SJMerc: Venture funds flood clean tech

"Worldwide venture funding for clean technologies - solar energy, biofuels, advanced lighting and such - continues at a furious pace, according to a report being released today. And U.S. and California companies lead the way.
From April to June, venture investments around the globe in clean-tech reached $2 billion, an all-time record, said the study from the Cleantech Group, a San Francisco research and strategy firm. That's up 58 percent from the same period in 2007 and 48 percent from the first three months of 2008, said Brian Fan, the group's senior director of research.
"We continue to see clean-tech attracting strong and growing amounts of venture capital despite economic head winds, despite other aspects of the economy hitting rough patches," he said.
The report tracked 96 investments made in North America, Europe, Israel, China and India. Of that $2 billion, 74 percent went to U.S. companies, and $794 million of it went to California companies. Information about specific investments in Bay Area companies was not available.
The firm added Chinese and Indian clean-tech investments for the first time this quarter, Fan said, but also included previous investments over the last eight years in those nations to its statistical analyses.
Big gainers in the most recent quarter were companies building utility-scale solar power plants and those working on second-generation biofuels, which produce fuels not from ..."