Okay, so the blog post title is a little tongue-in-cheek, but the ICR Clean Technology Team is happy to see that the New York Times is also bullish about the potential for geothermal energy to supply the U.S. with clean and reliable baseload power. An editorial piece on the topic yesterday concluded with “Mindful of the dangers, the next administration should commit to developing this extraordinary resource.”

The CleanTech Group announced this week its preliminary 2008 findings for clean technology venture investments in North America, Europe, China and India. According to the report, VC investments totaled a record $8.4 billion in 2008, up 38% from $6.1 billion in 2007. Solar investments dwarfed other sectors, accounting for 40% of the total at $3.3 billion, with biofuels coming in second at $904 million, or 11%. Some reporting on this data focused on the fact that Q4 saw a 34% decrease from Q3, but that is only down 4% compared to Q4 2007, so I’m focusing on the $2.3 billion increase for the year.

So as we start the year amid this economic turmoil while at the same time ushering in a green-friendly Obama administration, it will be interesting to see if clean tech VC will have a similar jump in 2009…and it will be nice if our 401(k)’s did as well!

Happy New Year!

2009 is getting off to a clean start in NY State