The following is Part 2 of my five-part series on the roles of angel investors and venture capital investors in emerging technology sectors with explosive upside potential, such as the nanotech, cleantech, biotech, information technology and new media sectors.

In good times, it’s natural to seek investments that will grow the fastest. Conversely, tough times like these bring out investors’ impulse to flee to the safest bets. The trouble is, nothing is 100 percent safe under all circumstances. And even pinpointing the highest percentage investments can be a chore when the economy is apparently shrinking and credit markets are still recovering from their deepest freeze in decades.

Look for buying opportunities as the markets stutter, and don't sweat the spate of capital raises among master limited partnerships.

Cost and time remain major deterrents to would-be builders of nuclear plants. Two things, however, have changed dramatically to make the economics actually worthwhile, at least for a handful of players.

There continue to be signs of green shoots sprouting in the economy.

Before last year’s financial meltdown, China had already replaced the US as the world’s leading consumer of steel, copper and several other major commodities. At the beginning of the decade, for example, the US economy accounted for 25 percent of global demand for the red metal, while China consumed roughly 12 percent. By mid-2008, however, it was China consuming 27 percent, the US only around 12 percent.

Since the S&P 500, the S&P/TSX Composite Index and the S&P/TSX Income Trust Index bottomed on March 9, the two Canadian indexes have correlated more with the MSCI Asia All Country ex-Japan Index. In other words, Canada’s stocks have become more and more levered to the global economy, including areas in Asia where signs of economic recovery are easier to see.

Change is on the way. Hawaii is launching what it calls an “energy sovereignty plan,” under which it hopes to wean itself off at least most of its foreign oil needs. In a partnership with the US Dept of Energy, the goal is to obtain 70 percent of the state’s electricity from “clean energy” by 2030. That’s 40 percent renewable energy and 30 percent from energy efficiency measures that reduce demand.

The 170 billion barrels of recoverable reserves can help mitigate North American concerns about global security without causing extreme planetary degradation. The key is for US and Canadian policymakers to coordinate climate policy, combining efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, for example, by at least linking their respective cap-and-trade proposals that are almost sure to be enacted within the next 12 months.

There are still plenty of ways to score outsized returns and high yields from income-producing stocks, even at higher tax rates. For one thing, we’re coming off a very low point here in the markets. Despite the sharp rally from the March 9 lows, even financially secure companies that are consistently raising dividends and operating in recession-resistant industries are yielding in the upper single-digits.