Adding to the list of breweries going green, Anheuser-Busch today announced that one in seven of its beers made in the U.S. will be brewed using renewable fuel by the end of 2009. The nation's largest brewer is turning to a combination of clean technologies to brew renewably, including biogas from a local landfill, solar and BERS, a technology that turns brewing wastewater into fuel. Once these projects are complete, 10 of Anheuser's Busch's 12 U.S. breweries will be producing renewable fuel.

If craft beer is more your style, you needn't look any further than the über-green brewery Sierra Nevada. This company has it goin' on full-circle style and is aggressively working to achieve 100% energy self generation. Their impressive efforts include incorporating a one megawatt fuel cell system, recycling, heat recovery, CO2 recovery, energy efficiency, water conservation and byproduct recycling. What's more, they're cataloguing their carbon footprint with the California Climate Action Registry and offsetting the emissions associated with their purchased energy through PG&E's stringent ClimateSmart program.

I'll toast to that!

Hot on the heels of naming its 44 finalists last week, the California Clean Tech Open keeps the momentum alive with an Energy Efficiency symposium tonight at PG&E's own auditorium.

Beginning with opening remarks from California Public Utilities Commissioner Dian Grueneich and PG&E Director of Customer Energy Efficiency Roland Risser, the symposium hopes to draw together researchers and engineers, industry professionals, and entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs.

The topic du jour? Energy efficiency.

From companies like Power Assure, which claims their pending software can cut Data Center electricity bills by 50 per cent, to Serious Materials, which develops eco-friendly building materials -- CCTO finalists are bringing cutting edge energy efficiency technologies to the market. And, with a backdrop of skyrocketing energy prices, carbon consciousness and regulatory mandates, their timing couldn't be better.

Tonight's energy efficiency symposium will engage key players in this dialogue and also bring us one step closer to making the winner's technology a reality.

The Princeton Review's annual college guide is due out this week and will publish its first "green rating" for environmentally friendly schools. The Sunday New York Times carried a lengthy piece yesterday on green campuses in its Education Life section and got a peek at the top-ranked green schoools: Arizona State, Bates, Binghamton University, College of the Atlantic, Harvard, Emory, Georgia Institute of Technology, Yale, and the Universities of New Hampshire, Oregon and Washington.

Schools will get points for things like "environmentally prefereable food," renewable power sources and energy-efficient buildings, the Times says. A college's green image is important. A Princeton Review survey of 10,300 college applicants found that 63 percent said a school's commitment to the enviornment could affect their decision to go there.

Colleges are working to be carbon neutral, hiring sustainability coordinators and competing in buying clean power supplies. In an Environmental Protection Agency contest among athletic conferences, the Ivy League finished first with a combined 221.6 million kilowatt hours for the quarter ending in April.

Some skeptics, however, say schools are chasing headlines more than reducing greenhouse gas emissions:

"I don't think we really have the tools to quantifiably test who's doing the best and who's not," says David W. Oxtoby, president of Pomona College. "It becomes a publicity hype type of thing."

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week.

• San Francisco Chronicle covers how the global-warming West will continue to worsen as a hot bed for wildfires.
• Leaping off of Al Gore's suggestion, the Christian Science Monitor's bright green blog looks at where America's renewable energy would come from.
• Reuters reports on China's claim that its efforts to clear Beijing's skies are having an effect.
• The Baltimore Sun shines the light on renewable energy that's out of space.
• Like to walk? Treehugger shows you where not to live.

The Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) today announced its first annual "Top Ten Solar Electric Utilities" in the US. (Drum roll, please...)

You guessed it. PG&E received top rankings in the following categories:

• #1 for Solar Electric Capacity on the Customer Side of the Meter (MW) -- All Utilities and Investor-Owned Utilities
• #1 for Solar Electric Capacity per Customer on the Customer Side of the Meter (MW/customer) -- All Utilities and Investor-Owned Utilities
• #2 for Total Solar Electric Capacity (MW) -- All Utilities and Investor-Owned Utilities
• #3 for Total Solar Electric Capacity per customer (MW/customer) -- All Utilities and Investor-Owned Utilities

What do these categories all mean?

