Entries by Leonard Anderson

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

• A relatively clean-burning diesel Volkswagen Jetta TDI sedan won "Green Car of the Year" honors at the Los Angeles auto show, the first diesel-powered car to win the auto industry's highest environmental honor, Reuters reports.
• Retail king Wal-Mart will purchase electricity from a Duke Energy windpower project in Texas to light up 15 percent of its 360 stores in the Longhorn State, Wal-Mart's first direct purchase of windpower, says Green Tech Media.
• The Stata Center building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology captures runoff waste water from storms in a giant cistern and reuses it in toilets in the building, the New York Times Green Inc. blog reports from the Greenbuild conference in Boston.
• Air Canada flight attendant Marcelo da Luz last month set a Guinness World Record for distance travelled in a sun-powered car of 9,320 miles throughout Canada and Alaska. Now he's pointing his flying-saucer-looking vehicle south to Argentina to extend the record, Canada's Globe and Mail reports.

On February 12, 1990, Fortune published an article that heralded "Environmentalism: The New Crusade," and said: "It may be the biggest business issue of the 1990s." The magazine photographed the CEO of a gas and electric company to grace its front cover, thereby focusing keen attention on the growing environmental movement and smart companies eyeing new business opportunities.

The CEO was Richard A. Clarke, the head of PG&E and the business leader cited for the annual Richard A. Clarke Environmental Leadership Award, announced last week. PG&E developed the award in 2002 to honor employees who demonstrate a commitment to, and accomplishment in, environmental leadership. The late Mr. Clarke, who served as chairman and CEO from 1986 until his retirement in 1995, championed a variety of environmental initiatives at PG&E -- from energy conservation, to clean air programs, to natural resources stewardship.

PG&E got a bumpy start on the path to environmental leadership in the mid-1970s, Fortune reported. The Environmental Defense Fund fought PG&E's plans to build several coal and nuclear power plants and proposed smaller windmill and cogeneration plants and energy conservation. The utility eventually scrapped the plans for the plants and launched conservation efforts. Said an EDF attorney: "We spoke to them in their own language. We used their type of computer models, their financial analysis sheets. We weren't saying, do what's good for the environment and it will cripple you. We were saying, it will save you economically."

Fortune listed some of Clarke's guiding principles for pursuing a greener future: "Make environmental considerations and concerns part of any decision you make, right from the beginning. Don't think of it as some extra you throw in the pot." -- "Develop an internal cadre of environmentalists. They have minds of their own and will advocate things. They may not get everything they want, but there certainly are occasions when they prevail." -- "Have a continuing dialogue with environmental groups." -- "Put someone on your board to help you factor in environmental issues." -- "Do these things because they are the right thing to do, not because somebody forces you to do them."

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

• Environmentally-friendly shopping garnered attention at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, with start-ups pitching their companies to the venture capital crowd. The New York Times' Bits blog reports that an Internet start-up named GoodGuide rates more than 60,000 products on environmental, health and social impacts. The company's founder created the site when he learned his daughter's sunscreen contained carcinogenic chemicals. Bits also reports on a solar panel installation company and a video broadcast start-up.
• Green Wombat visited California start-up Cool Earth Solar for a Fortune Magazine story on a novel solar power technology to generate electricity from balloons. A single balloon of thin-film reflective plastic with a photovoltaic cell will generate one kilowatt of power. Put together 10,000 balloons and you can light up a town. Cool Earth is building a prototype plant and says a 1.5-megawatt plant will be built next year near Tracy, Calif.
• The U.S. military is marching ahead on the green energy front. My NEXT100 colleague Jonathan Marshall recently posted on the U.S. Army's energy efficiency and sustainable energy projects. Now Earth2Tech notes that the U.S. Navy has awarded a $3 million contract to Ocean Power Technologies to test the company's PowerBuoy system to generate electricity from ocean waves to power oceanic data and communication systems.

