Monday, February 18, 2008

It will happen without government interference...

if people think they can make money doing it.

T.J. Rodgers isn't invested in solar power because he's part of the green movement or a global warming alarmist - he's not either of those things. He's in it because he views it as a good investment which will make lots of money.

A decade later, one of the scientists who worked with Noyce and Hoerni, Gordon Moore, by then co-founder of Intel, realized that this miniaturization/mass-production technique was advancing at a rate never seen before in human endeavor. This formulation was the famous Moore's Law, which defines the modern world.

Most of us now understand, and appreciate, Moore's Law, but in the semiconductor industry they live it every day. And T.J. is one of the best of them. And what he saw in SunPower was the impending arrival of Moore's Law to the alternative power world … and more than anyone, he knew what that meant.

As he has admitted, what he saw wasn't Green, as in environmentalism, but "green," as in money. That's why he made such an unlikely move — and why he is now an even richer tycoon.

This takes a singular combination of vision, guts and the kind of strategic thinking that is only found in real, business-oriented entrepreneurs – not in government bureaucrats, or, for that matter, reporters.

The husband of a woman I grew up with has worked for T.J. for many years in international sales. It's been a good job, so when I heard a few years ago he was being transferred to SunPower, I felt sorry for him, figuring it was a demotion. These days he's adding new wings to his house.

You may not like their politics, or their attitude, or their style. But if we really do have an energy revolution in this country and free ourselves from our addiction to fossil fuels, it will be because of hard-charging, take-no-prisoners entrepreneurs like T.J. Rodgers — not UN committees, environmental groups, or government officials.

I recommend you read the entire article by Michael S. Malone:
Silicon Insider: Solar Companies Glow Despite Economic Slump
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H/T: Instapundit

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