Scott Kirsner’s column in Sunday’s Globe caught my attention for a couple of reasons.

First, the levels of investment in cleantech companies in California as compared to Massachusetts is way more skewed than I would have said. But here are his numbers (attributed to The Cleantech Group LLC), and I don’t have any basis to dispute them.

Massachusetts numbers seem scary low to me. If I did the math right, last year there was approximately 6 times as much cleantech investment in California as in Massachusetts, and, as Scott Kirsner points out, of the Massachusetts amount $100 million went to one company – A123. Texas is closer to Massachusetts than Massachusetts is to California. 

Part of the point of Kirsner’s article is that there are some systemic issues that adversely affect investment in cleantech. The principle one being that many of these companies are capital intensive. He compares them, with some justification, to biotech companies that are also capital intensive. But, as Scott points out, the biotech industry has an established practice of getting investment from large established companies in the form of joint ventures, which the cleantech industry does not have.

But, actually, it is worse than that. Big pharma understands that, at some level, it is dependent upon technology and innovation for its product and continued profits. The traditional energy industry (and oil and gas in particular) actively resist new technology. There are still plenty of people who think the future is in “drill baby drill” not in solar, wind, tidal etc. There are actually people in responsible positions that don’t’ think there is an energy problem that can’t be solved with more wells. Big pharma is basically a tech business; big energy is not. Don’t hold your breath hoping that the biotech model will bail out cleantech.

I think that Scott is predicting a not so great year for cleantech investment in 2010. I, and others, have made the next point before, but very large capital needs and long horizons to exit (to say nothing of an uncertain exit market) are not a formula that is attractive to venture capital investment.

There is going to have to be a new approach to cleantech investment for a variety of reasons including the ones just noted. Whether this means developing an industry co-investment model similar to biotech (seems unlikely any time soon for the reasons noted above) or whether it means more government partnership (seems unlikely given the debt burden our government has just taken on) is not clear to me. 

Here is a prediction. China, where there is a lot of capital and where they are more interested in funding jobs (even at economic losses) than in garnering profits soon, will have both the money and the patience to invest in the longer term enterprises that will be needed.

Maybe there is another model out there. An IPO market would help since the public might be source of the needed capital and patience. But, without something new, you should expect to be importing your energy solutions from China.