Alt energy Players and Policies...to come!

In recent months, venture capitalists have met with most of the 2008 presidential candidates, members of Congress, and officials in the Bush administration and the Energy Department, pushing their ideas for things like tax subsidies and efficiency requirements.

PLAYERS:
Cleantech Group, a research and trade organization representing venture investors in alternative energy.

Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit organization, noting that the investors are also major potential donors: Ken Cook, president

In 2006, venture capitalists put $727 million into 39 alternative energy start-ups, compared with $195 million in 18 such firms for 2005, according to the National Venture Capital Association. More than a third of the 2006 investments went to technologies related to ethanol, a gasoline alternative that is made from corn and other plant material.

One venture-backed ethanol start-up is Altra, a 50-employee company based in Los Angeles. It offers a twist on ethanol production by making the fuel from nonedible plant matter, producing what is known as cellulosic ethanol....John Denniston, a partner at the Silicon Valley investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers invested in Altra.

Kleiner Perkins has formed the Greentech Innovation Network to bring together entrepreneurs, scientists, academics and policy makers.

The National Venture Capital Association has a committee focused on energy policies.

The most visible lone ranger and one of the most outspoken is Vinod Khosla, a founder of Sun Microsystems and now a partner at Khosla Ventures.


POTENTIAL GOVERNMENTAL POLICY CHANGES:

* Government could require that cars be able to run on either ethanol or gasoline, requiring that 70 percent of new cars sold in the United States by 2010 be able to use more than one type of fuel.

* Government could mandate that 10 percent of gas stations have at least one ethanol pump

* Government could set up a national carbon trading system that would increase demand for ethanol by forcing companies to find greener alternatives to oil and gas.

* Government could change the so-called blender’s credit, a 51-cents-a-gallon subsidy that goes to the company that mixes gasoline with ethanol, typically one of the major gas companies. This money could go to producers. The subsidy to rise when the price of oil falls, or drop when oil prices rise.