As I write this, the average price of a gallon of gas in the US is under $2/gallon (although you wouldn’t know it around here).

That’s a 3-year low – less than half the price it was just 5 months ago, and even less expensive than during some periods of 2004!

The skyrocketing cost of gas this summer dug the grassroots of conversationalists down deep, past radical environmentalists, crunchies, long-range commuters, encouraging celebrities, the stingy, run-of-the-mill thoughtful people and deep into upper-middle-class territory (even my Darien Real Estate agent drives a Hybrid Lexus).

It absolutely fueled Obama’s election win (how appealing was McCain’s ‘multibillion-dollar tax cut for oil companies?’), and spurred a great deal of interest and investment into ‘green power’ technologies.

So what happens now? OK, we are in a depression/recession (I like to call it a repression), and money is still tight so gas conservation is still going to be popular for across-the-board budget reasons. Green power is still a high agenda item as well thanks to global warming, inertia, and wont-get-fooled-again mentality.

Regardless, low gas prices are bad for green power, because low gas prices puts excruciating price pressure on green power prices which already operate at razor-thin margins (or less).

Hybrid cost-of-ownership is still higher than comparable gas vehicles, and people who live in our neck of the woods can’t make solar panels pay for themselves on most contractor’s back-of-envelope calculation.

So, while investment dollars have disappeared, probably nowhere is this going to be more felt than in green technology investment. Green power is risky business regardless, but investors sure liked seeing the trend.

Now the viability, much less profitability, of certain Green business endeavors seem unclear – but what’s worse is that future rising gas prices will always loom large with the threat of a massive deflating price cut if oil feels threatened.

Not a comforting economic environment for green investors.