60 MINUTES GOT SILICON VALLEY RIGHT AND NEW ENERGY WRONG

What 60 Minutes got right and wrong in its story on the “cleantech crash”

Katie Fehrenbacher, January 5, 2014 (GigaOm)

“…Contrary to the reaction of many of my Twitter friends, I think 60 Minutes got some key things right in [its Cleantech Crash story], but they also got a couple of things wrong…[T]hey’re overlapping the Valley story with the government funding story…From a purely venture capital perspective, cleantech has been ugly…[though] there are a couple exceptions…that made it through, like Tesla…A lot of the 60 Minutes piece was trying to cover this Valley aspect and I think they did a good job…Unfortunately, playing up the taxpayer-funded government green-flop angle in the piece was both stale and overblown…[G]overnment support — from the Department of Energy through the stimulus — has created a large amount of jobs…[S]olar panels and wind power have reached record levels in the U.S. in the last year and that’s also thanks to U.S. government support. Even within the loan program, there were...[97% wins and the] U.S. government needs to give more support to next-generation energy technologies, not less…” click here for more

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