Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenu
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet donate BILLIONS.
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10. Zhengrong Shi
Net worth: $2.2 billion
Shi, "The Sun King," studied under leading solar energy researcher Martin Green as a PhD student in Australia. Moved back home to China in 2001 and founded Suntech Power, which makes photovoltaic cells for use in solar panels. Only 44 years old, Shi has seen his net worth soar thanks to growing global demand for photovoltaic cells, particularly as governments from Germany to Japan begin to embrace clean energy.
9. Jeff Skoll
Net worth: $4.2 billion
EBay's first president now spends his time on creative and philanthropic endeavors. His film company, Participant Productions, has bankrolled such socially conscious movies as Syriana and Fast Food Nation. Most recently he made headlines as executive producer of Al Gore's Oscar-winning global warming documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.
8. John Doerr
Net worth: $1 billion
The California venture capitalist whose seed capital helped launch Internet giants Amazon and Google is now a tireless advocate of green technology. Doerr's firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has been investing in renewable energy companies through his "Greentech" venture since 1999. In the last two years the firm has allocated $200 million-plus to more than a dozen green companies, including Bloom Energy, a manufacturer of regenerative fuel cells.
7. Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello
Net worth: $2 billion
Mello, our first ethanol tycoon, controls Cosan, the world's second-largest producer of the much-hyped renewable fuel. Cosan's history dates back to 1936 when the Brazilian billionaire's family established a sugarcane mill in Piracicaba, outside of Sao Paulo.
6. Tulsi Tanti
Net worth: $2.4 billion
As chairman of Suzlon Energy, Tanti heads up the world's most valuable ($8 billion market value) fully integrated wind-energy company, which supplies 2,000 MegaWatts of wind turbine capacity around the globe. Tanti first became interested in wind-power while looking for ways to lower the skyrocketing utility bills of his original business, a budding textile mill.
5. Ted Turner
Net worth: $2 billion
With his family, Turner, who is America's largest individual landowner, launched the Turner Endangered Species Fund to promote biodiversity, conservation and help protect threatened plant and animal species. Turner was also the creative force behind TBS' popular educational children's series Captain Planet. In January, Turner launched DT Solar, which aims to develop utility-scale solar power plants. His daughter and her husband reportedly built the first 5,000-square-foot home to be certified by the U.S. Green Building Council.
4. Paul Allen
Net worth: $18 billion
The real estate branch of Microsoft co-founder Allen's investment company, Vulcan, is undertaking one of the biggest urban makeovers in the U.S., constructing over 100 million square feet of "green" housing made from environmentally sensitive materials in his beloved hometown of Seattle. Allen has also invested significant cash in Seattle's Imperium Renewables, a young biodiesel company that produces fuel from vegetable oil.
3. Richard Branson
Net worth: $3.8 billion
The flamboyant British entrepreneur is going green. In 2006, Branson launched Virgin Fuels, an investment vehicle focused on renewable energy. Branson has already invested $33 million to bioethanol plants in Tennessee and California, and plans to commit $300 million to similar projects over the next three years, with the long-term goal of building a major competitor to oil companies. In September, he announced plans to invest a percentage of his transportation business profits into renewable energy, worth perhaps $3 billion over 10 years.
2. Sergey Brin and Larry Page
Net worth: $16.6 billion, $16.6 billion
Google's young tech moguls have created one of the world's most eco-friendly cultures--its corporate office is solar-powered and all the furniture in one of its buildings is made from recycled material. Meanwhile, Google.org, the company's for-profit charitable arm, is pumping millions into the development of a hybrid car that can go 100 miles on one gallon of fuel.
1. Bill Gates
Net worth: $56 billion
Gates is perhaps best known for his foundation's work in Africa and on global health initiatives, but he is no slouch when it comes to the environment. His private equity firm Cascade Investment recently invested $84 million in Pacific Ethanol, which makes clean-burning fuel from corn. At Microsoft's Seattle headquarters, all 35,000 employees receive free mass transit passes for eco-friendly commuting; the office itself is certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, meaning the building is energy efficient and uses at least 10% less energy than similar sized buildings.
