Green Investing Slows, Perhaps Marking Shift To New Biofuels

Green tech companies worldwide received a record $8.4 billion in venture capital during the year, according to figures released Tuesday by the Cleantech Group consulting firm. That's a solid 38 percent increase from $6.1 billion in 2007.

But all that growth came in the first three quarters of last year. Spending fell 35 percent between the third and fourth quarters to hit $1.7 billion, the lowest quarterly total in more than a year.

Within alternative fuels, much of the attention has shifted away from first-generation biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. Instead, investors are focusing on algae and synthetic biology, tweaking the genes of microorganisms to make them produce fuel.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[TimNorman]

You can take wood chips heat them in a vacuum and suck off the bio-diesel. Then compress the leftover carbon into pellets and stick it down old coal mines.

[frantaylor]

By the time you are done heating and vacuuming you have consumed a lot of energy to accomplish something rather dubious.