This talk was the opening keynote speech at the first annual California Clean Innovation Conference, held at Caltech on May 11, 2007. The event, a partnership with UCLA and UC San Diego, included discussions on the futures of assorted energy technologies and how to finance them. In other sessions, clean-energy startup companies were given the opportunity to "fast pitch" their business plans, in three to five minutes each, to a panel of venture capitalists. Nathan S. Lewis (BS '77, MS '77) is Caltech's Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry. Much more on global energy issues and on his own research in solar power can be found at http://nsl.caltech.edu./