Alas, Angry Bonds is not about disgruntled 007 agents. Instead, it is one of more than 45 apps in the Bloomberg App Portal that perform tasks like risk analysis and client management. The company didn’t disclose specific prices for the apps, which are free to preview, but it’s a safe bet they cost more than 99 cents. The Financial Times reports that Bloomberg will, like Apple, take a 30 percent cut.

The launch is significant because Bloomberg has now opened up its vast pool of financial data to outside developers who can then craft new products to help traders and analysts. Until now, the company founded by New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg has closely guarded its proprietary system, which costs around $20,000 a year for a license.

The app store comes at a time that Bloomberg is adopting its famous financial terminal for the mobile environment through tools like Bloomberg Anywhere and selling a new edition of its core product, Bloomberg Next. The company and its main competitor Thomson Reuters were hard hit by the economic meltdown in 2009 that decimated many of their financial clients.

Here are some more screenshots of the apps (don’t have too much fun…)

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• How consumer media will change in 2013
• Mobile 2012 and beyond
• Readers weigh in: future prospects for Twitter

There is a looming sense, a dark narrative that America’s best days are behind it. Why? A clash of civilizations. A sense in many pockets of the country that we are living in a time of anomie, inequity and worry.

Everywhere you look, there is disaster. At ground zero are the remnants of a 100-year flood known as the 2008 financial crisis; it’s a flood that never completely receded.

Put another way, whether you are politically right or left, believe in trickle down or trickle up,  the hard truth is that there are few catalysts for significant job growth in America right now.

Take a look at that one great wonder and power of our age, broadband internet. In many ways it has been an engine of growth and created whole new industries. Yet it has also set off a wave of painful disruption, through the triumvirate forces of:

• Digitization: Anything that can be turned into bits, will be.
• Globalization: Where location can be rendered moot, it will be.
• Commoditization: When bits and logistics can commoditize, they will.

In its wake it has permanently broken or even destroyed multiple industries. In fact, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows quite clearly how such industries that were rocking and rolling prior to broadband are now sucking wind, including electronics stores, book stores, electronic components, employment services and information services, to name a few.

Less obvious, but equally troubling, is the fact that when these industries break it also disrupts the ecosystems that surround them as well, cascading in a domino effect. Here’s how it works: When an industry like print media goes sideways, not only do publishers and the employees housed within them go away, but so too do printers, production houses, delivery trucks, book stores, newsstands, book reviewers, sales reps and publicists. Worse, this hits regional hubs especially hard. And we now know those jobs are not coming back. Ever.

The immutability of this dynamic hearkens to a signature line in Oliver Stone’s ever timely, ‘Wall Street,‘ when broken trader Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) asks corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), “Why do you need to wreck this company?” Gekko retorts, “Because it’s wreckable, all right?”

The Age of Indivisibility

Now, to be clear, I come at this as neither Luddite nor Futurist. In fact, my career straddles brick-and-mortar and digital, having cut my teeth professionally in retail real estate before embarking on a 20-year career in tech (eight startups, exits to Apple, Intel and IBM).

But, the simple math is that one Amazon, Apple or Google does not even remotely replace the jobs lost in the industries they disrupt. Yet, specifically because necessity is the mother of invention, we can look to Apple, Amazon and Google to see what a successful business looks like when it treats those three essential disrupters— commoditization, digitization and globalization—as indelible truths that are indivisible from their core.

From this light, a heartening takeaway from tech’s gold standard companies is that there is no one true way to proceed. The Google way is decidedly different from the Amazon way, which is decidedly different from Apple’s approach. Google’s model is built around the construct of turning information into a ubiquitous commodity, that is discoverable and monetizable by search and ads. Amazon, by contrast, is all about securing their customers’ lifecycle-spend via superior pricing, friction-free logistics and a latticework approach to consumers, sellers, enterprises, developers and content. Apple is singularly focused on delivering the best possible user experience via tightly integrated hardware, software, service and content platforms, and harnesses that differentiation to generate jaw-dropping margins.

This level of strategic diversity suggests that there are plenty of models for finding success in the digital age for both tech-centric upstarts and old economy businesses alike.