According to SEPA, the "customer side of the meter" refers to solar electric systems that are configured to first offset onsite consumption at retail rates, with any remaining excess exported to the distribution grid.

Conversely, the "utility side of the meter" refers to systems located on the utility side of the meter on either the distribution or transmission system, where utilities are the end purchasers of the solar electricity. Southern California Edison leads the pack in this category.

Not surprisingly, California utilities swept the race as early solar adopters. However, as CNET's Elsa Wenzel reports, others in the west, mid-west and mid-Atlantic regions are making their presence known.

Today, the Top Ten. Tomorrow, the Top Twenty.

The Plug-in 2008 conference officially opened today and hit the road running with a flood of electrifying announcements. A unifying focus was building the ecosystem necessary to ensure that when PHEVs begin to hit the market in the 2010 timeframe, they do so seamlessly and in a way that benefits consumers, the environment and the grid.

• GM was the belle of the ball with its joint EPRI announcement to work with 34 utilities, including yours truly, to accelerate the introduction of PHEVs. Click here for the Wall Street Journal's report.
• The City of San Jose is partnering with Coulomb Technologies to install electric charging stations in garages and on street lights. The Mercury News' Matt Nauman gives the download on the effort.
• eTec, a battery manufacturer, launched a program with the U.S. Department of Energy to research bi-directional fast-charging operations for PHEVs.
• Raser Technologies announced their plans to develop a 100 mpg plug-in hybrid light truck. PG&E will take delivery of one of the first vehicles for testing and demonstration within our fleet.

It's exciting to see these companies firing on all cylinders as the electricity and transportation sectors converge before our eyes. If you want to learn about how PG&E is prepping its grid for the future, check out Dow Jones' MarketWatch piece on creating a smarter, faster grid.

Expect a jolt of news about new plug-in hybrid cars this week from the Plug-In 2008 conference in San Jose. Some news broke early on Friday when Reuters, citing unnamed sources, reported that General Motors and the utilities group Electric Power Research Institute will announce at the conference a partnership to promote the sale of electric vehicles. Ford Motor announced a partnership with Palo Alto-based EPRI in March.

GM is developing the rechargeable Chevrolet Volt expected to enter production in 2010 with a range of 40 miles from a lithium-ion battery pack that could be charged from a standard power outlet. The Volt also will have a gasoline engine to recharge the batteries for longer distances, according to the report. Toyota and other automakers are expected to introduce plug-in hybrids in the next few years.

The automakers, electric utilities (including PG&E), battery-makers, business and environmental groups, engineers, scientists,market analysts, and more will be at Plug-In this week for a series of market and technical panels, including vehicle-to-grid technology. My colleague Jennifer Zerwer will be blogging here from the conference.

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week.

• Associated Press reports: Maryland touts the benefits of hybrid buses.
• Abengoa Solar to Feds: Extend the ITC for eight years, or the solar-thermal plant gets it. 
• PG&E CEO expresses concern about T. Boone's big plan to get the U.S. off oil.
• NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory features newly-launched Ocean Surface Topography Mission/Jason 2 that will provide a global view of Earth's sea surface height every 10 days.
• WSJ Environmental Capital reports on California's new green building code.
• Al Gore's call to action -- America's electricity must be 100% renewable in 10 years.

With medium- and heavy-duty cars representing the second-largest consumer of energy in the U.S. transportation sector (just behind light-duty vehicles but ahead of every other transportation mode), you can imagine NEXT100's delight in taking a tour of PG&E's clean fleet efforts in the East Bay. To our surprise, NEXT100 learned these medium-and heavy-duty alternative fuel vehicles do not just roll off the line; some assembly, which can take up to a year, is required.

First, a little background (and horn tootin')
PG&E has been exploring alternative fuel technologies for over 20 years for use in our 12,000 vehicle fleet. We own and operate the largest utility natural gas fleet in the country and have 39 natural gas stations throughout our service area, 27 of which are open to the public. In fact, we started our tour in Concord where we filled up our natural gas vehicle (NGV) at the first natural gas fueling station that opened west of the Mississippi in the early '90s.

