(Richard) Branson to Invest $400 Million in Renewable Energy, Biofuels

[jpak]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601102&sid=a4bb4MFpbAwo&refer=uk

Sept. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Richard Branson, the U.K. billionaire who controls Virgin Group Ltd., will invest as much as $400 million in renewable-energy projects to reduce dependence on traditional fuels.

The investments will be made through Virgin Fuels, a new unit, Branson said in an e-mailed statement today. Virgin Fuels' first investment will be in Cilion Inc., a California-based company that makes fuel from corn.

Cilion, which was formed in 2006, builds and runs factories producing ethanol, an alcohol derived from plants. The company plans to build as many as seven plants with capacity to produce as much as 440 million gallons a day of ethanol by 2009. The first three units will be built in California, Branson said.

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[nam78_two]

1. kr/nt

[Kolesar]

2. knr/eom

[Beaverhausen]

3. Excellent - needs one more vote

to get on the greatest page where it should go.

[babylonsister]

4. Bravo for Branson, and he has the midas touch! nt

[JohnWxy]

5. My vote added. Nice to see some good news for a change.

You know if Bill Gates really wants to affect the human condition, he would invest some of his vast wealth in wind power and the impact would be tremendous. Think about it, one person making that much impact on global warming. He could help boost the production capacity of wind turbine manufacturers as well as accelerate installations of wind turbines and shorten the time required to get wind power up to say 20% of the U.S. total ouput. With this wind power displacing coal it would make a measurable impact on CO2 emmissions much sooner than I'm afraid we are going to see the way we are going aabout it now (current attitude: "global warming? Oh yeah, lets get around to doing something about that, ten to twenty years from now.").

In addition to the reduction in Co2 emissions he would be saving us money as the cost of fossil fuels (including coal) keep going up, wind will only increase a relatively small amount. As the cost of materials and labor to build the wind turbines goes up due to inflation these costs will be more than balanced out by the economies gained in manufacturing much higher quantities of wind turbines. As the quantities of wind turbines produced goes up the cost per unit will be coming down. This is the most cost effective way of producing power without toxic waste or adding to atmospheric CO2.

This could be one of the most significant things Gates could do to affect society - investing in a big way in wind power.

[suziedemocrat]

6. K&R - Also, I LOVE my Virgin Cell Phone!!!

After getting jerked around for years from the "normal" cell phone companies, I decided to try Virgin. Boy, that's the way cell phone service should be. It's fantastic!!! If he does even 1/2 as good of a job with the fuels, that would be great!

[YankeyMCC]

7. All help is welcome

and Mr Branson is setting a nice example.

But I don't think private investment is going to be the answer or even the leading answer in this crisis. It HAS to be a public effort IMO. Certainly with a strong private component but it has to be a coordinated effort to save the commons and that means public investment and leadership.

[skids]

8. My esteem for him just went up...

Much better use of money than the X Project challenge or whatever that thing was called.

Now I can be glad to be a customer.

[mom cat]

9. I wish he was investing in non crop based renewables instead.

[JohnWxy]

11. My guess is he is worried about the West's dependence on oil from

the most politically instable part of the world.

for what it's worth here's my comments re Bill Gates and wind power:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x67346#67384

[Nihil]

10. That headline just cracks me up ...

... I keep reading it as

"(Richard) Branson to Invest $400 Million in Renewable Energy Brothels"

:crazy:

[Bamboo]

12. Miles per acre?