Back around 2008-2012, investors were dumping massive amounts of money into cleantech. It's interesting to see how much the definition of what "cleantech" is, h

Back around 2008-2012, investors were dumping massive amounts of money into cleantech. It's interesting to see how much the definition of what "cleantech" is, has changed since then. Back then it was solar, energy storage, hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels. They found out that basic science and material research are extremely difficult, involve a ton of failures and don't really fit the 10-year payback timeline that VCs expect. (The odd man out here is fusion research, which is currently hot but definitely not possible in 10 years.) Now cleantech VC is all about eliminating waste and finding efficiencies in existing industries. I guess that's a good thing, it's low hanging fruit that's un-sexy enough that most investors ignored it in Cleantech Hype 1.0. But I do wonder who, exactly, is now funding the stuff that burnt VCs the first time around.