Hard to recall exactly what were the hot investment sectors six years ago, but for venture capital technology was not a hot investment sector. Healthcare was still hanging on as a good market for investments but not going gangbusters, either. Entrepreneurs and some VCs noticed the rising public discussion about climate change. In the news, for example, was the Kyoto Protocol adopted by the world was now in force in February 2005. The IPCC, a world-based organization founded in 1988, which few people knew or cared much about issued a report in 2007 sounding the alarm bell on climate change. This brought the concern for climate change to the world's scientific community and the topic above the crease on the front page of every major newspaper and media outlet, and on the lips of every politician.

Entrepreneurs are quick studies of hot trends and opportunities. In the Silicon Valley many successful IT entrepreneurs with VC relationships from the decade of the 1990s took an interest. They quickly concluded that a change in the American energy landscape was an opportunity in the making and thus began to team up with the scientists and engineers in energy, many from the 70s revolution in solar innovation. Together they put out business plans all along Sand Hill Road seeking capital. I recall one year Venrock saw over 80 solar investment opportunities. VCs are nothing if not recognizers of patterns. Entrepreneurs were forming up new energy companies and so the VCs quickly followed suit rationalizing there would be a big payoff because the markets were huge and new technology was emerging.

During the 2000s, the Bush Administration mostly turned a blind eye to the discussion of climate change. After all, it was fighting a significant war that many would argue was about energy, in particular oil. Also during this decade the world watched the rise of China's economy and its energy-consuming middle class. This new demand on energy impacted world energy prices practically over night. In 2010, China's total energy output equaled that of the United States for the first time ever even though its economic output was still about 25 percent that of the United States.

During this decade the world saw oil prices hit an all time high of $145 per barrel in July 2008. It was amazing how quickly Americans changed driving habits; some even bought Priuses as fast as these new hybrid cars could get to our shores.

Of course the world economic crisis of 2008 revealed the fact that every country had too much debt. The governments of many major countries enacted emergency legislation when they realized they could not pay their debt but had to keep their countries afloat and productive. Nonetheless, the Great Recession set in.

As the decade came to a close, the personal pain of high unemployment and recession unsettled most of the developed world. All of the drivers for new energy solutions -- recognized climate change by the authoritative IPCC, economic prosperity and rising energy consumption of the world's most populous country, China, and the daily reminder that the United States was in a protracted war where it gets 22 percent of its oil supply signaled that business as usual in energy was not acceptable.

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