BERKELEY, Calif. — To halt climate change, the world desperately needs advances in clean energy. But in recent years, Silicon Valley, the nation’s engine for technical innovation, has turned its back on investments in the field.
Now, even as the world grows hotter, young scientists with fresh ideas about energy technology are finding it increasingly difficult to find venture capital to get them off the ground.
“The V.C. model isn’t working,” said Horst Simon, the deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