Those reasons for hope aside however, there is still grave cause for concern. I would assert that sustainable job growth won’t occur until indivisibility takes broader hold within our economy. Simply put, there are far too many companies that view the trend towards commoditization, digitization and globalization as a cost-cutting exercise (e.g., to cut spending on business travel, postage and delivery services), and too few that embrace it as a catalyst for re-invention. This will have to change to re-start our jobs engine.

The Rise of Integrated Systems Design

In saying that a business is indivisible, it also means that it has been tightly integrated into a unified system. Beyond the technology, resource and sourcing implications is a larger human truth: namely, that companies must explicitly design an organizational and cultural model that yields more than the sum-of-the-parts outcomes. This is the domain of integrated systems design.

In basic terms, integrated systems design is the embodiment of an organizational philosophy that treats market, message, creative, product, tech, sales and support as one composite entity. Mind you, this is a significant departure from the silo-ed business unit structure that predominates in corporate America.

Two examples of how this dynamic plays out in both new world and old world businesses are Uber, the on-demand private car service, and Southwest Airlines, the highly respected low-fare airline.

You might think, what does Uber have to do with Southwest, and vice versa? Both are examples of companies that channeled the precepts of integrated systems design to re-invent the industries that they play within.

In the case of Uber, they found a way to re-think the old-world, undifferentiated service of a taxi, and exploited its fixed scarcity and vanilla service model through a combination of mobile-first technology, the creation of a dynamic marketplace model and the identification of a wedge market between taxis and private car services. In doing so, they created a highly scalable, highly personal premium transportation service—all without needing to own a single taxi or town car. Talk about bending the laws of physics to your benefit.

Meanwhile, Southwest correctly recognized that airline passengers deeply desired a lower cost approach to air travel that was reliable, enjoyable and which delivered consistent service. This required a corporate culture and organization design that reduced the barriers between management and field personnel (pilots, ticketing, flight attendants, ground crew), so that on all levels the entity acted as one. Further, it projected a corporate image of folksiness that maximized humanity while minimizing frills, and required an integrated systems model that dictated which planes to fly on what routes, which customers to serve at what price, and the turnaround logistics to make it work. Ironically, with the rise of the Internet, Southwest’s position has only strengthened, as the company has built multiple online systems that make the process of pricing, purchasing and managing travel seamless and customer-friendly.

Both of these companies have achieved scale by intelligently segmenting the market so as to identify more potential opportunities—more jobs— that consumers can hire them for. And through this process they’ve both ensured that the experience is push-button seamless, which is the very ethos of integrated systems design. There are two takeaways from this. One is that the success of Uber and Southwest is illustrative of the range of industries ripe for transformation, and ultimately, job creation. The other is that the success of such companies provides a recipe book of best practices that can be applied to different contexts in different markets.

I think of it this way: When Safeway, the local bar and the neighborhood dry cleaner embrace this tenet of re-thinking the various jobs their target customer hires them for—and creates new ones in the process—that’s when you’ll know the next wave is upon us.

As Winston Churchill once said, “Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing…after they have exhausted all other possibilities.”

By purpose and position, that moment is upon us.

Mark Sigal is founder and Chief Product Officer of Unicorn Labs.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
• 12 tech leaders’ resolutions for 2012
• How consumer media will change in 2013

Shortly after the stock market opened Monday morning, Apple shares had already hit their highest price ever, $680.87, after closing at $663.22 Friday before the verdict was announced. Its market capitalization also reached a new high of $637.92 billion. Samsung’s stock dropped 7.5 percent on the Korean Stock Exchange, which equates to a loss of about $12.5 billion in market capitalization, Reuters reports. Google, whose Android software is used by the infringing Samsung devices, is also feeling some fallout. Its stock was down 2.41 percent to $662.29 on Monday.

Based on what went down Friday night, Wall Street analysts are making their best predictions about the future of both companies. Here’s what some of them are telling investors on Monday morning:

JP Morgan on what it means for Google:

We believe the Apple Samsung patent verdict out Friday night after the close is a negative for the Android ecosystem as it likely puts more pressure on Android OEMs to clearly differentiate devices and it suggests the courts may be willing to tightly enforce software and design patents in the future. For Google and Motorola in particular, the ruling may help shape the development of future devices and also put more pressure on Google to increase Motorola’s market share in smartphones. We believe Google shares could see some near-term weakness on the ruling.

