competing in this global markets whereas you acknowledged other governments for being extraordinary aggressive. And that’s you know it wasn’t obvious to be able to say that 18 months ago.