Read this article on Vinod Khosla in Red Herring:
Khosla: Cost is Bottom Line for Energy
Khosla makes the statement:
“Growth will never be sacrificed for the environment,” he said, in a press conference before the panel. “I don’t agree with it, but there it is.”
and goes on to say:
“What’s good for me as an investor is not necessarily what’s the solution for the planet,” he said. “Are these good technologies? Should we encourage them? Yes. But what will convince TXU?” (TXU Energy is a Texas utility that is proposing building 11 new coal-fired plants.)
These are interesting comments because they beg the question as to how should these projects be funded? Should it be industry, the government, or private investors (VCs, Private Equity). My experience has been that industry, while having made significant investments, are unnecessarily risk averse and have poor incentives to make investments in clean tech. A company like Shell has been doing business with biofuels and clean-tech for decades, but have very few outside investments in these spaces (Choren and Iogen for biodiesel and ethanol respectively). But Shell has more money to invest than any single venture capital firm – $11 Billion in cash at the end of 2005 and $26 Billion in profits from that same year. Not to mention the other oil, semiconductor, and industrials. By comparison, KPCB have earmarked $100million in clean-tech investments from their latest fund. Khosla Ventures has invested in several start-ups (including Celunol which was just acquired – I’ll have more to say on that).
Does this seem a bit out of wack?
Very nice article though.
Doug
