The Peaks & Valleys of Clean Energy Innovation

The bankruptcy of solar startup, Solyndra, earlier this year had the clean energy naysayers up-in-arms, saying that Solyndra’s demise proved that governments shouldn’t be wasting taxpayer money on businesses that could fail. We all know that startup businesses are inherently risky and in the clean energy space, they can be quite expensive but who’s better suited to foot the bill and assume the risk, private companies or government-backed efforts?   This week on Sea Change Radio, we welcome back to the show, Jesse Jenkins, the Director of Energy and Climate Policy at the Breakthrough Institute, a leading progressive public policy think tank. Jenkins and host Alex Wise discuss his white paper titled "Bridging the Clean Energy Valleys of Death" which gives an overview of the challenges facing clean energy commercialization and outlines proposals that may allow green technologies and entrepreneurs to better compete with their fossil fuel-based brethren.