Barclays on the overall impact on Android:

While the verdict is not a positive for Google and the broader Android ecosystem, we believe this event alone will have a minimal near-term impact on Android’s global momentum in the smartphone arena. However, we admit that a potential sales injunction against Samsung products could impact Android’s strength in the U.S. Although $1.05 billion in damages is a large sum, most of Samsung’s devices that were found to infringe upon Apple’s patents are older models, and, importantly, in our view, Samsung’s current flagship phone, the Galaxy S III, was not included.

UBS on a new revenue stream for Apple:

If Apple is successful in its patent cases to conclusion (appellate, district, Supreme courts, and U.S. President) and if it is willing to settle, we believe it could result in a royalty revenue stream–Apple calculated Samsung owed it $250MM in 2010 (on an estimated 25MM smartphones and 2MM tablets), assuming certain discounts. We think this amount would be higher in 2012 at that rate with Samsung having sold an estimated 50MM smartphones in Q2 alone (hence, even a lower rate could result in a royalty greater than $250MM/yr). We est[imate] that every $250MM in royalty revenue equates to roughly $0.20 in EPS, all else equal.

Macquarie Equities Research on the Apple-Google relationship:

 We believe that this can and inevitably will impact the important search distribution arrangements between GOOG and AAPL (although the true financial impact remains unclear). The damaged relationship has already pushed Apple to find alternatives for maps and information providers related to Siri. We also view the fact that YouTube will not be a native app on iOS 6 (despite the fact that it is unclear if AAPL pushed or GOOG jumped and the fact that GOOG will likely see improved economics from YouTube without the native app) as indication of the frayed GOOG/AAPL relationship. We expect this type of fallout to reach the search business as well, possibly as early as with the iOS 6 release.

It could be that the lasting damage isn’t to Samsung. Google is indirectly affected by the verdict against Samsung, and the company is feeling the impact anyway; not only on its stock, but perhaps in the future too, with how its Android partners deploy its mobile software.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Alex E. Proimos

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• The state of cross-platform media measurement
• How emerging technologies will influence collaboration
• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications

The company’s second quarter earnings report Thursday — its first since going public in May — just squeaked in at analysts’ expectations.

The company said revenue for the quarter was $1.18 billion, which was an increase of 32 percent over the same period last year. The average estimate from Wall Street analysts was $1.15 billion. Facebook also reported non-GAAP earnings of $295 million, or $0.12 per share, which was what analysts projected. As was expected, the company reported a GAAP net loss for the quarter of $157 million, compared to income of $240 million in the second quarter of 2011. But the loss was due to one-time stock-expense charges related to its IPO.

The company’s second quarter revenue also marked an increase over its revenue from the first quarter of the year, which was $1.06 billion.

As for advertising revenue, the company said it earned $992 million, which represented 84 percent of the total revenue and a 28 percent increase from the same quarter last year.

As of the end of June, Facebook said it had 955 million monthly active users, which is an increase of 32 percent year-over-year, and 543 million monthly active mobile users, which marks an increase of 67 percent over the same period a year ago. Although the company provided the number of monthly users it declined to break out mobile ad revenue, which is a particularly important area as more of its users migrate to mobile platforms.

On the call with analysts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked things off with a breakdown of the company’s user numbers (mentioned above) and the company’s priorities for the year. Those include building out mobile products, scaling up sponsored stories and adding more partners to Facebook’s platform.

Mobile first, second, and third

A key theme throughout the call was the company’s focus on mobile, which, as we’ve mentioned earlier, is a critical area for the company. Zuckerberg told analysts that mobile users are more active than desktop users and that the company plans to improve its mobile presence.

“Facebook is the most used app on basically every mobile platform. When we think about what we want to do right now, we want to increase the depth of the experience in addition to just growing users,” he said. “There’s a big opportunity for us here.”

Interestingly, when Zuckerberg was asked about how he sees Facebook playing in the mobile space, he blew off the frequently-circulated notion that Facebook would create its own device.

“Building out a whole phone… wouldn’t really make much sense for us to do,” he said. Of course, Facebook is more likely to partner with an actual phone builder — said to be HTC — if it does actually release its own branded phone.

Tell us a story

Another topic that occupied lots of ton of time on the call was the cornerstone of Facebook’s advertising strategy – the sponsored story.

