On March 25, 2011, the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, a joint initiative of the Stanford Law School and Graduate School of Business, hosted a public discussion called “Clean Energy: DC 2 VC,” with senior U.S. government energy and technology officials to inform entrepreneurs, investors and researchers about the Obama Administration’s policies, programs and initiatives to support clean energy innovation and entrepreneurship. Participants in this town hall meeting discussed barriers that need to be eliminated to spur innovation– like balky government permit processes and convoluted global supply chains – barriers that have hindered clean energy firms and have resulted in  a phenomenon entrepreneurs call the “Valley of Death.”

For more details, please read this excellent summary from the Graduate School of Business.

The speakers were:

Aneesh Chopra: the White House Chief Technology Officer who serves as an Assistant to President Obama and as Associate Director for Technology within the Office of Science & Technology Policy.

Arun Majumdar:  the Acting Under Secretary of Energy and Director of Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the country’s only agency devoted to transformational energy research and development.

Dan Reicher: the Executive Director of the Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, who once served in the Clinton administration as Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, as director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, and an as executive with a private equity firm that invests in clean energy projects and with a venture-backed renewable energy technology company.