Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins’ aggressive bet on cleantech has turned out to be a major driving force behind its struggles and recent shakeup. We’ve covered the topic many times (see the dangers of righteous investing) but Pandodaily nicely captured this week the essence of what’s at stake for Kleiner’s leader John Doerr — the guy who ushered Kleiner into its internet investing heights of the 90’s and led the decision to go whole hog into cleantech in recent years — if he can’t right the ship.

However, underlying Kleiner’s cleantech missteps is the reality of the short comings of traditional venture capital itself. Entrepreneurs, tech execs and media in the Valley look to the institution of venture capitalism as being the engine of innovation and the revolutionary spark needed to ignite disruptive change. But it’s actually just one way to fund innovation and it’s only proved…