This week I ran across a vision of the future from the people who brought you the mortgage crisis. What caught my eye in the weekly email report from Greentech was an analyst report written by a man identified as the Cleantech Strategist from Merrill Lynch. I don’t disagree with the vision of the author, Steven Milunovich. But the rhetoric scares me. Like when this analyst actually used the phrase “The Next Big Thing” here: http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/the-coming-of-the-cleantech-era-5540.html . Taking a longer-term view, however, we believe cleantech is the next big thing and that the application of technology to energy markets will provide investors ample opportunities beginning in 2010–11. It’s enough to make me question my own assumptions. I’m with him at the beginning where he explains that clean technology, which includes things like solar and wind power, is suffering from the credit crunch. And he adds that there are concerns that spending in these areas might be postponed as the administration deals with more pressing spending issues. But then my hyperbole alert goes off. At a time when so many companies aren’t willing to predict their results three months from now, he’s talking about three years out. Then I’m hit by a headline declaring the “The Sixth Revolution.” At that point if I was a dog I’d start barking. But I’m drawn as well, like a geek to a business history book. In this case a tome called "Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital." We believe the sixth revolution will be the Age of Cleantech and Biotech. Key foundational technologies could be nanotechnology and genetic engineering. Although government subsidies are needed today, cleantech could explode when pure economics drive adoption. Investors must pay attention because cleantech could revolutionize much of the economy, including the utility, oil and gas, and auto industries. History suggests that public market investors earn the highest returns fairly early in the revolution. For example, railroad stocks doubled in the 1840s frenzy but traded flat in the 1850s. Although biofuel and solar stocks are on the downside of their mini-bubbles, many cleantech companies have yet to go public, which likely will accelerate in 2010–11 coming out of the downturn. Actually I can see all of that, It’s just that these things can’t be scheduled. And every new era has been accompanied by so much destruction – creative and otherwise. Consider biotech, which is one of the technologies he throws into this mix. Science has made amazing strides there, but how many biotech investments have fizzled as people struggle to commercialize them? Solar and wind power will grow exponentially. And there will be huge spending on the electrical transmission systems needed to hook them into the grid, which will be smarter. But I’m seeing more hunger for investment cash, than the steady cash flow that’s the bedrock of a profitable investment. If you go back to the age to railroads – yes I’m a business history geek – the histories are full of panics, not to mention Robber Barons -- who were socially useful in a Dickensian sort of way. Or more recently consider the American Dream of Home Ownership, which has turned into the nightmare of the mortgage crisis. That was fueled by Merrill Lynch, among others. At the risk of just being reflexively negative, I think that the future needs to be presented with more modesty. I love to read other’s visions of the future, and this one is a good read. But people from Merrill Lynch need to start trying harder to act and sound like actual bankers, using rhetoric like a dark suit. Anyone with the firm has to act like Caesar’s wife’s stockbroker. Please tell me if that makes any sense at all.