Green Tech Could Get Economy High, With a Little Help From the Feds | Wired Science from Wired.com

Venture capitalists invested $8.4 billion in green tech last year, according to a new report from the analysts at Cleantech Group, but there are signs of trouble on the horizon. Investments in the fourth quarter were down 35 percent to $1.7 billion from the third quarter's record high, which looks like a sign that lower energy prices are scrambling the economics that green tech companies were banking on.

If that's true, it raises a major question for advocates of clean energy: Who is going to pay for all the research and development that most say is necessary to create an economy that uses less fossil fuel, which currently meets 87 percent of our energy needs?

The answer, analysts say, is government funding — and taxing the carbon dioxide emitted when fossil fuel is burned, to make renewable energy more competitive.

Green Tech Could Get Economy High, With a Little Help From the Feds | Wired Science from Wired.com