Author Chris Goodall believes private investment will bring about a green energy revolution. Here, he suggests several targets for investors

POLITICIANS OF every colour want to be green - but the group of people with the power to change the world tends to be less vocal; its members go about their business away from the glare of the daily news agenda.

The decisions made by the investment community - from the banks and venture capitalists through to government agencies - will be critical in determining which green technologies emerge to counter the threat of climate change. We can't afford for them to get it wrong.

That's why Chris Goodall has written Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, a book that is aimed at steering the money men in the right direction. His book explores 10 ways to significantly reduce emissions or extract large volumes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Most of the technologies identified in the book, from wind, solar and sea power through to super-efficient homes and electric cars, are still in their infancy - and none will advance rapidly enough without risk capital, government support and continued scientific advances.

The good news, says Goodall, is that, despite the current economic downturn, there is still an appetite among these groups to invest.

"For a really good project today, there is money available," Goodall says. However, the source of this investment varies, depending on the maturity of the technology.

"Some of the technologies I cover are venture capital fundable," he says. "There's no question that if you have a good site and you have access to the grid, then you will get funding for wind systems, for example. The same is true of a good proposal in relation to electric cars - however, because fuel cells have gone through many unsuccessful investments, there will inevitably be some caution."

However, in today's financial climate there are limits as to what venture capital finance alone can achieve. By its nature, this type of investor tends to cluster around proven ideas with an established market, which venture capital can expand rapidly. For this reason, if there is a marine technology that looks like it is going to work, Goodall believes money will be found. However, for technologies that are not yet beyond the first year of development, for example some of those working in tidal technology, it would be impossible to fund using venture capital alone.

"Venture capital will not fund ideas, won't fund concept and won't fund the first commercialisation," he says.

This is where government action is important in creating the environment within which new technology can come to market. A sticking point is storage and transportation of power. Remove these barriers, says Goodall, and you free up innovation to have a far greater and immediate impact on creating a low-carbon economy.

For example, long-term planning of the electricity distribution infrastructure is a task requiring central government collaboration. The big electricity cables needed to transport power from Scotland, for example, where wind levels are high, down to the southeast of England and to Ireland, would lift power capacity and inject flexibility into the system.

This need for scalability often sits uneasily with green activists, who tend to be anti-corporate by nature. This attitude in itself is a block to progress, says Goodall. By railing against the tyranny of huge public utilities, environmentalists and the Green Party prefer to support small-scale activity, such as subsidies for wood-burning home heaters or small wind turbines. This in itself is not a problem, but the denial of the need for massive infrastructural equivalents is.

By supporting smaller projects, the cost per unit of carbon saved is far higher than it would be if done on a major scale. To achieve our goals, we must use the benefits of global capitalism, not fight against them. This extends to collaboration by governments to plan their efforts on a global scale; for example, Ireland's climate makes the introduction of solar hot water units on domestic homes a waste of money, while research into marine power would reap benefits.

Likewise, Denmark has a natural advantage in wind power, while Africa would boost its economy by becoming a net exporter of solar power. This sensible-sounding objective will be undermined by scattered, unreliable and inconsistent support, he says, which may be counterproductive.

On a national level, government has in its power the ability to offer what Goodall calls "enormous prizes", the effects of which are grossly underestimated. "If the government announced that they would give €500 million to the first company that does 'X' - where X is a significant, reliable long-term achievement in generating low carbon energy - that would produce an enormous amount of effort and innovation. People will take risks to win such a prize in a way that they won't do if the ends are unknown," says Goodall.

The second role of government is as a massive purchaser of goods and services and it has the power to lead these technologies into profit purely by buying them. This, in Goodall's opinion, is much more effective than channelling money into university research departments which, he says, have a sketchy record in terms of successful innovation.

It is not, however, the role of government to second-guess the market. "There are 40 or more different technologies aimed at harnessing wind power," says Goodall. "The government is not very good at choosing which of those technologies will become definitive."

Since the financial markets went into meltdown, a new question hangs over the debate on climate change: can we afford to invest in these new technologies? Goodall rejects absolutely the notion of a trade-off between environmental progress and economic austerity.

"So far, the recession has had a striking effect on energy use and to say that economic slowdown is an impediment towards being green is not right," he says, adding that its first impact is a reduction in energy usage.

"The UK's energy demands are running at almost 2 per cent below what we would have expected and that trend will continue. As we consume much less electricity, the price of coal has fallen very considerably: it is literally piling up in China."

Secondly, he says, if you're poor you'll be much more concerned with conservation and energy efficiency. A company that may not have bothered about its electricity bill certainly will now.

"The average company's electricity bill is around £600 (€667) in the UK, or around 1 per cent of the full cost of employing someone," says Goodall. "However, when things get tight and you realise that you could possibly cut that figure in half, people become interested. Many of the technologies that I tend to talk about are very good at insulating us against future change.

"What we've seen in the last six months is that the world does not work smoothly and previously assumed certainties are undermined. That makes it much more interesting when we talk about climate change because people can see that actually it is possible and necessary."

On a micro scale, we are seeing a systematic rise in things like self-sufficiency in energy, says Goodall. We are moving to a point where people want to be more in control of the energy they use. These trends, he says, are driven by financial pressures.

"When times are hard people do start to look at life in a different way and I think we will see more people buying energy-saving gadgets this winter." However, he says, there's a big distinction between products that save you money and fashionable gadgets for rich people.

Nobody said going green would be easy.