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

• Green pumpkins? Add Halloween to the greening of everything. The Baltimore Sun notes that a "Green Halloween" movement is spreading across the land promoting organic candy, fruit, other wholesome treats, and even costumes made of natural fiber. This Halloween vet, however, will stick with a traditional bowl of chewy gooey candy bars for the wee goblins tonight.
• More greening: The New York City Marathon this Sunday will add biodiesel generators to power official race clocks, loudspeakers, a medical tent and other fixtures at the race's finish line in Central Park. The generators, developed by the GreeNow company, run on 99 percent biodiesel made from U.S.-grown soy, according to The New York Times' City Room blog.
• Senators Obama and McCain are getting a lot of advice from scientists, The New York Times' Dot Earth blog reports. The American Association for the Advancement of Science and some 180 other organizations want the next president to appoint a White House science adviser with cabinet-level rank to provide scientific and technical advice on energy security, climate change and other issues. The groups grumbled that the Bush administration was slow to appoint a science adviser and didn't give the post cabinet rank.

The American Wind Energy Association yesterday reported that the U.S. wind industry is on track to install a record 7,500 megawatts of wind power this year, enough electricity to power about 2.2 million homes, but the industry group warned that 2009 will not be as strong.

Some highlights from AWEA's third quarter report:

• Texas added 693 MW in the third quarter -- the most of any state -- to boost its total capacity to 6 gigawatts, which pushes the state to the "global leaders" status behind only Germany, India and Spain.
• West Virginia showed the fastest wind power capacity growth in the third quarter, more than tripling existing capacity with a 164-MW project and another 100-MW facility expected to come on line by the end of the year.
• Utah added its first multi-turbine wind project, and in the Dakotas, wind turbine maker Acciona Energy brought its first U.S. turbines project on line straddling the North Dakota/South Dakota border.

Next year, however, won't be as productive, AWEA said. Because of the late one-year extension of the federal wind production tax credit in the bailout bill and the evolving financial crisis, new construction starts of wind farms will likely slow in 2009.

AWEA next year will push the new administration and Congress for a long-term extension of the wind production tax credit, a federal renewable energy standard, national climate-change legislation, and spending for new transmission capacity.

You can read the complete report at AWEA's Web site.

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

• Tesla To Delay New Car: The credit crisis has forced electric car developer Tesla Motors to delay its launch of a five-passenger battery-powered sedan and lay off a "modest" number of its 250 employees to save cash. Tesla, which sells the spiffy Roadster, faces stiff competition for electric cars with GM, Nissan, China's BYD Co. and possibly Chrysler, Reuters says.
• Pedaling For Progress In The Bailout: EnviroWonk reports the $700 billion bailout bill has a provision to allow bicycle commuters to get a $20 monthly credit for maintenance, repairs and purchasing, thanks to Oregon Congressman Earl Blumenauer, who bikes daily to his Washington office.
• What's Fresh Is Not The Only Factor: Environmentally conscious sushi lovers now can get a lot of information about sustainability of the seafood from three new pocket guides, says the New York Times' Dining & Wine page. The guides -- from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Environmental Defense Fund and the Blue Ocean Institute -- agree on which fish are sustainable but present the information in different ways.
• Another Reason For Bats To Like Halloween: The Reuters Environment blog notes that bats may get some help from the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, an unlikely group of conservationists, wind power companies and the federal government. They want to know if stopping spinning turbines during low wind conditions will reduce bat deaths at wind farms.

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

Investments in clean technology startups hit a record $2.6 billion in the third quarter, a 37 percent jump from the third quarter last year and a 17 percent hike over the second quarter this year, according to a report out this morning from the Cleantech Group. Total investments so far this year -- $6.6 billion -- are running ahead of $6 billion for all of 2007. California-based companies hauled in 42 percent of the investments.

