With the price of crude oil all but assured of topping $100 a barrel after a quick succession of all-time highs, the future of alternative energy has never looked better.



As Wired reported in "Why $5 Gas is Good For America," the higher crude prices climb, the more attractive – and viable – emerging technologies like biofuel, hydrogen and plug-in hybrids become. It also bodes well for other forms of fossil fuels, such as methane hydrates and oil shale, once thought too expensive to develop.

Oil hit a record $96.24 yesterday before settling at $93.49. It's gained $2 today to top $95. Even if the Russians are right in predicting oil won't top $100 before the end of the year, analysts warn the price could keep climbing. No less an authority than the energy minister of Oman said OPEC can't raise production to meet demand.

Cheap oil has historically undermined large-scale investment in alternative energies because the cost of developing them exceeded the profit potential. But as the price of crude has climbed, so too has the incentive – and the capital – to find alternatives.

Venture capitalists invested $2.4 billion in green-energy companies last year, three times what was spent in 2005. As Wired's Mathew Honan pointed out last month in "The Great Green Boom," a huge chunk of that money is being spent in Silicon Valley.

Stock in companies specializing in clean energy are up an average of 18 to 27 percent worldwide since August, Reuters reports. Solar stocks, for example, have climbed 49.9 percent since the latest surge in oil prices began in August, and they're up 125 percent for the year, according to New Energy Finance. Although biofuel stocks have dropped more than 15 percent this year, they've gained 3.7 percent since late August.

Market analysts warn that it's tough to make a definite link between rising oil prices and rising investment in alternatives, and some argue it isn't rising oil prices but mounting government support that's driving the push for greener energy. But many agree that sustained oil prices should bring greater support for finding alternatives.