The cleantech myth bashing

Vinod Khosla at his buzzkill best. He is beginning to like “black swan solutions” that cause technology shock as he believes that many of the current concepts of cleantech investing are just "greenwashing" and not a solution to the climate issues. He’ll find a lot of backers from among the puritan VCs.

He finds photovoltaic panels in the booming $20 billion PV market are not scalable and not sustainable without subsidies. The Prius Hybrid cars? Not a solution to the energy or the climate problem nor did they meet the Chindia test - since they don’t seem to compete with the $2,500 Tata Nano. He calls hybrids "an inefficient carbon solution". Biodiesel, Clean Coal and Zero Emission Buildings are not the solutions either. Carbon capture and sequestration also do not serve the purpose as they are not economical. Solar PV, wind and biofuels are “little markets”.

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Now wait a minute.... Can they deal with the financial crisis and reduce emissions at the same time? Take the Big Three automakers in Detroit (or its users). Who will expect them to invest in fuel efficient engines as they fast slide into insolvency? Isn’t gas available at $2 a gallon now?

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Makes no sense.How about the VCs that have sunk some real big money? Poor fellas’ they get killed often by the publicity they give themselves. They had better learn to swallow some wily pride. At least it’s non fattening!

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Microsoft is too fidgety with all that cash

Now that Microsoft has backed off from $47 billion yahoo bid, it squirms and fidgets with all that cash hoard. It has to find another better way to squander the dough. So why not give it away? Not to shareholders, that's boring straight. New idea – pay people that search through Microsoft live and complete a transaction.

Despite Redmond's best efforts, Microsoft Live Search remains mired in a distant third place, behind Google and Yahoo, as the reference of choice on Web, and not content to pin its hopes for growth on increased relevance or innovation, Microsoft is resorting to the most basic of incentives: money. Today the company introduced "Live Search Cashback,"

You certainly don’t cast off Single Era Conjecture, do you…?

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"Guess, where I am"

Starting next week and over the next few months, several United States airlines will test Internet service on their planes – News.

That's progress, but as usual, there's a price. As many people as there are who are enthusiastic about keeping their connections aloft, surely there must be an equal number who appreciated the brief hours of electronic abstinence imposed by airline travel, the enforced opportunity to put the keyboard away and do something analog, like reading one of those low-tech paper books, or pondering the questions of the universe, or even something as bold as emptying the brain and quieting the mind. Sure, you'll still have the choice to unplug; you just won't have the built-in excuse. Still, these pilot programs are the leading edge of an inevitability.

Can’t imagine someone sending IMs up to the cockpit saying stuff like, "I'm in ur cabin, messing with ur frequencies."

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