“Marketing on Facebook is fundamentally different than other mediums because messages can be shared from friend to friend,” said COO Sheryl Sandberg. “This is word-of-mouth marketing at unprecedented scale.”

In the last quarter, Sandberg told analysts, the company has focused on rolling out new products, demonstrating the ROI from those products to marketers and making it easier for advertisers to use the platform. By the end of June, she said, the sponsored story was generating about $1 million a day, with about half of that coming from mobile.

The company also highlighted recent independent data showing ROI from more than 60 advertising campaigns. According to the data, 70 percent of campaigns led to a return on ad spend of 3x or better and 49 percent showed a return of 5x or better.

Although the early indications are encouraging and clients have expressed “strong interest” in them, Sandberg, Zuckerberg and CFO Dave Ebersman nearly fell over themselves assuring analysts that they were rolling out the product cautiously, so as not to degrade the user experience.

“The biggest mistake” the company could make, Ebersman said, is to move too quickly with sponsored stories in the newsfeed and find themselves in a position that they didn’t anticipate or is difficult to manage.

In addition to targeting top global brands, Sandberg the company is focused on capturing business from the less tech-savvy small- to medium-sized businesses — the “holy grail” of Internet marketing. Although they might not even have a website yet, she said their familiarity with Facebook as personal tool put Facebook at an advantage over competitors. (Going forward, this should be an interesting area to watch as Google is increasing efforts with local businesses.)

In a nod to Facebook’s dismal debut as a public company, Ebersman said, “We’re disappointed about how the stock has traded, but the important thing for us is to focus on the fact that we’re the same company now as we were before… We want to be judged on the quality of the experiences we build and the value we can create over the longterm.”

Facebook’s stock had been down about 8.5 percent before the market closed; in after hours trading, the stock traded down further to below $24.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
• Social media in Q1: commerce and discovery dominated
• Controversy, courtrooms and the cloud in Q1

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• NewNet Q3: Facebook remakes headlines in social media

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
• Connected world: the consumer technology revolution
• Controversy, courtrooms and the cloud in Q1

The stock price of the iPhone and iPad maker hit $400 a few times Monday, but closed at $398.50. Today shares opened at $400 and peaked earlier this morning at $404.48.

There’s no mystery where the boost is coming from. Apple’s stock value has been swinging steadily upward since the introduction of the original iPad in late January 2010. Since then, Apple shares have grown 96 percent. Most recently, Apple reported blow-out third-quarter 2011 earnings last week, on the back of sales of more than 20 million iPhones and 9 million iPads in just three months.

Apple’s market capitalization is the number that Wall Street has been eyeing perhaps even more closely. As of Tuesday, Apple is worth $374.18 billion, making it the second-most valuable company in the world after ExxonMobil. While Apple is close, Exxon still has a pretty sizable lead, closing today with a valuation of $415.52.

But there’s at least one good reason to believe Apple’s value for shareholders isn’t going to lose steam anytime soon: Still expected sometime later this year is the next iteration of the iPhone.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Where new opportunity lies in the mobile operating system space
• The fourth quarter of 2012 in mobile

A day after Netflix announced its second-quarter earnings, here’s a roundup of reactions from Wall Street analysts covering the stock.

Goldman Sachs expects churn to increase from 4.1 percent in the second quarter to 5.7 percent in the third quarter, driven largely by the price increase to DVD-and-streaming subscribers. But that’s expected to drop back down to usual levels in the fourth quarter. But the higher churn is offset by higher average revenue per user (ARPU), it reports:

“Domestic ARPU declined 7% yoy due to a mix shift towards streaming-only customers at $8/month. While we expect 3Q2011 ARPU to decline 1.5% qoq from 2Q’s $11.49, we believe that ARPU could increase almost 10% qoq to at least $12.33 in 4Q, which will be the first full quarter of the recently announced pricing increase.”

Morgan Stanley believes that Netflix is in the midst of cyclical growing pains, not a long-term deterioration in its growth story. It also still thinks Netflix has the best price-to-value proposition around. That said, the firm recognizes that the “bull case” buoying the Netflix stock isn’t playing out as well as some have expected in some key growth areas:

Social media integration, which served as a share price catalyst in recent months, is not yet allowed in Netflix’s largest market. Canada continues to trend toward the mid-point of management’s expectations, a negative in our view given that some investors were using Canada as a primary driver for ‘country by country’ penetration models. We continue to appreciate the company’s long-term competitive position and would become more constructive on a risk-reward basis if weakness persists.