Venture capital firms invested in 158 companies globally with a focus on three principal sectors -- smart power grids, algae companies, and solar power developers. Electric grid companies raised a record $202 million in the period, reflecting the growing move into plug-in electric vehicles by major automakers. Algae biofuel producers took in $95 million and solar power startups raised a record $620 million.

"Cleantech venture investing has continued to show strong growth despite the unprecedented turmoil in the credit markets during the quarter," said Michael Goguen, managing partner of Sequoia Capital and co-chair of Cleantech's advisory board. Cleantech is an investor group and market researcher.

Brian Fan, senior director of research for the Cleantech Group, said the third quarter "will probably be the high point for investment for at least several quarters," citing the current financial and economic troubles.

The five most active investors in the third quarter in the number of deals all have connections to Silicon Valley. RockPort Capital Partners topped the list with six deals, followed by Google Inc. with five, Advanced Technology Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers with four each, and Khosla Ventures with three.

Both Kleiner Perkins and Khosla Ventures have invested in Ausra Inc., a solar-thermal energy systems company which is developing a solar plant for PG&E in central California. Ausra announced today that it has secured $60.6 million in its latest preferred equity financing from a group led by KERN Partners of Calgary, Alberta.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is making another energy play, announcing on the weekend that his MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. will purchase about 10 percent of China's BYD Company Ltd., a maker of rechargeable batteries and automobiles, for $230 million. The move -- Buffett's first strategic investment in China -- follows MidAmerican's announcement earlier this month that it would acquire East Coast utility Constellation Energy Group Inc. for $4.7 billion. 

MidAmerican and BYD will work on new rechargeable battery technologies for vehicles and to store electricity from wind and solar power generation. "The rationale behind this investment is BYD's unique exposure to both lithium-ion batteries as well as its related hybrid electric vehicle business," Merrill Lynch analyst Daniel Kim told Bloomberg News. The "HEV market growth is exploding."

BYD aims to sell gasoline-electric hybrid cars in China later this year and to introduce hybrid vehicles in the U.S. and Europe in 2010. The Big Three U.S. automakers are scrambling to develop hybrids, and they got a boost on the weekend when the Senate approved a spending bill that included $7.5 billion to start a $25 billion low-interest loan program to retool old plants and help the industry develop new fuel-efficient vehicles. The House has already approved the bill.

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

• Sustainable is one of the top categories featured on NEXT100, so Andy Revkin's post on sustainable cities on his DotEarth blog seemed right for this week's roundup. Portland, Oregon, again topped a list of 50 U.S. cities compiled by SustainLane.com, a publisher that reviews things that are supposed to be good for you. The Rose City has topped the list for social and environmental sustainability since it began in 2005. San Francisco was No. 2 for the second consecutive year.
• Another piece on sustainability:environmental and aid groups are urging wealthy industrial countries to pay poorer nations to preserve their forests and jungles. Tropical forests absorb carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. Deforestration releases large volumes of CO2, threatening to cancel out emission reductions elsewhere. 
• A U.N. report this week -- "Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World" -- says more than 20 million jobs could be created as countries move toward new energy sectors, including wind, solar and geothermal power. Some 2.3 million people are now working in alternative energy jobs, with half in biofuels, according to the report.
• Shifting gears to plug-in vehicles, Montreal-based Dorel Industries is introducing a lithium-ion-battery-powered "e-bike" -- the Schwinn Tailwind. It claims to recharge the battery in only 30 minutes compared with four hours or more for a standard e-bike. The price: $3,200 (U.S.). 

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

• A $10,000 premium for the GM plug-in Chevy Volt's lithium-ion batteries probably means a long wait for affordable electric cars.
• Wanted: Wildlife Biologists. Solar energy developers are snapping up biologists to survey power plant sites in California (including a PG&E project) and the desert Southwest for protected species and to prepare habitat-protection plans.
• A rival for Cow-Power? Food giant Kraft has found a way to turn whey, a cheese byproduct, into biomethane gas to power dairy plants. Will this frighten Little Miss Muffet?
• While Google eyes wave-powered floating data centers on the high seas, San Francisco-based International Data Center plans to dock retrofitted data center ships at piers and take electricity from nearby utilities, reducing operating costs.

