It appears that Big Media is finally catching on to President Obama’s alternative-energy ruse, underscoring our ongoing argument that short-term profits in green energy are elusive at best.

President Obama’s new ruling that allows states to set higher emission standards than Washington could give false hope to investors looking to cash in on investments in hybrid and electric vehicles. New data points to a prolonged adoption of battery-powered, next-generation transportation as the recession and low gas prices continue to conspire against the feel-good alternatives.

Algae has great potential as an alternative and clean source of oil. Greg Gunner Guenthner we could see a powerful new energy industry emerging in the next few years. He says early investors could make huge profits with these three small cap companies developing the technology to extract fuel from algae.

On September 5th we reported that Silicon Valley, the major green booster, had retrenched by pulling out of long-term investments in alternative energy. Today, the other shoe dropped. The Cleantech Group in San Francisco reported that venture-capital investment in clean technology fell 35% in Q4 from the prior quarter, the steepest quarterly drop in two years.

Mother Nature has its own beating in store for already battered solar energy stocks. As if the plunging price of oil wasn’t enough to bring solar stocks to their knees, the new report by the United Nations shows how China’s toxic pollution may hinder the development of the country’s burgeoning solar industry.