US threatens to take Europe’s ‘clean’ lead

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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/de411bb0-c863-11dc-94a6-0000779fd2ac.html

US threatens to take Europe’s ‘clean’ lead

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Published: January 21 2008 21:13 | Last updated: January 21 2008 21:13

A US investment boom in alternative energy and other new “clean” technologies is threatening to put Europe in the shade in a field it has traditionally dominated.

The wave of money could hand the US a lead in environmentally important technologies, as some of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists scour European universities and research institutions for the next big ideas in fields from solar power to waste management.

“Europe is like a rich vein of unmined stuff that hasn’t been put into the world, even given the emphasis on ‘green’ in Europe,” said Bill Joy, a founder of Sun Microsystems and now a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has led the charge by US tech financiers into the area.

European investment in clean technology companies last year was only a third of the $3.7bn ploughed into the field in the US, according to Cleantech Group, a specialist US research firm. That is a big swing from two years before, when Europe mustered nearly two-thirds as much investment as the US.

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