Steyer-Taylor Center Director Dan Reicher comments on the difficulties of financing clean energy projects for Fortune.

A growing number of the world’s wealthiest people, from both ends of the political spectrum, are banding together to bet on new technologies that could displace fossil fuels. The one thing they have in common? They believe it will make them a lot of money.

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Ward McNally never intended to become a booster for clean tech. The great-great-great-grandson of the founder of the 159-year-old Rand ­McNally map company, he helped sell the family business in 1997. ­McNally, 43, is now the co-founder and managing partner of McNally Capital, a Chicago firm that advises wealthy families on their private equity investments. His focus is making money, not being green.

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But finding the right projects and getting them off the ground can be tricky. Says Dan Reicher, the executive director of Stanford’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance, which was funded by billionaire fund manager Steyer: “There are lots of opportunities to do well and to do good, but also a lot of ways to make mistakes.” Raising development capital for a large solar or wind project, he explains, is not a simple matter. “You might need $20 million or $30 million just to get a project on the road and then $1 billion more to finance it,” says Reicher.

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