I have been reading a brand new book by Brian Dumaine from Fortune and Time and other august establishments. It’s called The Plot to Save the Planet
My first response to reading this was “Wow!”
There are a lot of different organizations working from many different angles trying to come up with products ands methods to generate or conserve energy .
Most of them are discussed in here. And it seems from Mr. Dumaine’s prose that all of them could be successful. Perhaps he has already winnowed out the ones that don’t have a chance. And he has used his Fortune connections to reach out to the venture capital firms to find out who they are investing in. And I think that is a great method to find out any economic trend. As a whole, venture capital goes to that field where gains can be made. I bet there are few VCs out there investing in whaling ships.
I only have two problems with the book and neither are about the content. First, I wish it were more tightly edited. There are some parts that are repeats what was said earlier such as discussions of building methods to improve efficiencies and arguments for and against plug-in cars. But these are the nitpickings of a technical editor and struggling writer. These are not the criticisms of a alternative energy champion who wants to know what is going on in the industry.
I will be using this book as a source for future blogs as I dive further into each of the start-ups that he highlights.
The topics include solar, wind, transportation, algae, building, ethanol and corporate strategies.
I recommend it for the alternative energy reader, the corporate strategist and the investor. There are a few Google’s, IBM’s, AT&T’s, and Ford’s of the future hidden in these pages. Some may not make it which is always the case, but the future is so bright, many of these companies will be successful.