The U.S. is now the world leader in wind electricity generation with installed capacity of more than 20,000 megawatts, enough power to serve 5.3 million American homes, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today. The new capacity doubles the 10,000-MW mark reached in 2006.

U.S. capacity of 20,152 MW trails Germany's installed capacity of about 23,000 MW, but AWEA says the U.S. produces more electricity because of stronger winds. AWEA expects more than 7,500 MW of new wind capacity to be added in 2008, expanding the nation's wind power fleet by 45 percent and boosting total capacity to some 24,300 MW.

"Wind energy installations are well ahead of the curve for contributing 20 percent of the U.S. electric power supply by 2030," said AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher. But the likely expiration of the federal renewable production tax credit "threatens this spectacular progress," he said. The PTC is currently set to expire at the end of this year.

Swisher and other wind industry leaders hailed the 20,000 MW milestone in Minneapolis,  where the Republican National Convention is underway. Xcel Energy, which is  headquartered in Minneapolis, is the host utility for both the Republican convention and the Democratic National Convention held last week in Denver. Xcel is providing wind power from its system to power both events.

AWEA noted that although 20,000 MW is an important milestone, wind power provides just more than 1.5 percent of the nation's electricity, far below the potential identified by energy experts. The 20,000-plus MW can generate as much power as 28.7 million tons of coal or 90 million barrel of oil and displace 34 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to taking 5.8 million vehicles off the road.

Environmentally-friendly consumer goods are drawing attention from shoppers as more companies move into "green" retailing.

Auctioneer eBay announced today it's launching WorldofGood.com to offer "products that have a positive impact on people and the planet." It joins companies such as Nike, Safeway, Whole Foods Market and Clorox to pursue new sales opportunities. eBay's "socially responsible" goods will be verified by third parties "to meet a core set of ethical and environmental standards," the company says. Products include fair trade coffee, home decor items made from recycled materials, organic clothing and animal-friendly cosmetics.

"I believe we're at a tipping point in the green market," Marci Zaroff tells Reuters' Alexandria Sage today. Zaroff is president of clothing, home goods and spa line Under the Canopy, who first coined the phrase "ECOfashion."

Last week, the Magic Marketplace apparel trade show, the largest such show in the U.S., held its first-ever ECOllection in Las Vegas with some 70 exhibitors showing off eco-friendly wares.

The number of people interested in environmentally sound apparel has risen 300 percent since 2003, according to market research firm NPD Group. Meanwhile, the organic product market has grown from $11 billion to $30 billion in the past five years, Zaroff says. "In today's economy, people are looking for a reason to buy. It (the green movement) almost gives them a reason to buy."

Californians are familiar with innovative programs to tap new resources to produce renewable energy. PG&E, for example, is a leader in "cow power" -- producing renewable natural gas derived from cow manure at large dairy farms.

Now, a very different waste source is generating a novel biogas: tofu. Reuters reports today from Indonesia that tofu factory waste is being converted into energy.

"Indonesians in a central Java village are turning tofu factory waste into energy, reducing both air and water pollution and offering an alternative to fossil fuels. Soy-rich wastewater is left to ferment, and the biogas produced is used by two tofu factories and 20 households in the area," Reuters reports.

Rock 'n' roll legend Janis Joplin launched many outdoor concerts in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in the late '60s but her spirit may have felt a little lost this weekend at the three-day, 65-bands Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in GGP. Eco-Lands environmental exhibits? Solar and wind-powered cell phone charging? Carbon footprint calculator? Help! What gives?

Festivals are going green. Ditto for political conventions. The Democratic convention opening this morning in Denver is coloring itself green. The party aims to recycle or compost at least 85 percent of the convention waste and leave town with a carbon-neutral footprint. Republicans won't be outdone at their party next week. The GOP "is committed to making this year's nominating convention in Minneapolis-St. Paul the 'greenest' in party history." Eco-awareness is spreading.

