Thursday, November 18, 2010

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Top Ten Green Giants

What are the most important companies in greentech? Hint: many are over 100 years old.

While startups have played a crucial role in getting the green industry off the ground, the future will likely be dominated by large, sprawling conglomerates. Why? Green technology essentially involves revamping the physical infrastructure of the modern world: replacing coal-fired power plants with wind turbines, building homes from materials concocted in chemistry laboratories, and swapping out engines for electric motors. Established companies are simply in a far better position to muster the capital, technological depth, managerial expertise and factory capacity that will all be needed to make the transition.
Familiarity plays a big role, too. Millions have flocked to play Farmville, but you won't see the same sort of giddy enthusiasm for those installing high voltage power lines or sewage-to-drinking-water plants. If the internet boom was a twenty-something billionaire, clean tech is a science teacher with a comb-over.
With that in mind, here is our list of the top ten Green Giants: the companies most likely to produce, develop and promote the ideas and products that will have the widest ranging effects.

Honorable mentions: Philips (lighting, electronics), Samsung (electronics, aims to be biggest solar maker by 2015), LG (whatever Samsung does, we will do too) Ford, Schneider (grid, green data centers), IBM (consulting and technology for water, grid, data centers and supply chain), Oracle, SAP (software, rampant acquirers), Chevron (oil, solar) Suntech, SunPower, First Solar (solar), Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing (contractors, project managers).
1. Communist Party of the People's Republic of China
What isn't China doing? The country has kicked off at least 13 electric car trials, issued somewhat strict gas mileage standards for cars, and set aggressive renewable energy standards. The Chinese government will invest an estimated $300 billion in green stimulus over the next decade or so, and assist the effort by direct investments in companies through its estimated $200 billion sovereign wealth fund.
Just as importantly, the government is encouraging state-owned banks and manufacturers (as well as private companies) to collaborate with Westerners. First Solar will build power plants in China and provide Chinese utilities with the know-how to build them on their own, while Intel and IBM are working with state grid companies.
Exports will climb, too. Duke and Chinese conglomerate ENN will build and manage alternative energy power plants in the U.S. Meanwhile, Chinese wind power turbine maker A-Power Technologies will build a massive 1.6 GW power plant in Texas and a turbine factory in Nevada with financing from a Chinese bank. And electric car makers BYD and Coda Automotive want to bring cars made on Chinese assembly lines to the U.S.
Japanese companies established worldwide brands with cars and TVs. China will do the same with energy. Your next job might be with a Chinese conglomerate.
Other governments -- Germany, Spain, the U.S., California -- have set up stimulus programs, too, but the one-party government and state-owned status of many companies and banks (Coda will make its car on lines in a state-owned factory and funding for its battery venture comes from a state bank) put the PRC in the category of a market participant.

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22 Comments

solarbear 04/19/10 10:02 AM great read! Reply

jcat 04/19/10 11:31 AM Agreed, good list.

edbeards 04/19/10 4:45 PM Awesome. Brilliant. Now, what are your thoughts on what this means for the whole cleantech VC thing? Reply

Michael Kanellos 04/19/10 5:00 PM It’s like Dancing With the Stars. Lucky VC backed firms will get recording contracts, otherwise known as getting acquired.

nopcbs 04/22/10 9:52 AM Uh, Dow was already heavilly into desalination with its wholly-owned subsidiary Filmtec LONG before the ROH purchase came along. Filmtec makes excellent RO membranes. Dow also already made ion-exchange resins, which ROH also makes. Dow’s purchase of ROH expands its IX business a LOT, but does little for desalination…that is a Filmtec application that was already in place long before. Who writes this stuff, anyway? Reply

