more on VCs tackle green

from CNN Money, an article focused on Al Gore getting hands-on with the VC community in their efforts to marshal entrepreneurial efforts to turn energy problems into energy opportunities. In my opinion, this is worth reading - as I've noted before, unleashing our economic system can address environmental problems and create wealth.

see: Al Gore's next act: Planet-saving VC

relevant snippet:

According to Doerr, by 2009 more than a third of Kleiner's latest fund, which was raised in 2006 and totals $600 million, will be invested in technologies that aim to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. Already Kleiner has invested more than $270 million from various funds in 26 companies that make everything from microbes that scrub old oil wells to electric cars to noncorn ethanol. Twelve of Kleiner's 22 partners now spend some or all of their time on green investments.

however, the catch:

There is, however, one thing standing in their way. Five years after Kleiner Perkins made its first green investment, the firm hasn't had one "exit" -- VC-speak for an IPO or a sale of a company that validates the investment thesis. Doerr equates this moment to Internet investing (which he famously called "the greatest legal creation of wealth in the history of the planet") before Kleiner took a certain search engine public in 1995. Now, he wonders, "what's the company that will lead the boom? What's the Netscape of green innovation?"

Read the article!