哈佛商业评论中英文对照-绿色科技拯救未来

FORETHOUGHT GRIST 前瞻思维

Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla on reasons for long-term optimism about technology and the economy

绿色科技拯救未来

A Conversation with Vinod Khosla by Alison Berkley Wagonfeld

From Vinod Khosla’s perspective, the world’s economic future loo ks bright. After cofounding Sun Microsystems and spending two decades as a venture capitalist with Kleiner Perkins, Khosla created his own venture firm in 2004 to invest in early-stage technologies, especially those with minimal environmental impact. Khosla Ventures, based in Menlo Park, California, has a portfolio of some 65 start-ups, 45 of which are in clean technology, or cleantech. The latter range from Kior, a speculative biofuels company, to Ausra, which is developing utility-scale solar thermal tech nology. Khosla’s goals include turning niche cleantech forms of energy into what he calls “maintech” by proving that green technologies can be economically cheaper than current ones.

在维诺德〃科斯拉看来，世界经济前景光明。科斯拉和其他人共同创立了太阳微系统公司之后，在凯鹏创投基金效力了二十余年，又于2004年创立了自己的创投公司，主要投资于处于早期阶段的环保性技术。他的公司位于加利福尼亚州的门罗帕克，投资了大约65家初创型企业，其中45家致力于清洁技术的研发，这里面既有从事探索性生物燃料研究的Kior公司，也有开发大规模利用太阳能技术的Ausra公司。科斯拉的目标之一就是要证明，绿色科技可以比现有的技术更加经济，我们应该扭转清洁能源技术目前所处的边缘状态，使其跻身“主流技术”之列。

Do you see the current downturn differently from how other people do?

对于目前的经济滑坡，你的看法和其他人有何不同？

Economists don’t appreciate the extent to which innovation can disrupt assumptions. A new technology can render forecasts obsolete. We are investing in many such technologies, and some of them will surely succeed. I live by an idea from the computer pioneer Alan Kay, who

said, “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

创新能在多大程度上推翻人类原有的设想？经济学家往往对此认识补足。他们忽略了，一项新技术的出现可能会让先前的预测作废。我们目前就在投资很多的此类新科技，其中不乏成功把握相当大的项目。我信奉计算机领域的先驱艾伦〃凯说过的一句话：预测未来的最好方法就是去改变未来。

The technologies we’re working on have the potential to affect energy prices and thus geopolitics and poverty, not to mention global warming. But the impact won’t be immediate. Many of the technologies are in early stages and face significant hurdles before they can become operational. The economists may be correct that in the near term, at least, the cost of inputs will continue to rise. But the specific critical technological events that will truly determine future economics are impossible to predict.

我们正在投资的技术很有潜力，可能会影响能源价格，进而改变地缘政治和贫困面貌，更不用提可以遏制全球变暖了。但是这些影响不是立竿见影的，因为很多技术还处于早期阶段，在产业化之前尚需跨越许许多多的障碍。至少在短期内，各种投入的成本还会上涨，在这点上，经济学家的观点也许是正确的。但是现在不可能预测究竟何种关键技术能够真正左右未来的经济。

Which technologies give you the greatest hope?

你觉得哪些技术最有希望？

While home rooftop solar photo voltaic cells will continue to improve, I’m excited about solar thermal’s ability to compete cost-effectively with utility-scale power from coal and natural gas plants. Many of our investments are in biofuels, which I’m very positive about because they hav e low financial and adoption risks. We look for technologies that don’t require people to change their driving, transportation, and heating patterns. Within 25 years, I believe the world will be able to replace most fossil fuels with nonfood biomass and waste or with solar, geothermal, and wind energy. There is no question in my mind that biofuels can be produced for a dollar per gallon, probably much less.

虽然家用屋顶太阳能光伏电池的技术有待进一步完善，但我还是兴奋地看到，太阳能在成本效率上可以与煤炭、天然气等传统能源一决高下。我们还在生物燃料领域有众多投资，由于其财务和应用的风险较低，我们对这些项目非常看好。我们寻找那些不要求人们改变现有驾驶、运输和取暖方式的技术。我相信在25年内，人们就会用食物之外的生物和生物肥料，或者是太阳能、地热、风能来取代目前所用的大多数化石