While much of our day focused on our NGV efforts, PG&E's approach to alternative fuel is holistic and we look to explore a variety of clean transportation technologies, including hydrogen, hydrogen bridging technologies, PHEVs, natural gas and dedicated electric vehicles, among others. As we continue to green our fleet, we're looking at a blended technology portfolio where each application is matched with the appropriate technology.

Tracy, CA: Where PG&E CNG gas crew trucks are born.
It was hot and dusty out at the American Truck & Trailer Body Co. where they have been custom building PG&E's gas crew trucks for the past 35 years. We toured the production areas where the chassis, body, and NGV tanks that all arrive separately are integrated. Working with such companies provides us the control necessary to incorporate clean fuel technologies into vehicles that would be impossible to get otherwise.

Another highlight of this stop was seeing some of the innovative trucks in the works for other customers, including the incorporation of solar panels to power on-board tools.

Liquid Natural Gas Fueling 101
It may just be in another state, but fueling with liquid natural gas (LNG) is not the same as fueling with compressed natural gas (CNG). This NEXT100 blogger was quite impressed when we hit PG&E's LNG fueling station in Fremont. PG&E has five Class 8 heavy-duty LNG trucks in our fleet which fuel there. By using LNG, we're able to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15-20% over equivalent diesel engines and reduce fuel costs by 50%.

To begin with, LNG is kept at a frosty -260ºF in a thermos-like container. This means it's necessary to be clad in safety gear and pre-cool the fueling hose before you connect it to the truck. Once this is done and you've grounded the vehicle, you can pump away at a speedy rate of 80 gallons a minute. If LNG vehicles aren't used as frequently and the fuel is sitting in the tank, it's necessary to release the tank's pressure prior to fueling as that could drive up the temperature of the fuel and change its state.

As my colleague Len Anderson noted, the focus on alternative fuel options for medium- and heavy- duty applications is gaining speed. In fact, Terex Utilities will show its new plug-in hybrid bucket truck at next week's Plug-in 2008 conference in San Jose.

Deep ocean-floor drilling and experiments show that volcanic rocks off the West Coast and elsewhere might be used to store huge amounts of global-warming carbon dioxide captured from electric power plants and other sources, a group of scientists at Columbia University says. Chemical reactions under 30,000 square miles of ocean floor off California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia could lock in as much as 150 years of carbon dioxide production from the U.S., the scientists say. Their findings are published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Interest in storing the greenhouse gas is growing but no large-scale projects have emerged and other geological settings could be problematic. The oil industry has been pumping carbon dioxide into spaces left by old oil wells on a small scale, but some fear that these might eventually leak, sending the gas back into the air and possibly endangering people.

Lead author David Goldberg, a geophysicist at Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said the study is "the first good evidence that this kind of carbon burial is feasible."

"We are convinced that the sub-ocean floor is a significant part of the solution to the global climate problem," Goldberg said. "Basalt reservoirs are understudied. They are immense, accessible and well-sealed -- a huge prize in the search for viable options." A main advantage is a chemical process that takes place between basalt and pumped-in liquid carbon dioxide that would form a solid, nontoxic mineral. Basalt rock is formed by solidified lava.

Skeptics, however, point out that getting the carbon dioxide to undersea sites could be expensive and tricky. But Goldberg says the West Coast formations should be close enough to land for delivery by pipelines or tankers.

Today marks the beginning of Intersolar North America 2008 - the nation's largest trade event serving the complete solar energy supply chain. 

And with it, of course, a ton of major solar announcements to leverage the excitement around the event.  Below is a list of some announcements leading up to and during today's conference.

• Concentrated photovoltaic provider, GreenVolts, today announced that it is going to raise a series B funding round of a little less than $100 million.
• Ausra, a utility-scale solar technology provider and developer, announced that it was looking into selling its solar powered steam for oil recovery. 
• First Solar announced that it will build California's first thin-film photovoltaic solar power plant. 
• As reported by NEXT100's Len Anderson, SunPower announced that it was going to build a 25 megawatt photovoltaic solar plant, the nation's largest, for Florida Power and Light.