Joel Selvin, senior pop music critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, noted the movement in his review today of the Outside Lands Festival:

"The technology exhibits proved surprisingly popular and the crowd easily adopted the three-way recycle/compost/landfill refuse collections that should now be standard for public events. For the young crowd that was the event's target audience, this kind of techno-eco-consciousness helped strengthen the subtext." Festival producers said 150,000 people attended over the weekend.

Corporate sponsors included AT&T, Visa, Dell and PG&E, and non-profit organizations set up tents to provide information on issues ranging from water conservation to voter registration to environmental education.

PG&E provided a range of energy technologies, services and information for the festival, among them the Outside Lands Solar Stage in partnership with Sustainable Waves, the Pop Up Cafe made entirely of materials reclaimed from the San Francisco dump, Smart Energy information, Carbon Footprint Calculators and the utility's ClimateSmart program.

The announcement today by American Electric Power and Duke Energy to build a $1 billion, 240-mile transmission line in Indiana points out the challenges to link new supplies of renewable energy with utility customer load.

The 765-kilovolt line proposed by AEP and Duke would connect AEP's Rockport Station east of Evansville, Ind., with Duke's Greentown Station near Kokomo, Ind. The line could tap more than 3,000 megawatts of wind power planned in central Indiana.

The proposed joint venture project faces a number of state and federal regulatory hurdles and would be completed at the earliest in 2014. Approvals would have to come from the Midwestern Independent System Operator and the PJM Interconnection. The JV also must file in Indiana to operate as a transmission utility and seek rate approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Utility customers would pay for the project in rates.

Overcoming regulatory hurdles for siting and developing new transmission lines for solar and wind energy in remote areas in the Midwest, California, desert Southwest, Texas and other states is critical for the development renewable enrgy supplies. We'll keep an eye on this latest proposal in the Hoosier State.

U.S. electric utilities are learning lessons from Germany to add more solar energy to their power supplies.

Twenty-three utilities recently took part in a fact-finding trip to Germany, the world's leading producer and installer of photovoltaic solar cells, reports Worldwatch Institute writer Ben Block. All of them may now advance solar projects in the U.S., a trip leader said, further expanding the growing solar market here. The visit was organized by the Solar Electric Power Association.

A feed-in tariff law requires German utilities to pay customers a fixed rate for renewable energy they feed into the grid such as solar power generated from rooftop photovoltaic panels. While the policy sets the cost of renewable energy higher than traditional energy sources, the price decreases over time. Mainly due to these fixed rates, Germany has nearly half the world's installed solar cell capacity, Block writes. About 1,300 megawatts of new PV capacity was installed in 2007, raising Germany's total to more than 3,830 MW.

"In a country where solar radiation is sub-par compared to many parts of the U.S., I have to hand it to the progressiveness and commitment (Germany) made to solar," said Roy Kuga, PG&E's Vice President of Energy Supply, who joined the trek to Germany. "Their technology advances will later help us."

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Electric utilities in North America are building infrastructure to support "smart grid" applications for plug-in electric vehicles and other energy features for residential, business and industrial customers. Jill Egbert, manager of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s Clean Air Transportation program, talked recently with "Living on Earth" radio program host Bruce Gellerman about the California utility's vision for a two-way power grid.

 You can download the audio version of the interview. | mp3 (4MB) |

Every week, about 300 Public Radio stations broadcast Living on Earth's news, features, interviews and commentary on a broad range of ecological issues.

It's 11 o'clock in the morning and the kitchen staff is busy baking pizzas, cooking batches of french fries, and warming golden macaroni and cheese. This kitchen in the San Francisco Bay Area suburb of San Ramon, however, won't be rushing platters of food out to the dining room. There is no dining room. The kitchen behind the doors of a nondescript office building tests the energy efficiency and performance of equipment used in commercial kitchens, and business is booming as the restaurant industry scrambles to put a dent in rising energy costs, which run from 3 percent to 8 percent of annual restaurant costs. 

