I'm leery of making this blog an ongoing rant against grain-based biofuels such as ethanol. But lately there's been to many things to, well, rant about.
You know Vinod Khosla: started Sun Microsystems, made truckload of money, began VC-ing andm recently, has been making large investments in the biofuel start ups.
A couple of years ago, Mr. Khosla was on the leading endge of a rush of investment into ethanol. Now he might be getting a little defensive about those investments.
VK in October 2006.
"Challenges certainly exist with ethanol, but none are insurmountable, and – with apologies to Al Gore – the convenient truth is that corn ethanol is a crucial first step toward kicking our oil addiction."VK on May 2008:
"Certain food-based biofuels like biodiesel have always been a bad idea. Others like corn ethanol have served a useful purpose and essentially are obsoleting themselves. We have eight or nine companies producing alternatives to corn ethanol that will be dramatically cheaper. And I just don't see how corn ethanol producers stay in business."No, it's not a complete sea change. But methinks that one of the fellas behind the Silicon Valley "Green Rush" into new fuels is second guessing a bit...
