Vinod Khosla’s New Ghosla-Energy sector

Vinod Khosla has been called the best venture capitalist in the world by both Forbes and Red Herring. He has been a partner at blue-blooded venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and buyers.

His success has been phenomenal while he failed less spectacularly compared to his peers.



In 2004, he founded Khosla Ventures, which advices entrepreneurs and invest in his latest area of interest: the clean energy technologies that might replace the burning of coal and oil.

• He finds tough & important problems that are still manageable


• He feels that till now new energy technologies was done by governments & Big corporations.
  
• He feels venture capitalists have SOME opportunity left for Funding projects though funding rest will not be viable


• Vinod Khosla on solar energy:

He is very optimistic about it.

According to him, rather than concentrating on clean coal based energy, concentrating solar power is also a real option for large-scale, high-capacity, dispatchable power. Thermal underground storage of heat can be used for utility-grade power generation, too. If large-scale compressed –air energy storage works, then wind power will become scalable. So there will be a horse race between clean coal with carbon sequestration, wind with compressed–air energy storage, and solar thermal power generation with storage.

Efficiency of solar cells is worry for new entrants, Khosla believes that

• Leveraging the large investment in stem based power generation, can get 35 % efficiency at $ 500 per kilowatt

• But World needs multijunction thin film solar cells produced with cheap mass production technologies, and efficiencies above 30 %
  

About Bio Fuel

He says,

• It is nonscalable unless it can be made from biomass instead of seed product.

• He would not be surprised to see biogasoline either, initially made from corn and later from biomass.
  

Energy V/S Energy

• Building wind turbines using coal power can vitiate their value as an alternative energy

• But Now venture capitalists invest more on advance technology based projects,Payback period is also decreasing.

• Technology is not static, and all newer technologies will improve, and the payback period will get faster and faster

Vinod Khosla-on Nuclear Energy

• Nuclear could have future. however he suspects about its dominance in future because of the political and regulatory risks and long time line to build plants.
  
  
• He says the need of the hour is to build a big, high voltage DC grid, and let nuclear, wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, electricity from biomass and waste, and anything else innovators can think of get on grid . We need to kick-start the alternatives and let the competitive ones prosper.

On possibility of Hydrogen Economy:

• Hydrogen doesn't make any sense to vinod khosla.

• Because any technology that is far enough away, don’t make any real changes.

He is Interested to investing in microfinance

• He wants to connect microfinance to energy sector. If entrepreneurs use microfinance to make biomass.

• This will help to do more on poverty and biomass can be used to produce fuels, electricity, plastic and much more.

So friends, what do u say about this sector ???

The article tries to through some light on his recent press interviews & bring to notice his fiews & futuristic vision to help students & entrepreneurs.

Interview source : SPAN magazine (Published by US Embassay, New Delhi)