Stay tuned.  With three more days of Intersolar, there will no doubt be more to come.

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week.

• Treehugger tells us what Baja California is going to add itself to the list of worldwide solar production hotspots.
• Thin film gains speed.
• Rich, offshore wind resource areas are revealed.
• Conscious Consuming celebrates National Downshifting Week, an effort to get us Americans to slow down and green up.
• A big rubber snake made waves in the renewable energy industry.

The next time Stanford University hosts a Silicon Valley "energy summit," it may want to find a larger space than the Arrillaga Alumni Center - like the football stadium across the street. Some 400 people - corporate leaders, mayors, regulators, state energy commissioners, economists, engineers, professors, consultants, venture capitalists and newly-minted graduates looking for jobs - jammed the center today to get a sense of where "The New Energy Economy" may be headed. Put a bet on Energy Efficiency.

Professor Jim Sweeney, director of Stanford's Precourt Insitute for Energy Efficiency, set the tone at the outset this morning: "The next 20 years will be dominated by energy efficiency."

Morning keynoter CPUC Commissioner Dian Grueneich echoed the message, noting that the CPUC's strategic draft plan for energy efficiency will be issued on Monday. The plan lays out four initiatives to reach "zero net energy" goals for new construction of commercial buildings in California by 2030 and a similar result for new home construction by 2020. The plan also sets goals for heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems and measures to ensure low-income ratepayers get a piece of the energy efficiency pie. The next round of energy efficiency funding in California will run $3 billion in 2009-2011, she said.

The Efficiency ball kept on rolling through the morning. Bob Hines, vice president of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, a summit sponsor, retraced the group's steps in partnership with PG&E to develop and complete energy efficiency projects with the likes of companies like IBM, Yahoo and Cisco.

A separate panel walked us through the technical ins and outs of commercial building retrofits for high-efficiency chillers, cooling towers, exhaust relief fans, and high-efficiency transformers and flywheels. My head was spinning. But it stopped when panelist Mukesh Khatter, energy director at Oracle, said something very clear: Through energy efficiency programs, his company saved enough electricity to light up 1,700 homes.

Energy efficiency also headed PG&E CEO Peter Darbee's priorities. Energy efficiency "is our single most important opportunity...the 'first fuel' and among our most cost-effective solutions," he told the conference. "Our plan is to meet half of PG&E's aggregate demand growth in the next 10 years through efficiency savings."

Incentives are essential to promote energy efficiencies, Darbee said. "If we get the incentives right, utility energy efficiency programs can be a big part of the solution for California and the country."

Darbee also called for utilities to revitalize basic infrastructure and equip the power grid with smart technologies and smart meters; reduce the carbon intensity of power generation with the expansion of renewable power supplies; and set up a workable, market-based framework for greenhouse gas regulation. PG&E supports a cap-and-trade approach.

Bad news: Expect higher utility rates due mainly to rising fuel costs, hot demand in China and India for construction materials, more expensive renewable supplies, and big capital needs to fund infrastructure, Darbee said. Good news: Utility rates in California over the long term have risen less than the total increase in the consumer price index. And expected rate hikes in the state will be substantially below 20-30 percent increases forecast in other states. PG&E rates have been helped by lower prices for nuclear and hydro generation, hedging long-term power contracts, and efforts to reduce business costs.

SunPower Corp. said this morning it will build the largest solar photovoltaic power plant in the country for Florida Power & Light, a 25-megawatt plant in DeSoto County that will apply a tracking system tilting solar modules toward the sun as it moves across the sky. The plant will be completed in 2009, subject to approval by Florida regulators. Financial details were not disclosed.

SunPower, a subsidary of Cypress Semiconductor Corp., also said it will build a 10-MW PV power plant for the Florida utililty at the Kennedy Space Center, to be completed in 2010.

"These agreements confirm the growing trend in the U.S. to build solar power plants at a scale rivaling those in market-leading countries such as Germany and Spain," Howard Wenger, SunPower senior vice president, said.

