Report: Khosla Ventures enlists Calpers for clean tech

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) is expected to commit up to $640 million to clean tech-focused firm Khosla Ventures, according to a report at Private Equity Hub which cited two sources.

Calpers has already created a $400 million clean-tech fund which launched last year.

Vinod Khosla, head of Khosla Ventures.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET News.com)

But a capital commitment the size of $640 million to a venture capital fund is significant as it can provide the capital required to scale up energy industry start-ups.

Ethanol companies, for example, need hundreds of millions of dollars to prove out their technologies at a commercial scale.

Khosla Ventures has invested in a number of ethanol companies including Range Fuels and Mascoma, which both require money to build beyond their initial pilot plants.

Billions of dollars have gone into clean-tech start-ups. But many industry observers expect many of those to falter in the face of a "funding gap," or "Valley of Death," between technology development and commercial production.

Until now, Khosla Ventures has been funded by family money from billionaire Vinod Khosla.

[Info_Max]

To send Oil back down to $20 per Brl ($1.25 per Gallon) is very simple, we need to take the following Steps to do it:

1- End the Iraq War, end the threat and conflict that US occupation of Iraq and US military actions in the part of the World have caused and are causing. After all remember that before Iraq War Oil was at $30 per Brl ($1.50 per Gallon)

2- Take a fraction of the money that we will save from the unnecessary Iraq War, which is at about $20Bill of our money (Taxes) per month, and invest that in developing plug-in Hybrids. We have the technology today, via plug-in Hybrids, to get 200 MPG or for all practical purposes Gas free since a good plug-in Hybrids can drive the 1st 100 Miles on Electricity only which is more than the distance that a typical person drives per day.

3- Take another fraction of the money that we will save from the unnecessary Iraq War, and invest that in re-new able energy sources such as Wind, Water, Solar, Geothermal, etc. that will more than compensate for any Electricity usage increase as we switch to plug-in Hybrids. This action will also create Millions of high paying jobs in US and every other country, as it has already in Germany, Norway, etc. that have invested in these re-new able energy sources.

Take the above Steps, and we will drive the price of Oil to $20 per/Brl, we will greatly reduce pollution and global warming, and create Millions of Jobs. NOW why doesnt our Government get behind above LOGICAL plan as it did for example with the Manhattan project to create the Atom bomb?
Why doesn't our (right-wing) media hammer in the need for the above LOGICAL Steps rather than just reporting how miserable American people are becoming due to Gas prices at back breaking record highs?

Well the answer is that the current Government which is supported by the (right-wing) media in the US wants the American people as miserable, as broke and as suffering as possible.
Why is that? For answers check out my blog here:

www.anoox.com/myblog/real_news

[TomRaftery]

Getting oil to $20 per barrel would be an ecological disaster. The sooner oil hits $200 per barrel and then $300 the better.

We are only now seriously thinking about hybrids and renewables. Why? Because it costs so much to run an SUV. This is a good thing.

If prices were to drop (as they did in the 80s) the financial case for renewables would disappear. Investments in renewable energy co.s would dry up and the companies would go out of business very quickly.

At $1.25 per gallon people have proven themselves to be profligate. At $4 people are starting to think about what they drive. If we make it >$8 the planet will thank us.