The recently signed Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 does little to improve independence or security.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a few small steps in the right direction but it’s not leadership, it’s bringing up the rear.  By the time fleet averages are required to reach 35 mpg in 2020 the climate game will be lost.  That’s about all we can expect out of a congress that is increasingly partisan and decreasingly able to address complex problems.  

Television ads suggest that we can count on leadership from the auto industry.  But beyond the hydrogen hype, we see evidence of the ridiculous like the LA Auto Show awarding the 20 mpg Tahoe Hybrid the 2008 Green Car of the Year.

In fairness, our politicians and car manufacturers are giving us what we want, at least what their risk mitigating focus grouping tells them we want.  Clayton Christensen calls it the innovator’s dilemma—being trapped by past success and the fear of cannibalization and miscalculation that could come with innovation.
 
So where to look for green leadership?  Fortunately there are four signs of hope:

1. Venture capital. More than $8 billion of green venture capital has poured into alternative energy and clean transportation start ups.  VC’s like Kleiner Perkins, Khosla, Mission Point, and CleanTech, are speeding time from the lab to market.
2. For-Benefit Corporations. For-profit companies will produce innovations that will reduce our energy consumption and emissions.  Craig Venter founded Synthetic Genomics to develop modified microorganisms to produce fuel.  Another X PRIZE Trustee, Elon Musk chairs Solar City.  LGoogle recently launched an effort to produce a gigawatt of clean power for less than the prize of coal.  
3. Pop culture. Like information technology, green tech is going to be more quickly adopted by young people.  Hollywood will help lead this positive cultural change.
4. Prizes. A suite of X PRIZEs launched in the next 24 months will advance a set of compelling, difficult but achievable goals and will mobilize investors and entrepreneurs around the world to take big smart green risks.  The results will include important breakthroughs, changed public perception, and reshaped markets.  

 
It’s the entrepreneurs not the policy makers that will lead the way to energy independence and reduced emissions.  X PRIZE is going to play an important role in mobilizing new money, minds, and methods for this new sustainable economy.