Currently, the largest solar PV plant in North America is SunPower's 14-MW plant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

SunPower's stock rose by 15.1 percent on the news to $70.48 on Nasdaq.

How do you turn a mission into a movement? I'm not sure, but it includes a lot of meetings. And that's exactly what we've seen this week.

Beginning with the G8 Summit in Japan, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda announced at today's press conference that the G8 set a goal to slash global GHG emissions in half by 2050. Recognizing that cutting emissions globally will require a robust global market, G8 leaders indicated that they will remain committed to responsible macroeconomic management and structural reforms:

• expanding oil production
• further promoting energy conservation and alternative energy development, and
• improving market transparency through increased scrutiny by international institutions.

There's a start.

Back on the ranch, the UPI reports that a group of US Senators came together to turn the number one issue on the minds of Americans (i.e. $4.60/gal) into an energy plan that will be palatable for both sides of the aisle. Sick and tired of being blamed for gas pump pains felt across the country, the bipartisan group of Senators succomb to voter pressure and seek out a legislative solution.

Oil and renewables, Democrats and Republicans. Who knows? Maybe climate change will be the driving force behind the next generation of togetherness. Kumbaya.

Venture investments in "clean technology" companies reached a record $2 billion in the second quarter, paced by investments in solar technologies and second-generation biofuels, according to a report out today from Cleantech Group LLC. Investments jumped 58 percent from the second quarter last year and 48 percent from the first quarter this year. The previous record was the 2007 third quarter at $1.8 billion.

The latest quarter's growth in cleantech investments by venture capital firms, investment banks and other investors contrasts with a projected decline in overall venture investments during the same period, the company said.

Solar-thermal companies including eSolar, BrightSource Energy, SkyFuel, Infinia and Sopogy raised a total of $278 million in venture capital in the second quarter.

Second-generation biofuel companies such as Range Fuels, Sapphire Energy, EdeniQ, Mascoma, Aurora BioFuels, Gevo, Fulcrum Bioenergy, Greenline Industries, GreenFuel Technologies and Amyris Biotechnologies raised $280 million in venture investment in the period. Of the total, $136 million went to cellulosic ethanol startups and $84 million in algae biomass startups.

"For the first time, algae companies are attracting large, follow-on investment rounds--a trend we expect to continue into the second half of the year," said Brian Fan, senior director of research for the Cleantech Group. "This breakout quarter for solar thermal and algae companies indicates a growing appetite for clean technologies that can replace coal for electricity generation and oil for transportation fuels."

U.S. companies took 74 percent of the investments, Europe 13 percent, and China and India 12 percent. The leading venture investors were Kleiner Perkins Caulfied & Byers, Foundation Capital, Quercus Trust, Khosla Ventures, and Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

NEXT100 emerges from the July 4th haze with some smoke and mirrors; solar, that is.

Nikkei today reported that the next-generation Prius will be using Kyocera solar panels to power part of the car's two-to-five kilowatt air conditioning system.  The panels would be equipped to the automobile credited with making environmentally friendly transportation mainstream.

Some doubters quoted anonymously in a Reuters story see the panels as more of a symbolic gesture, saying that, "It's very difficult to power much more than that with solar energy."

However, a white paper highlighted by Earth2Tech claims that a solar-powered Prius could drive between five to eight miles on solar power.  The paper states that this would reduce gasoline consumption by 17-29 percent.    

US to Nevada: But, I thought you needed me -- my sprawling generation and transmission networks?

Nevada to US: Now, I have it all -- investment, economic development, clean energy. Really, it's not you, it's me.

US: Sigh.

And that is how Nevada declared it's energy independence...um, well, something like that.

The country's boom in solar has created a boon for Nevada and its wide, open spaces. In fact, CleanTechnica.com reports that solar projects totaling more than 10,000 MW (about 500 power plants) have land requests from the Bureau of Land Management in Southern Nevada, potentially promising more than $40 billion in investments to Nevada. With 10,000 MW of clean energy and $40 billion in investment, Nevada may just cede from the US grid.

