New Report Finds 5 Million Jobs, 5-7 Billion Tons in CO2 Reductions Can Be Achieved...

New Report Finds 5 Million Jobs, 5-7 Billion Tons in CO2 Reductions Can Be
Achieved By 2020

First-of-its-Kind Report by Leading Clean Technology CEOs, Venture Capitalists
and Academics Identifies How to Reduce a Billion Tons of CO2 from Each of
Eight Existing Industries, Add Millions More Jobs than Fossil Fuel Industries,
and Ensure Energy Independence

Elected Officials and Business Leaders to Hail Report's Findings as Crucial to
America's Energy Future

WASHINGTON, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- In a presentation before national
policymakers and analysts today, leading clean energy CEOs, venture
capitalists and academics unveiled the "Gigaton Throwdown," an assessment of
the nation's clean energy potential that identifies seven industries capable
of creating 5 million clean energy jobs and reducing CO2 emissions by 5-7
gigatons by 2020. The report, a collaborative effort between leading
researchers at UC Berkeley, MIT, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Drexel
University, and clean tech leaders, challenges Washington policymakers to
remove obstacles that keep billions of capital investment dollars sitting on
the sidelines.

"What we've outlined today is an ambitious goal, but one that is entirely
attainable through hard work and a concerted effort between government,
business and private investment," said Sunil Paul, founder of the Gigaton
Throwdown and founding director of Spring Ventures. "We are at a crossroads,
and the U.S. has an opportunity to become a leader in this new global sector
if we act now. To us the choice is clear."

"This study is a loud, clear message about the importance of acting now to
create a vibrant clean energy economy," said U.S. Senator John Kerry. "By
passing strong legislation, we can grow our economy and end our dependence on
foreign oil. We can ensure that the United States takes back the lead in
creating the clean energy technologies of the future -- wind turbines, solar
panels and energy efficiency products -- and that American companies benefit.
This will help rebuild our manufacturing base, jump-start our economy and
create millions of clean energy jobs that can't be shipped overseas."

"Investments in clean energy technologies -- and policies that encourage those
investments -- can pay off handsomely with jobs and economic growth while
reducing our dependence on foreign oil and tempering the impacts of climate
change," said John P. Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and
Technology and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

The report identified seven existing industries -- biofuel, nuclear, solar,
geothermal, wind, building efficiency, and construction materials -- that
could reach gigaton scale over the next 10 years with new infusions of private
capital. To attain gigaton scale, a single technology must reduce worldwide
carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gas emissions by at least 1 billion
tons - a gigaton - per year by 2020.

"The Gigaton Throwdown sets our collective sights on game changing
combinations of science, technology and policy that can turn the needed levels
of climate protection and energy security into a roadmap for
laboratory-to-industry partnerships," said Dan Kammen, of the University of
California-Berkeley. "Quite frankly, I am tired of watching the exceptional
technology advances in the renewable energy field become big business in
Europe or Asia when they could just as easily become multi-billion dollar
companies here. The Gigaton Throwdown can be a catalyst for
academia-government-industry synergies to make these innovations in U. S.
green businesses."

"Thinking at gigaton scale is helping us identify our ultimate potential,"
said Steen Riisgaard is President & CEO of Novozymes. "Novozymes has the aim
to help our customers achieve a 75 million tons reduction in greenhouse gases
by 2015. But we actually believe the potential is much, much higher if you
look at entire industrial biotech space, where we think can reach gigaton
scale within 10-20 years."

Currently more than $13 trillion in private capital is prepared to invest in
the traditional base of energy technologies over the next decade. Redirecting
that capital to clean energy is an $8 trillion opportunity that will depend in
large part on US energy and climate policy. The report also identified several
key policy barriers preventing that private capital from immediate investment
and recommended several changes the U.S. should undertake to spur investment.
These changes include:

-- Establishing a price on carbon that will level the playing field and
stand above political influence or pressure.
-- Setting more stringent renewable energy, efficiency, and fuel
standards.
-- Enhancing the electrical gird to better utilize the new power
generated
by renewables.
-- Fixing the market for efficiency upgrades by reforming utility and
building regulation.

The Gigaton Throwdown was launched as an initiative to educate and inspire
investors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and policy makers to "think big"
and understand what is needed to massively scale clean energy in the next 10
years. A unique group from the business community -- executives, investors,
and entrepreneurs -- teamed up with leading academics over the past 18 months
to develop the report.

The authors based their analysis on the assumption that CO2 levels worldwide
should be reduced to 450 parts per million by 2020, and to accomplish that, a
5-7 gigaton reduction in CO2 emissions is needed. The team then investigated
what is needed to reach gigaton scale by 2020 for nine technologies currently
attractive to investors. For an electricity generation technology, this is
equivalent to an installed base of 250 gigawatts (GW) of carbon-free energy
(at 95% capacity factor). These nine technologies provide examples of the
potential to achieve gigaton scale: biofuels, building efficiency,
construction materials, geothermal, nuclear, plug-in hybrids, solar
photovoltaic, solar thermal, and wind. For more information, please visit
http://www.gigatonthrowdown.org.

SOURCE The Gigaton Throwdown

Stefan Friedman, +1-646-241-7786, for The Gigaton Throwdown