Soaring oil prices have led to such a boom for solar power that the industry could operate without subsidies in just a few years.

According to The Guardian newspaper, there’s growing confidence that so-called “grid parity”, the holy grail of the industry — whereby solar power can be produced as cheaply as it bought from the grid — is close at hand.

“The [US]  government recently incentivized production of ethanol, biofuel, and solar technology,” says Charles Delvalle in Investor’s Daily Edge.

Has there been a better time to consider alternative energy investments? Today, crude oil prices jumped $6 to reach $134 after the Israeli transport minister said an attack on Iranian nuclear sites looked “unavoidable.”

Thomson Reuters reports that, according to the National Venture Capital Association, the alternative energy investments sector boasts the highest growth in venture capital investments in the last five years.

Big bucks are also flowing in from US pension funds into an array of alternative energy investments, stoking concerns of a possible bubble.