August 17, 2009

If you're looking to bankroll a green-business revolution, boring old banks and the government are looking just as effective as flashy venture capitalists. Tech investors from Silicon Valley to Shanghai are betting billions of dollars on breakthrough green technologies, with many hoping to repeat the success of Google or Amazon in the energy industry.

It's a shift that has helped create the buzz around clean energy among entrepreneurs, politicians, and in industry. But despite a lot of attention on high-risk ventures, experts say the financing engine for the clean-energy economy needs to be a hybrid, drawing on both venture capital and on more staid funding sources, many of which are hamstrung by the global capital crunch.