Is Energy Technology the New Bubble?

I have not been a prolific blogger of late because I’ve been buried under revisions of my MIT doctoral thesis. The official submission deadline was last Friday, but I’m still plugging away at it. I am relying upon the leniency of the mechanical engineering graduate office to accept my thesis a few days late. However, with the passage of each day that the finished thesis does not materialize, charity for tardy submissions wanes. Hopefully by next Monday, my thesis will be in, and I will be back to my old blogging self. Heck, I may even risk boring you with a post about my thesis findings, which relate to a passive, human-portable cooling technique I created utilizing nanotechnology.

To wet your appetite for blog posts to come, Technology Review published an interesting chart concerning the increased rate of venture capitalist (VC) investment in clean energy, “The New New Thing is Clean Energy”. Annoyingly, Tech Review has started blocking new material on its Web site from non-registered users. So, unless you are registered, you can’t actually see the chart.

However, the gist of it is that in 1999, about 1% of all VC investment was going to clean energy; by 2006, that figure had risen to almost 10% ($2.4 billion). Tech Review goes on to say that “venture capitalists are starting to treat energy technology companies like the dot coms of 1999.” So, here is question in my mind: is the recent surge of interest and investment in energy technology the new bubble?

Stay tuned to find out what I think; I’ve just a few more thesis chapters to revise.