This is the 21-year-old Food Service Technology Center, funded by California utility customers and operated under contract to PG&E by Fisher-Nickel Inc. The other utilities in the program are Southern Califiornia Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Gas Co.

"The interest in green buildings and energy efficiencies is increasing. In the last year we have seen an explosion of interest. The lab is running full out testing appliances and it seems we're on the road every week speaking at industry seminars," Richard Young, a center staffer, told NEXT100. Young handles education and outreach, efficient building technologies, and rapid cook ovens.

The center develops standard testing methods for food service equipment for the American Society of Testing Materials. The center's first test procedures were developed for griddles and broilers and it has expanded to include braising pans, fryers, ovens, pasta cookers, ranges, steam kettles, steamers, and warewashers, among other kitchen gear. It also offers a lot of information about product rebates, Energy Star commercial food equipment, energy tips and much more.

On a tour last week of the 9,000-square foot center, the kitchen was putting a variety of manufacturers' equipment through their paces. A "holding warmer" was undergoing a 3-hour test of mac&cheese for the retail Target chain, while a few feet away a white-coated lab tester was busy slipping baskets of frozen french fries into a deep fryer hooked up to a nearby computer. At another station, a steam cooker was testing with green peas, and a lab attendant nearby was busy sprinkling cheese over pizza dough and sliding the pies into test combination ovens. Also in the lab were a large rack oven and a new self-cleaning rotisserie awaiting tests for the Safeway supermarket chain.

The center was also working with new low-flow pre-rinse spray nozzles for dishwashers, efficient gas-saving water heaters (save up to 300 thems a year), refrigerators, ice machines, lighting systems, and big kitchen exhaust and ventilation hoods. A Melink ventilation control system can save commercial kitchens from about $9,000 to $19,000 in total yearly opertaing costs with a pay-back period of about 1 to 2-1/2 years.

The commercial food industry is moving toward greener settings with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System for design, construction and operation of green buildings. The test lab has been invited by LEED to help them develop the criteria for commercial food services that may be included in new retail construction. The criteria will likely be available by the end of summer.  

Fuel efficient, clean energy cars and trucks were front and center in Washington D.C. last week with a hearing at the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment on hybrid technologies for trucks and a conference at the Brookings Institution pondering federal policies to promote plug-in electric cars. To learn more about hybrid vehicles NEXT100 visited PG&E's sprawling service yard on Harrison Street in San Francisco's Mission District to look over a new heavy duty diesel-electric hybrid bucket truck.

First, some background: For most repairs on overhead wires, transformers and other energy gear attached to power poles, the utility industry standard is to dispatch large diesel-powered bucket trucks. These trucks often must idle for long periods of time to complete the repairs, burning up fuel at a rate of about one gallon of diesel per hour of idle time. The idling engine is needed to power a hydraulic arm and maneuver the bucket hoist servicemen who make the repairs. 

Last year, PG&E was one of 14 utilities in North America to deploy diesel-electric hybrid bucket trucks developed by International Truck and Engine Corp. and Eaton Corp. for field tests to be measured against a conventional diesel truck. The benefits jump out: preliminary results indicate that the hybrid trucks cut fuel consumption by 40 to 60 percent and slash emissions by 50-90 percent by operating the bucket in battery-only mode without the engine running. With a hybrid, a truck's diesel engine may run only about one hour during eight hours of overhead work. Another plus: the trucks can generate 25 kilowatts of standby electricity, enough to power several homes and traffic lights while service is being restored.

PG&E has also acquired two Peterbilt diesel-electric hybrid trucks for its fleet designed specifically for work on live overhead wires in the electric distribution system, and Lineman Rob Galligani showed off one for us on Friday at the Harrison yard.