While the price hike will have a larger effect on subscriber additions than Wall Street might have expected, J.P. Morgan agrees that it doesn’t change Netflix’s long-term story or value proposition. Furthermore, it sees some benefit to Netflix separating its streaming and DVD business operations:

“[A]fter 3 quarters of strong streaming only growth it became clear that this business could stand alone and that incremental profit from higher DVD pricing could be used to increase the quality and volume of streaming content overall. At the same time, the DVD business may now be better managed for longterm performance and profitability. While DVDs overall are becoming less of a differentiator for Netflix’s service, the company still expects 60% of 3Q11 ending domestic subscribers to use DVDs.”

Despite Netflix’s growing pains domestically, UBS Investment Research notes that there’s opportunity for growth internationally. While Netflix’s success in Canada gives it some confidence with an ambitious launch in 43 Latin America countries, it could face some challenges in the region:

Adoption into the region is expected to be slower on a per-capita and per-broadband basis, due to lower penetration of video game consoles and payment methods. In Latin America, Netflix will likely not benefit from the brand ‘halo effect’ as it did in Canada.

Among other things, Citi notes that DVD shipments have likely peaked. But for Netflix, that’s actually a good thing. Fewer DVD shipments lowers costs in that business, which translates to improved fundamentals and more money that can be spent on streaming content acquisition.

We estimate NFLX spent about $500MM to $600MM in postage costs in 2010. At about $0.88 per DVD shipment, this translates to about 625MM shipments per year. Thus, for every 1MM reduction in DVD shipments, Netflix could save $880K in postage costs. In addition, variable costs associated with fulfillment center staff could also become a source of savings (or funds) for Netflix.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• When video gets democratized, who wins and who loses?
• Connected Consumer Q3: Netflix fumbles; Kindle Fire shines
• What’s so bad about being a dumb pipe?

At its May 9 initial public offering, LinkedIn’s stock priced at $45 per share, but the shares quickly surpassed that within seconds of its market debut. For the past couple of weeks, LinkedIn’s stock price has generally hovered between $65 to $75, giving the company an average valuation of around $6.5 billion — not bad at all for a firm that made $2 million in net income on $250 million in gross revenue last year.

But some of Wall Street’s most powerful analysts think the stock should be trading at significantly higher valuations. In reports issued Tuesday, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts priced LinkedIn’s 12-month price target at $92 per share; UBS analysts’ 12-month price target is $90 per share; Morgan Stanley’s 12-month target is $88; and JP Morgan’s 12-month price target is $85. It bears mention that Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and JP Morgan all acted as underwriters for LinkedIn’s IPO; however, the SEC mandates that banks maintain total separation between their equity research and investment banking operations.

The street heard the analysts’ predictions loud and clear. LinkedIn’s stock closed Monday at $76.38 per share, and on Tuesday, the price popped: The stock opened at $81.40 and jumped up to $86.03 within the first 40 minutes of trading. At 2pm EDT Tuesday, the stock was holding steady at $84.06.

Why the bullish outlook? The analysts pointed to several key factors:

• Big opportunities for user growth.
  With 100 million members, LinkedIn is far from reaching its saturation point, according to analysts. JP Morgan’s report reads, “LinkedIn’s 100 million member base implies just a 16% penetration rate of the worldwide professional market… We are projecting LinkedIn’s member base to reach more than 250 million by the end of 2015, which would suggest a 42% penetration rate off the current professional market.”

• Diversified revenue streams.
  Wall Street hates it when a company has all its eggs in one basket. All the analysts expressed satisfaction in the fact that LinkedIn gets its money from three distinct verticals: Hiring solutions (commissions on jobs sourced through LinkedIn), Marketing solutions (online ads), and premium subscriptions.

• Online advertising is poised for a boom.
  And analysts see LinkedIn as well-positioned to benefit from it. The UBS report reads: “We are bullish on the online advertising opportunity for LNKD, and note that user time spent online is disproportionate to the overall online ad spend. Roughly 28% of time is currently spent online, but the online ad spend accounts for only ~13% of the total spend, representing a roughly $50B global opportunity.”

