For many a post, I've said the U.S. government needs to get into the Venture Capital game, especially for key advanced sectors critical to the national interest. Well, read this Wall Street Journal piece to get a warm fuzzy that someone, somewhere, is doing something right.

The DOE hopes to lend or give out more than $40 billion to businesses working on "clean technology," everything from electric cars and novel batteries to wind turbines and solar panels. In the first nine months of 2009, the DOE doled out $13 billion in loans and grants to such firms. By contrast, venture-capital firms -- which have long been the chief funders of fledgling tech firms, taking equity stakes in the start-ups that will pay off if they go public -- poured just $2.68 billion into the sector in that time, according to data tracker Cleantech Group.