The Cleantech Crash

The following is a script from "The Cleantech Crash" which aired on Jan. 5, 2014. Lesley Stahl is the correspondent. Shachar Bar-On, producer.


About a decade ago, the smart people who funded the Internet turned their attention to the energy sector, rallying tech engineers to invent ways to get us off fossil fuels, devise powerful solar panels, clean cars, and futuristic batteries. The idea got a catchy name: “Cleantech.” 

Silicon Valley got Washington excited about it. President Bush was an early supporter, but the federal purse strings truly loosened under President Obama.  Hoping to create innovation and jobs, he committed north of a $100 billion in loans, grants and tax breaks to Cleantech.  But instead of breakthroughs, the sector suffered a string of expensive tax-funded flops. Suddenly Cleantech was a dirty word.

Investor Vinod Khosla, known as the father of the Cleantech revolution, has poured over a billion dollars of his own money into some 50 energy startups. He took us to one in Columbus, Miss. KiOR is a biofuel company that’s replacing oil drilling with oil making.

Vinod Khosla: Nature takes a million years to produce our crude oil. KiOR can produce it in seconds.  

The company took over this old paper mill, where logs are picked up by a giant claw, dropped into a shredder and pulverized into woodchips. 

Read the entire interview