Time for the Tech Industry to Throw Everything Into Energy

Kevin Maney exhorts: Oil prices are, obviously, insane -- heading quickly to $150 a barrel. It's crippling economies and worrying governments around the world. The situation is probably not temporary, given the rocketing demand for oil from emerging economies like China and India. Meanwhile, the pollutants from burning oil are threatening the planet.

Yeah, energy has been a pressing issue for a few years. But now it's an emergency. And there's really only one viable solution: technology. The International Energy Agency over the weekend said governments worldwide need to spend $45 trillion on technology to overhaul energy use. That runs from new solar power technologies to electric cars to fuel cell batteries and even, perhaps, to nuclear fusion.

The bottom line: There is nothing more important for technology's elite to work on than this. Not a new social network or cloud computing. Not an iPhone app or a new operating system. Really, this should be like World War II, when every form of American industry shifted to the war effort. It's that big. It's that important to the country's future. The question is whether the U.S. tech community will feel that same sense of urgency.

Lux Research reported that there were 930 energy start-ups as of last year. Seems like a lot, but energy start-ups still aren't getting the kind of funding, attention and talent that your run-of-the-mill Web 2.0 start-up pulls in. That's got to change.

Is the U.S. tech industry up for it?