It made the front page of the Boston Globe and aired on the local NPR affiliate: Massachusetts won a $2-million grant to help outfit a hangar facility in Charlestown for testing wind turbine blades. In announcing the deal, Governor Deval Patrick was joined at the State House by no less a figure than U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman. A parade of energy officials expressed high hopes for what the grant portended.
I’m thinking, $2 million—so what? The country’s energy czar, who controls billions, flies up to Boston to gush over such a measly grant? The overkill seems indicative of a frenzy over everything green. I made a quick call to an energy expert I know, David Danielson, who founded the MIT Energy Club four years ago and is now technologist-in-residence at General Catalyst helping GC study the energy arena. Danielson called the grant a symbolic gesture, to be sure, but one that, combined with separate efforts now afoot, might provide the momentum to turn the U.S. around in alternative energy. “Two million is a drop in the bucket,” he says. “But if you got a lot of drops and the drops start precipitating, you can fill up the whole bucket.”
It’s an interesting forecast—what do you think?
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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