Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 11/02/2009 8:20:25 PM PST by Steelfish
Gore’s Dual Role in Spotlight: Advocate and Investor
JOHN M. BRODER November 2, 2009 WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore thought he had spotted a winner last year when a small California firm sought financing for an energy-saving technology from the venture capital firm where Mr. Gore is a partner.
The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Mr. Gore’s firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital providers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of so-called smart meters in homes and businesses.
Mr. Gore and his partners decided to back the company, and in gratitude Silver Spring retained him and John Doerr, another Kleiner Perkins partner, as unpaid corporate advisers.
The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts. Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr. Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.
Silver Spring Networks is a foot soldier in the global green energy revolution Mr. Gore hopes to lead. Few people have been as vocal about the urgency of global warming and the need to reinvent the way the world produces and consumes energy. And few have put as much money behind their advocacy as Mr. Gore and are as well positioned to profit from this green transformation, if and when it comes.
Critics, mostly on the political right and among global warming skeptics, say Mr. Gore is poised to become the world’s first “carbon billionaire,” profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I think “scam artist” is a better term.
Gore is using money for toilet paper?
On second thought the dollar isn't worth much these days.
He’s not putting his money where his mouth is, he’s putting his money where he can then whip hysteria such that governments across the world, and the UN, will enact coercive measures that will then make handsome rewards on his investment. He owns a carbon credit trading firm. Do you think he can objectively discuss whether or not cap-n-trade is good policy? He is the walking definition of conflict of interest.
Yes, it’s as if you had a company like GE in cahoots with the government for favorable legislation involving climate change that it stands to make a killing off of.
Oh wait.....
The comments on the New York Times site are encouraging but then again, this story was linked by Drudge.
No hypocracy there at all, huh Al? Nope not a bit.
“Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is”
He needs to add a couple rolls of quarters....I can still hear him....
When it’s global warming skeptics, we are told; follow the money!, skeptics are big oil shills!, their research is tainted! Now when Gore is caught red handed with the snake oil bottles the left sees nothing wrong with using the government to line your pockets.
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