Al Gore stands to profit from green technology

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 Gore is a partner.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient. It came to Gore's firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, looking for $75 million to expand its partnerships with utilities seeking to install millions of "smart meters" in homes and businesses. Gore and his partners decided to back the company.

The deal appeared to pay off last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants. More than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.

Few people have been as vocal as Gore 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 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 Gore is poised to become the world's first "carbon billionaire," profiteering from government policies he supports that would direct billions of dollars to the business ventures he has invested in.

Gore says that he is simply putting his money where his mouth is. In an e-mail message this week, he said his investment activities were consistent with his public advocacy over decades.

"I have advocated policies to promote renewable energy and accelerate reductions in global warming pollution for decades, including all of the time I was in public service," Gore wrote. "As a private citizen, I have continued to advocate the same policies. … I absolutely believe in investing in ways that are consistent with my values and beliefs."

Gore has said he invested in partnerships and funds that try to identify and support companies that are advancing cutting-edge green technologies and are paving the way toward a low-carbon economy. He has a stake in the world's pre-eminent carbon credit trading market and in an array of companies in biofuels, sustainable fish farming, electric vehicles and solar power.

Gore is not a lobbyist, and he has never asked Congress or the administration for an earmark or policy decision that would directly benefit one of his investments.