The regulatory environment needs to expand and adapt to fast moving cleantech startups with radical propositions that could change the way we live and consume energy, executives said at Semafor World Economy.

“The level of technology that we have access to is always changing,” said Kyle Clark, president and CEO of BETA Technologies, which is developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. “The next step, ironically, is to continue to expand our regulatory acceptance of new technologies. The physics work. We just need the regulation to really get these things out”.

Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of nuclear fusion company Shine Technologies, said “there’s a lot happening on the regulatory reform front that’s really good” but there is always more the government could do. However, “throwing money at the problem is not the solution”, warning it risks creating “very inefficient companies” that can’t make economical products, he said.

Baiju Bhatt, founder and CEO of Aetherflux, a space-based solar energy company, said the bigger hurdle holding back faster deployment is that “there’s not enough capitalism in space”. But the intersection of AI and the space industry is “at the early stages of space becoming a more mature category for venture capital, for growth capital”.