Posted on behalf of Anna Petherick

And now for something you may not see again for a long time: some cheery financial news.

Cash is flowing into spritely clean technology companies like never before, according to a new report by Greentech Media, which has been reported on the outlet’s website and circulated on Businesswire. It claims that venture capitalists backed green firms with $2.8 billion during the third quarter, clobbering the record they set last quarter ($1.3 billion). Three quarters of the way through 2008 the year’s total investment in the sector is 49.7% more than the end of year total for 2007.

That’s a lot of wonga, and most of it has been ploughed into firms inventing and producing new solar kit. But surely the sun will pass behind a cloud soon?

Another third-quarter report, this time by Dow Jones VentureSource, says that money in Palo Alto and its Californian environs is drying up as markets around the world plummet.

Technology firms of all stripes generated two-thirds less for their venture capitalist funders during the third quarter than during the same period last year. 2008 is likely to be the worst year on record for the venture capital industry in the United States, says VentureSource’s head of global research, Jessica Canning, in a press release reported by the Silicon Valley/ San Jose Business Journal, as taking companies public on nose-diving markets gets tougher and tougher.