• LinkedIn is generally destined for greatness.
  At least according to Morgan Stanley’s report, which waxed rhapsodic about the company’s potential: “Every once in a while, a company comes around that transforms an industry in such a way that investors have difficulty grasping just how big it may one day become. Amazon.com, the $85B book retailer; Google, the $150B blue link company; eBay, the $40B beanie baby company, and Netflix, the $13B DVD-by-mail company … we believe LinkedIn can be one of these companies.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Facebook’s IPO filing: ideas and implications
• Social media in Q1: commerce and discovery dominated
• Flash analysis: the future of Yahoo

We recently sat down with Maurice Gunderson, senior partner at CMEA, who previously co-founded venture-capital firm Nth Power, to discuss his thoughts on the future of the greentech industry, and the how CMEA – and its portfolio companies – are prepared to thrive in the new economy. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

Q: How have your tactics changed in the recession?

A: The question is how do you keep small companies covered and lay out a financing plan from beginning to exit? Certainly we’ve had to be creative and make lots of adjustments to our operating plans. In general, people are looking for more capital efficient investment opportunities and are figuring out ways to scale back or be smarter about how to grow the size of the business. You don’t get to have a long run if there’s no short run. We’re generally looking at plans that require less cash than if we were looking in 2008. And we’re a lot more flexible about where to look for capital.

Q: What do you see as some of the long-term impacts of the industry focus on Washington?

A: Wall Street has not moved to Washington. It’s moved to the emergency room, which happens to be in Washington. But it will move back to Wall Street in a more rational way. The thing about government is it’s very helpful, but it doesn’t require the same kind of returns that we do. With the feed-in tariff in Germany, if you were a solar producer when it started, you could sell all you could make, and it didn’t matter if you were a low- or high-cost producer. That was a good thing.

But [as the tariffs decline] and the market goes back to normalcy, high-cost products go away and low-cost products thrive. It’s the same thing here. If you invest in a company that doesn’t have a path to grid parity, the only way it can survive is through subsidies. But if it has a path to grid parity and subsidies help it grow, cool.

Q: One difference is that the feed-in tariffs in Germany declined steadily to help make renewable electricity competitive, while the stimulus programs are short-term. How will that impact the industry?

A: Feed-in tariffs in Germany were designed to stimulate the market over a preset period, while the government subsidies we’re seeing now were designed to avoid the second Great Depression. We certainly wouldn’t want to slow it down. Everybody’s got to realize this is explicitly a short-term thing. You’ve got to design your strategy accordingly.

Q: If companies are changing their business plans to take advantage of government programs, could that backfire once the programs disappear?

A: Yes, this distorts people’s business plans. It’s an extraordinary situation. To take advantage of this, companies had to change their business plans and maybe distort them. If the stimulus and the reaction to it has the effect of hatching a lot of clean-energy companies that wouldn’t be there anyway, it’s not a bad thing if there’s a little distortion. If you’re going to take advantage of a short-term thing that was not [available] before, yes, you’ve got to change tactics.

Q: Does this mean we’ll see a dip once the stimulus funding ends?

A: You bet. Entities that were propped up by it will go away and those that were incubated by it will survive.

Q: What are some of the biggest potential future opportunities?

A: I see three big breakthroughs in the future that will change everything about the energy landscape. No. 1 is fusion, which is the farthest out there. If we get fusion to work, we don’t need solar or other renewable generation. But it requires fundamental breakthroughs and it’s a harder challenge than humankind has ever taken on – it makes Apollo look like a weekend project. Say it’s 100 years off.

No. 2: grid scale storage. New chemistries that enable bulk storage on the same economic footing as power generation would turn renewables into dispatchables, which triples the value of the power. It also says we can build all we want because we don’t have to worry about grid balancing problems. That would probably make a 10-to-1 difference in the amount of wind we could develop and use. It’s huge, and it’s 10 – 15 years away.

No. 3, the nearest term, is cheap nuclear that lets us get off coal — and that’s now.

Q: Many companies are developing energy storage for the grid today. Why do you believe it’s still 10 – 15 years away?

A: People are trying warmed-over chemistries and are making a lot of incremental advances, but the technologies don’t have the economics and don’t have the life [needed for bulk storage]. I haven’t seen one yet that really could solve this problem, but I know of several breakthroughs coming in the 10-15 year time frame.