Venture Capitalists Move From Web to Algae

One Seattle-based start-up, Prometheus Energy, attracted enough equity capital in the last three years to open a plant in Orange County in January that for the first time produces liquid natural gas commercially out of landfill methane gas that would otherwise waft greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Another venture capital favorite, Jadoo Power of Folsom, Calif., has already pioneered portable hydrogen fuel cell technology for remote satellite phones, critical emergency radio communications and police surveillance, and it is now working on cells for home use to free customers entirely of their utility bills.

“I can honestly say that for the first time in my life we are seeing the venture capital community put sizable amounts of money into energy,” Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman said in a speech in Houston last month. “This is real money. They are betting, if you will, that clean, safe, affordable energy represents the new innovation frontier.”

To this group add LiveFuels, with its improbable company jingle that goes “from pond to pump,” that could make investors a bundle and at the same time theoretically liberate the United States from its dependence on Middle East crude.

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