Lighting the Way

It's no secret that the big-money venture capital crowd is in love with solar power... and its obsession with biofuels is almost as pronounced. But you can you name the third largest alternative energy sector (by capital investment)? Lighting.

The San Jose Mercury News cites a CleanTech Group survey that claims $100 million in venture capital investments in lighting technologies in the first quarter of 2008 alone.

One investor quoted in the piece notes, "The way we light things today uses 25 percent of our energy in the United States."

As support for doing away with incandescent bulbs continues to gain momentum, CFL's have grown in popularity, but advances in LED's look like the future.

Venture capitalists go toward the light [San Jose Mercury News]