Green Needs Green

Great piece in Slate which details the extent to which Green technology is inherently tied to investement.

...the future of the alternative-energy industry now depends far more on financial engineering than mechanical engineering. Clean-tech trade publications are filled with breathless coverage of new innovations: thin-film solar technology, advanced batteries, cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells. But money has never been harder to come by, thanks to the struggling capital markets. "The alternative-energy sector is flat on its back," says David Crane, CEO of giant energy producer NRG. "There's no debt financing available from Wall Street." The Cleantech Group reported that in the first quarter of 2009, total green-energy-venture investments fell 50 percent from the first quarter of last year.