April 9, 2008 8:42 AM PDT
Bob Metcalfe's EnerNet embraces 'global warming bubble'
Posted by Martin LaMonica | 2 comments BOSTON--Bob Metcalfe thinks we'll solve global warming if we take our cue from the Internet.
Metcalfe, best known as a co-inventor of the Ethernet and now a venture capitalist at Polaris Venture Partners, on Wednesday laid out his vision of the "EnerNet," the concept of applying the lessons of building the Internet to the energy business.
Speaking at the AlwaysOn East conference here, Metcalfe said that, despite concerns of overinvestment, the growing energy technology bubble is a good thing.
"There will be many decades of bubbles ahead," he said. "There are people out there trying to outlaw them, particularly the sore losers. But they are accelerators to technology innovation."
He argued that the history of technology is marked by bubbles of overinvestment, from the PC to the Internet, voice over IP, and others.
The same is happening in global warming. Concerns over global warming have spurred billions of dollars in investment from venture capitalists and government research to create low-polluting alternatives to fossil fuels.
"There is definitely a global warming bubble and one of the ways I know that is because the name Al Gore (is present)," Metcalfe joked. "Al Gore inflated the Internet bubble and now he's inflating the global warming bubble."
For the record, Metcalfe does not like to use the term "clean tech" because energy needs to be clean and cheap. Nor does he like the color green, as in "green tech," because political greens are anticapitalism and antitechnology, he said.
As a writer for CNET's Green Tech blog, I take issue with the idea that environmentalists can't be capitalists--we're seeing them every day. But Metcalfe has a point about extreme green politicos.
(http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9915135-54.html?tag=nefd.lede)
