Green Daily

With the high-tech and housing bubbles thoroughly popped, at least one pundit is looking to green technology as the next engine to keep the US economy running.

In an article in Harper's magazine last month, venture capitalist Eric Janszen says that the conventional business cycle is now toast, at least in the US, and that the struggling economy will require continual bubbling in order to avoid collapse. Given that large numbers of investors are unlikely to be driven into a speculative frenzy over, say, new pet foods or modern art, he sees the logical bubble developing in eco-friendly technologies.

Janszen says that "the gross market value of all enterprises needed to develop hydroelectric power, geothermal energy, nuclear energy, wind farms, solar power, and hydrogen-powered fuel-cell technology-and the infrastructure to support it-is somewhere between $2 trillion and $4 trillion" . He adds a further $12 trillion in "hyper-inflated fictitious value", i.e. speculative overvaluation that typically ends up in share prices and the six-car garages of investment bankers.

Keep in mind that Janszen doesn't seem to view another round of enthusiastic delusion and inflated asset pricing as all that desirable - just the only viable alternative to a disastrous economic crash. There's something whimsical yet terrifying about Janszen as he breezily discusses the need for hyper-inflated values while tossing off phrases like "When the bubble finally bursts, we will be left to mop up after yet another devastated industry. "

However, in a recent interview with Wired, he comes off as a little more optimistic, suggesting that a focus on green tech would not only keep Americans employed and relatively prosperous, but would provide obvious side benefits in a a post-oil, globally-warming world. And why not? Spending money on clean, efficient energy production and transportation systems should be at least as beneficial for the economy as 1000 acres of power-guzzling McMansions or a host of Internet porn sites.