Not only that, but Nevada can stimulate its economy with the green jobs that go along with such an influx of investment and solar projects. As factories open to produce the kind of giant mirrors and absorber tubes used in solar power plants, they employ factory workers. And, as more solar plants are constructed, more solar plant construction jobs are created. Strike two for the US energy industry.

So, who is enabling this sudden rash of independence? Companies like Ausra, which opened a solar thermal power factory just earlier this week in Las Vegas. I'll come back to that project in another post, but it is the biggest little plant of its kind in the world -- and no, not like Reno. Ausra and others in the solar industry are the ones tempting Nevada from the grid, with their jobs and their money and their clean, clean energy.

And, they lived happily ever after. The End.

The federal Bureau of Land Management has lifted a freeze on solar power project applications in six Western states and will accept new applications for solar development on public land. BLM ordered a freeze on new applications at the end of May while it would study the environmental, economic and social impacts of projects on land in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah.

"We heard the concerns expressed during the scoping period about waiting to consider new applications and we are taking action," James Caswell, BLM director, said in a statement on Wednesday.

The Solar Energy Industries Association welcomed the lifting of the moratorium, but Rhone Resch, president of the industry group, said: "BLM has only resolved half the problem. They have yet to approve a single solar energy project. Expediting the permitting process is the next step in developing solar energy projects on federal lands."

BLM has received about 130 applications for solar developments with a potential to power more than 20 million homes.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company is committed to developing more supplies of concentrated solar power, citing the technology's availability during high-demand hours, relative cost effectiveness, and capacity to meet power demands, the California utility told federal lawmakers today. 

Fong Wan, PG&E's Vice President of Energy Procurement, told the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that concentrated solar power (CSP) could, in theory, produce seven times the energy needed to serve California. Wan spoke at a committee field hearing on solar thermal power in Albuquerque, New Mexico. PG&E has four solar thermal supply contracts for more than 1,700 megawatts of power, enough capacity to meet almost 10 percent of the utility's peak summer needs.

A study prepared by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory suggests that costs for CSP technologies could decline significantly, from approximately 16 cents per kilowatt-hour on average today, to approximately 8 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2015, Wan said in prepared testimony. The reduction in seven years is premised on an assumption that at least 4,000 megawatts of CSP will be built by then - not just contracted for - to achieve learning curve benefits.

"Photovoltaic technologies are also making great progress for utility-scale applications and we hope to be in a position to announce contracts for utility-scale PV applications soon," Wan said. "But - given these advantages - it's reasonable to ask why the country is not seeing greater progress on renewables."

Wan identified ways for lawmakers to help advance thermal power technologies and the burgeoning renewable energy industry. Despite falling costs, CSP can't compete on price with electricity fueled by natural gas. "We are confident that will change as economies of scale are achieved. But in the interim, federal production and investment tax credits are absolutely essential for continued progress," he said. Wan urged the government to extend the credits and also remove the ITC exclusion for regulated utilities.

Siting and developing new transmission lines to carry power from remote locations to customers will also enable renewables to expand, Wan said. He noted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told the committee last month that the West alone will need 7,500 miles of new transmission lines over the next decade to expand renewable energy production. Wan also said integrating intermittent renewable resources into an overall supply is needed and one key is developing storage technology. He applauded Congress for including an energy storage R&D program in legislation last year.

"In this time of high energy prices, a weak economy, and heightened focus on security, the federal government is uniquely positioned to provide clarity of vision and foster stable growth in this critical sector of the energy market," Wan said.

You can read Fong Wan's testimony at:

http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fuseaction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_ID=a7228ca1-a50a-c91d-59d8-a682d15052ad

Here's a giggle for your day. The Onion, aka America's Finest News Source, is on the stands featuring its "Obligatory Green Issue" covering a wide range of news breaks somehow overlooked by our hometown San Francisco Chronicle and most other media outlets.

"Entertainment Scientists Warn Miley Cyrus Will Be Depleted By 2013. Unless Americans turn to alternative sources of entertainment, the 'Hannah Montana' star will soon be completely tapped out."

And this Onion exclusive just in from Berkeley: "Use of Organic Peanut Butter Adds Two Minutes To Local Man's Life." The Onion is a must-read.