Jim Bullis, Miastrada Company 04/25/10 2:07 PM What China is or is not going to do might be a little beyond the simple assertions here.
. John Doer of KPCG venture cap firm told about how an important Chinese government person responded to complaints about Chinese coal fired power plants. We might take some general guidance from that person’s words, “Do you think we are going to limit our progress so that you can continue to do stupid things?”
. So when I hear words about all the “green things” China is going to do I weigh them against the reported facts that they are building coal fired power plants at a rapid rate, and supporting these with railroad links to coal regions (in Tibet as I recall).
. Then you come along with the statement that they have “kicked off at least 13 electric car trials—-” and think a bit more about all this.
. Bearing in mind there is always a tendency in analyzing foreign activities from afar to imagine the competitor to be “ten feet tall”, I still am inclined to assess the Chinese as being quite astute and well educated in fundamental sciences. And I am sorry to say, we seem to be - - - not so much.
. We seem incapable of the key realization that electric cars will run on electricity from coal fired generators, no matter what we might like to imagine about electricity and economics. Consider perhaps that the Chinese are a little ahead of us in this, (and maybe John Doerr with the Fisker is a little ahead here as well). Maybe the Chinese are also a bit more steady at the helm when it comes to global warming science, and/or maybe they really don’t care that much about it. This would be consistent with an intelligent plan to develop electric cars. (This also might explain why KPCB with John Doerr invested in the Fisker, which is a major set-back in the campaign to limit CO2.) I need also to point out that even the biased analysis from EPRI-NRDC trying to support plug-ins, actually includes data showing that a hybrid emits less CO2 than a car running on electricity from an oridinary, and generally relied on, coal fired power plant.
. Our own EPA seems to be a little embarrassed about their ridiculous handling of electric vehicles, explaining that as anticipatory of the time when “carbon (that means CO2) capture” is widely implemented. This is of course lame beyond belief in my view, which is that CO2 capture is wildly imaginative as a large scale reality.
. In the end it seems like the real money, American or Chinese, is backing the combination of electric vehicles and coal fired electric power plants. This is about the world power balance, and energy is only a part of this. Throwing words and a few bucks at green stuff comes out of the PR budget.
. I have had a good run at trying to drum up interest in approaches that would solve both the energy dependence problem and the CO2 problem; throw in revitalizing US manufacturing and relieving road congestion for good measure. The marketing conclusion is that the “dogs will not eat the dog food”, which only means that there is not sufficient interest in real action to motivate people to think about what really needs to be done; and the change would mostly involve escaping the limits of motor vehicle fashion, not function. The green rhetoric always goes to making the bad guys in government and industry shape up and take their beating. And of course that only means that some new promoters wedge themselves into the seething mass of influence-peddlers that we call government.
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Kat Haber 04/28/10 11:26 AM Go Green Giants! Reply

Gamin 06/10/10 5:28 AM Green business is now become main stream of business. The next growth shall be focus in GREEN.
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George 06/16/10 6:50 PM Thanks for sharing this interesting post on the top 10 green giants.

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ExchangeBase 07/21/10 3:16 PM Good points being made about how giant corporations are the ones who can really make a difference by altering the way they create, use, and build. But what this article could also touch on his how these companies can channel their waste streams away from landfills and into eco-friendly industries that have needs that could be met by them. Walmart is a good example of this. They are taking their organic waste and having it transformed into compost to be used by farmers. Here is an article on it: http://www.soapboxmedia.com/innovationnews/0608marvins-organic-gardnes-walmart.aspx
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Darren Zahradnik 07/26/10 4:16 PM I just can’t imagine working for a Chinese Conglomerate! How safe is the very fabric of our nation when we let multi-national companies come in and set up shop? I hope to God that they are very closely regulated. I have seen what happens to a wind-turbine when something goes wrong. Let me tell you it’s not pretty, those blades can cut a pretty large swath through all most anything. I’m all for clean energy, but shouldn’t our government be leading the way?
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Doug Taylor 08/30/10 8:18 PM I don’t understand the reasoning behind the People’s Republic of China being ranked number 1. Yes, they may be investing in some green technology. But as fast as their infrastructure and economy is growing, China is also one of the highest polluting countries on the planet. Fossil fuels are a huge factor behind the tremendous pollutions in China and they have not taken major steps to reduce these emissions. My Online Business Strategy
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Pete 09/6/10 5:23 PM Once the manufacturers of green consumer products go mainstream, the price will drastically dtop.
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