State seeks clean tech ideas

There's money and interest out there. One of the big issues is called out in the article:

"California has traditionally had a hard time getting venture capital companies involved with such committees because of the numerous meetings, legal requirements and piles of paperwork associated with the government, Nichols said."

Amen. Entrepreneurs don't like bureaucracy.

State seeks clean tech ideas to back - Sacramento Business Journal:

A committee tasked with increasing renewable energy sources in California is looking for a few good clean technology projects.

The Economic and Technology Advancement Advisory Committee wants green energy innovators in California to submit plans and products to increase renewable energy sources, said Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California State Air Resources Board, Wednesday at Santa Clara University at the "Clean and Green" community forum held by the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Nichols said proposals will be considered for potential inclusion in a draft plan submitted to her at the end of the year by the committee. "We will spend hundreds of thousands of staff hours combing through the ideas," she said.

The major benefit of such a group is that it compiles the best ideas from competing technology firms to the best public use -- and the companies can still profit, she said.

One idea out of the six-month-old group, headed by Alan Lloyd and Bob Epstein, is to create a clean-energy park, Nichols said.

Data now shows where solar, wind and other alternative sources of energy exist, but she said the group needs to find overlaps so a park can be created where several sources work at once to make a constant energy source. The state also needs to find better forms of energy storage, she said.

About 18 percent of the state's energy comes from renewable sources today, she said. The goal is 50 percent.

California has traditionally had a hard time getting venture capital companies involved with such committees because of the numerous meetings, legal requirements and piles of paperwork associated with the government, Nichols said.

"That's the opposite of what these industries tend to do," she said. "We need new ways of partnering that have not been tried before. They can help us think through what are the most effective ways to help us that still helps them make money."