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vinod khosla
Thiel vs. Khosla on Cleantech: Who is Right?
This past week PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel — who was also an early investor in Facebook — made headlines when he declared that “Cleantech is an increasingly large disaster that people in Silicon Valley aren’t even talking about any more. The failure in energy and transportation points to a larger failure in clean energy — we aren’t moving any faster, literally, than we were when modern airplanes first came out.” [read more]
Vinod Khosla and the Gasification/Fermentation Debate
Vinod Khosla is once more offering up his prognostications on the future of the energy business: What Matters in Biofuels? Given the likely continued dominance of the internal combustion engine, cellulosic and sugar-derived fuels offer one of the lowest risk advances to quickly and affordably achieve low-carbon transportation. I predict... [read more]
Cellulosic Ethanol Falling Short
The reason I spend time debunking wild claims is that I think they damage the entire bioenergy sector in the long run. People who issue press releases claiming they can produce fuel for $1/gallon - and by the way we can do it next year if you give us the money - may attract some funding, but in the long run if they can't deliver,... [read more]
Vinod Khosla: Green tech must pass test
photo: Ausra In my new Green State column on Grist, I sit down with legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla to talk about his approach to green tech. Khosla — who raised a record $1.1 billion for green tech investing earlier this month — believes that unless a technology can scale and be adopted in markets like China... [read more]
Is Green Tech Investing Making a Comeback?
Image via WikipediaTuesday was a big day for green tech investing news: Khosla Ventures announced it had successfully raised $1.1 billion in capital for renewable energy and clean tech investments and the Department of Energy and the Treasury Department announced the first round of "Recovery Act" funding of $502.6 million.Does this... [read more]
Green tech investing is back with a vengeance
photo: Ausra In Wednesday’s Los Angeles Times, I write about green tech guru Vinod Khosla’s new $1.1 billion venture funds — the biggest first-time fund since the halcyon days of the dot-com era a decade ago and and a strong signal that investors see a bright future in clean and green technologies. CalPERS, the United States’ biggest... [read more]
Cello: A Lesson in Due Diligence
People sometimes ask me how - if they don't have any particular technical expertise - one determines whether companies are making fraudulent claims. I tell them that the simple test of "If it looks too good to be true..." will work in the vast majority of cases. In the case of Cello Energy, that sniff test would have saved investors... [read more]
Vinod Khosla at Milken Institute: Part II
This is a continuation of the previous post covering Vinod Khosla's (VK) recent lengthy interview Milken Institute 2009 Global Conference. The interview was conducted by Elizabeth Corcoran (EC) of Forbes and can be viewed here.In Part I, VK discussed the role of government money, capital intensity of renewable projects, and some of his... [read more]
Vinod Khosla at Milken Institute: Part I
Thanks to a reader for bringing this to my attention. Vinod Khosla (VK) just did a lengthy interview at the Milken Institute 2009 Global Conference. The interview was conducted by Elizabeth Corcoran (EC) of Forbes. You can see the video of the interview here:Milken: Khosla on the Shift to Renewable EnergyI am going to listen to the... [read more]
Prizes, pigs and eco-myths
I’m just back from the Wall Street Journal’s conference on business and the environment, called ECO:nomics. The WSJ brought together an interesting mix of big-name CEOs, investors, a few environmentalists, and a noisy contingent of die-hard conservatives including some people who still believe this whole global warming thing is a some... [read more]
Cost, Land, Air and Water
With the appropriateness of biofuels for the transportation sector in question and the increasing call for “a more granular assessment of the benefits and impacts of different biofuels”, Vinod Khosla1 proposes to the Gristmill audience one approach to assessing sustainability. We think a good fuel has to meet the CLAW requirements: C... [read more]
A pragmatic view of cellulosic biofuels or why VC Khosla is very wrong
So VC Vinod Khosla is not happy with with my recent attack on his (willful) ignorance, “VC Khosla blows his credibility dissing plug-ins.” Grist has given the billionaire a platform to defend himself, but he just spouts even more nonsense in the bizarrely titled post, “Pragmatists v. environmentalists, part I”: I have been accused of... [read more]
Toyota to have 2010 plug-in; GM invests in cellulosic ethanol
I won't dwell here -- there are many announcements at the Detroit auto show and they'll get tonnes of coverage by other bloggers and reporters. But two, so far, have stood out for me. First, GM said it had invested an undisclosed amount in cellulosic-ethanol maker Coskata, one of Vinod Khosla's many biofuel investments. For details,... [read more]
The solar biz is heating up
No doubt there’s a boom unfolding in the solar energy business.Here are some of the investors in solar: Google guys Sergei Brin and Larry Page, VC firms Kleiner Perkins and Benchmark Capital, ex-Ebay exec Jeff Skoll, VC Vinod Khosla, Goldman Sachs, Idealab’s Bill Gross, mutual fund families Wellington and Fidelity. They are buying into... [read more]
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Baby You Can Drive My (Electric) Car
Posted May 11, 2012 by Scott Edward Anderson
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Siemens develops ABS plastic alternative
Posted May 9, 2012 by Doris de Guzman
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Reduce CO2 and Slow Global Warming?
Posted April 30, 2012 by Willem Post
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Hidroenergia 2012
May 25, 2012, Wroclaw, Poland
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WGC 2012 - 25th World Gas Conference
June 4, 2012, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Ecwatech 2012
June 4, 2012, Moscow, Russia
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Scott Edward Anderson is a consultant, blogger, and media commentator who blogs at The Green Skeptic. More »
Marc Gunther is a writer, speaker and consultant, who focuses on business and the environment. More »
Christine Hertzog is a consultant, author, and a professional explainer focused on Smart Grid. More »
Jesse Jenkins is the director of energy and climate policy at the Breakthrough Institute. More »
Robert Rapier works in the energy industry and writes and speaks about energy and the environment. More »
Geoffrey Styles is Managing Director of GSW Strategy Group, LLC and an award-winning blogger. More »
Dan Yurman is a nuclear energy blogger and writes regularly for Fuel Cycle Week. More »
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Global JOJOBAWORLD 2012
When: Fri, 2012-05-25 09:00
Hidroenergia 2012
When: Fri, 2012-05-25 09:00
NESCO Town Hall: Security Risk Management Practices for Electric Utilities
When: Wed, 2012-05-30 13:00
Ecwatech 2012
When: Mon, 2012-06-04 09:00
WGC 2012 - 25th World Gas Conference
When: Mon, 2012-06-04 09:00
2nd CSP Optimisation Summit
When: Tue, 2012-06-05 08:00
“Cities will need to be retrofitted, as a whole. There's much work to be done. Vertical farming and other forms of energy/space/agriculture integration will be necessary to further sustain how humans live on this planet.”
“David,Reserves, potential resources and production are not interchangeable, and apocalyptic statements that depend on conflating them are thus fundamentally flawed. Your cogent analysis makes this crucial distinction well. It just needs a bigger audience.”