Environment Forum
Global environmental challenges
Steve Jurvetson on clean tech innovation that will change the world
(This article by Felicity Carus first appeared on Clean Energy Connection and has been edited for length. Any opinions expressed are her own.)
What venture capitalists really think and what they say aren’t always the same thing.
Steve Jurvetson, from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, last week gave his overview of disruptive innovation in clean tech at the Always On Going Green conference in San Francisco.
The man who famously invested $300,000 for a 30 percent stake in Hotmail and made $250 million for his VC firm when Microsoft bought the company two years later says there is an “explosion of possibilities” of synthetic genetics in clean tech.
In August, one of Jurvetson’s portfolio companies, Genomatica, filed an S-1 form with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company uses computerized biotechnology modeling to design high-volume chemicals from renewable sources such as cellulosic biomass.
DFJ joined a consortium of investors including VantagePoint in raising $84 million to finance Genomatica. Tate & Lyle and Mitsubishi are among its partners.
Who hates Al Gore?
Whenever Al Gore raises the bull’s-eye of global warming, darts start to fly — aimed at him.
Google the phrase “I hate Al Gore” and 42,000 entries appear, including a Facebook page called “Telling Al Gore he’s full of crap” that has 17,000 fans.
Critics of the former vice president and Nobel laureate point to his multiple homes and use of a private jet as hard-fast hypocrisy, and his investments in clean technology as a conflict of interest. Add to that the specter of an old misquote from a CNN interview that won’t go away, about “inventing the Internet.”
“If you believe that the reason I have been working on this issue for 30 years is because of greed, you don’t know me,” he told a House Energy and Commerce subcomittee in April 2009. “Do you think there’s something wrong with being active in business in this country? I am proud of it.”
So tonight, when Gore’s 24-hour multi-media presentation “24 Hours of Reality” hits screens around the world, viewers can watch for how the Oscar-winning environmentalist attempts to engage his most vocal critics – the ones who show up at speaking events with placards calling for him to debate climate science with them.
Appetites were whetted earlier this week: “There will be a full-on assault on climate skeptics, exploring where they get their funding from, ” the chief executive of the event’s UK partner Global Action Plan told Reuters.
In 13 languages, 200 new slides will pick up the message of Gore’s 2006 Oscar-winner “An Inconvenient Truth”, broadcast in every time zone and over social media channels as supporters of the campaign hand over control of their accounts on Facebook and Twitter for the 24-hour period.
Those who deny climate change are either ignorant or presenting false motivations. Most of them can be found in the coal and oil business.
Factbox: Renewable energy targets around the world
(Reuters) – Several countries have introduced subsidies or incentives to encourage clean energy production, such as feed-in tariffs or green certificates. Listed below are countries which have established renewable energy targets from 2013 to 2020.
Source: Reuters, Renewable Energy Policy network (www.ren21.net) (1) See individual EU member state targets here
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables/targets_en.htm)
(2) The Japan target may be subject to change as the Japanese government plans to submit Climate Change Law to parliament in coming months (3) In pending climate change legislation, the United States has proposed a target of 15 pct by 2020. Twenty-nine out of 50 U.S. states have set targets for minimum amounts of electricity generation from renewable sources, while another five states have voluntary goals. (Compiled by Nina Chestney; Editing by Sara Ledwith)
from Summit Notebook:
Global warming: Economic opportunity or not?
Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners and Tom Werner, Chief Executive of solar power company SunPower, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco and shared their views on global warming, investment and cleantech.
Dolezalek sees industrialization in developing countries as a more predictable impetus for investment than global warming.
Werner sees global warming as a stimulus for new business and a tool for adaptation.
What are your thoughts? Is global warming an economic stimulus, an unreliable driver for investment, neither or both?
(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman, pictures by Kim White)
In saying the cleantech portfolio is modest, perhaps you missed the portfolio slide near the beginning. And that’s just from our Menlo Park office. Globally, the DFJ Network has over 85 clean tech investments, perhaps more than any other venture firm on Earth.
My blog post from the conference: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/6 195573431/