Sun King
The New York Times has scored a coup this week, running a rare interview with the reclusive green investor and environmental philanthropist David Gelbaum. Besides taking stakes in U.S. solar and clean-tech companies like Entech Solar, eSolar, First Solar, and SunPower, as well as similar companies in Australia and China (not to mention Toyota, because of the Prius), Gelbaum also has put money into smart-grid-relevant companies like GridPoint and startups developing energy storage systems to back up renewables. Yet Gelbaum’s support for solar is not indiscriminate. He has fought a large solar project slated for protected land in the Mojave Desert, which the Wildlands Conservancy acquired to preserve. A co-founder of Wildlands, Gelbaum has donated $250 million to the conservancy, as well as $200 million to Sierra Club. (He also has given similar amounts to support veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and to the American Civil Liberties Union.) According to the Times profile, which is worth reading in its entirety, Gelbaum lives modestly and gives away most of the money he makes through his main investment vehicle, Quercus Trust.
Energywise
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