From wind turbines to water purification systems, from solar panels to CO2 capture, suddenly, if you're an investor with money to burn, environmental technology has become the biggest game in town.

The problem: Venture capital firms and private equity shops are discovering that while dot-com startups are easily fashioned by mavericks and whiz kids, there are few rogue entrepreneurs with the chops to handle the complexities of environmental technology, much less to invent it.

The finance guys’ big problem, however, is a potential gold mine for academia.

Take Potentia, a green tech startup conceived by University of Michigan PhD students Tzeno Galchev ad Ruba Borno in conjunction with MBA student Rishiraj Das, and facilitated by Michigan's Zell-Lurie Institute of Entrepreneurial Studies.

The Institute was founded to introduce engineering students to new venture opportunities and help them bring their inventions to market. In addition to offering a business curriculum, it serves as an umbrella organization for grants and competitions for the benefit of new startups–such as last September’s, Clean Tech Forum for venture capitalists.

Potentia, which manufactures an environmental energy powered battery, was the runner-up in the center's 2008 Michigan Business Challenge. While still in the R&D phase, Potentia has already been in talks with potential investors.

"I would say that without getting the business background, it would have been fairly impossible to take an invention anywhere," Galchev said.

Michigan’s not alone. Top engineering programs such as those at Stanford, MIT, Georgia Tech, and U.C. Berkeley are designing business-oriented programs, institutes, and curricula to turn bookish engineers into savvy entrepreneurs.

According to Bill Aulet, who created and teaches MIT's 'Energy Ventures' class, the nature of alternative energy research poses unique challenges: green tech innovations require extensive resources, a long time horizon, and a formidable education in engineering, as well as business skills.

"There aren't nearly enough energy entrepreneurs out there," says Aulet, who has seen interest from VCs skyrocket in the last few years. "So what we had to do is start teaching entrepreneurship to engineers."

The shortage of mature green tech startups can be attributed to the suddenness of widespread interest. Investments in companies working on green technology in North America totaled almost $4 billion in 2007, according to the Cleantech Group. And 2008 is on track to yield five times what was invested in 2004.