Japan green project

Two years ago on my last visit to Japan I described the government-business project to launch a research-development region on the Southern island to explore green technology.  Call it the John Doerr paradise (Doerr is the American venture capitalist who believes in Green-tech).

In the past two years the business partners have pulled out of the green-tech project for two reasons that every intelligent business person should consider.

First, they don't believe that green-tech will ever be susceptible to branding.  Japan is already the leader in wind energy production and Germany is the leader in solar panel production yet no brand name companies have emerged as leaders in either field.  Both fields seem to be dominated by small, incremental improvements that can be made and marketed by small companies.  There doesn't appear to be any major leaps forward, nor any large capital investments that act as barriers to entry.

Second, the Japanese companies don't believe there will be any major new industries that grow out of green-tech the way such industries have grown out of telecom, electronics, pharma and medical technology. Again the reason is that improvements are incremental, not major.

A good example of this reality is Toyota which dominates the hybrid field but is surrounded by imitations, often fictitious hybrids such as the ones offered by Ford and GM.  The real Toyota-Honda hybrids have not dominated the auto industry because there are a dozen alternate technological competitors that vie for attention.

Worst of all, oil has risen from $30 a barrel to $130 without much change in anything including the way people tie their shoelaces.