FEATURE: Recession’s cloud has solar lining in Silicon Valley

[jpak]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2009/01/29/2003434834

Microsoft is laying off 5,000 workers, Intel is closing five fabrication plants and even mighty, can-do-no-wrong Google is slashing perks and laying off recruiters.

But for a Silicon Valley steeled by the 2001 dot-com bust, a recession that could be the longest and deepest in 80 years is not causing panic or prophecies of doom.

Instead, the current troubles are seen as yet another phase of creative destruction in the boom and bust cycle that has characterized the region ever since it started its transformation in the middle of the 20th century from a valley of orange groves into a global technological hot-bed.

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One only has to cruise the freeways to see the results of the US$3.3 billion that US venture capitalists invested last year in green energy startups — with more than 60 percent of the cash coming to Silicon Valley. Investments like a US$300 million bet on startup NanoSolar or a US$90 million injection into Solyndra, another solar energy firm, have already produced a relative boom in alternative energy employment in Silicon Valley, making it the epicenter of thin-film solar cells, which could revolutionize the way solar energy is produced.

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