Galligani, harnessed and snapped inside the bucket, takes the controls and, tapping lithium ion battery power, rides the bucket atop the truck's hydraulic Terex boom to a height of about 50-55 feet before the diesel motor starts up to boost the batteries. Suddenly we can't hear Galligani well because the diesel motor is making loud growling noises along with some nasty fumes.

"With the batteries on, it's a lot easier to talk back and forth," Galligani shouts down; minutes later, the batteries kick in again and we're able to lower our voices. "This is a big safety feature for communicating between the bucket and a crew below on the street," he says, especially on the busy and crowded streets of San Francisco where traffic noise can drown out conversation. Also, repairs needed during nighttime hours can be made without keeping the neighborhood awake.The diesel-electric hybrid also drives down maintenance costs due to reduced engine use.

New hybrid utility bucket trucks offer environmental benefits and reduced fuel and maintenance costs, but vehicle costs can run 50 percent more than a conventional bucket truck.

At the House subcommittee hearing last week, Jill Egbert, manager of Clean Air Transportation at PG&E, said "in order to accelerate the procurement of hybrid trucks into utility fleets, we believe some financial incentives will be needed in either the form of grants or tax credits...At a time of historically high diesel prices, increasing concern over climate change and energy security, the time is right to accelerate the research and deployment of hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric truck technologies."

Small restaurants are taking steps to install energy-saving equipment to reduce operating costs, yet another sign that green business is expanding into more sectors. The San Francisco Chronicle today looks at mom-and-pop eateries in the Bay Area that may not be able to put a full organic menu on the table but can do some other things to put out an  environmentally friendly welcome mat.

Tin's Tea House Lounge in Walnut Creek, for example, replaced Styrofoam takeout containers with biodegradable ones made of cornstarch, installed low-flow nozzles and faucets in the kitchen, and got utility rebates to switch to energy-efficient chandeliers for just $200. The lowered energy bill and other measures will save about $4,500 each year.

"The steps that are the most financially viable are lighting, changing the gaskets in refrigerators, and installing strip curtains (to save energy) in walk-in refrigerators," says Suparna Vashisht of Thimmakka, a Berkeley nonprofit that has helped more than 125 restaurants including Tin's Tea House figure out how to be greener, the Chronicle says.

Bianco's Deli in El Sobrante places empty pickle barrels at workstations for compostable food waste, reducing trash sent to a landfill from four large bins each week to less than two.

Food-to-compost is growing in the Bay Area. Sunset Scavenger Co. and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Co. launched the first urban collection of food waste in the nation in 1996 and is now collecting 300 tons of scraps a day from 2,100 restaurants in San Francisco, Robert Reed, a spokesman for the companies, told NEXT100. They also collect food waste from 80,000 homes in the city. The waste is processed into fertilizer and marketed to some 200 vineyards in northern California. 

Seattle, Portland, Denver, and St. Paul, Minn., are collecting food scraps and New York City and Dallas also are looking at the program, Reed said.

Here at PG&E, our Food Service Technology Center offers a range of services including test reports on kitchen equipment, advice on cutting energy use and costs, commercial kitchen seminars, and design consultation.

Did you know that SunPower CEO Tom Werner is a "fanatic" about packing his groceries in reusable bags? And Arch Coal boss Steve Leer is thinking about getting a Volt, the battery-powered car in the works at GM?

Top executives at Reuters' Global Energy Summit this week were asked what they were doing to reduce their personal "carbon footprints."

You can read their answers at the CEO list compiled by reporter Nichola Groom. (Full disclosure: Groom is a former colleague covering renewable energy.)

This just in from the sports desk: Major League Baseball is going green in more parks around the American and National leagues, reports Craig Rubens at earth2tech. That's good news for this fan because I'm not getting much happiness from my struggling San Francisco Giants, nine games out of first place this morning and heading for a sub-.500 season.

Rubens has put together an informative roundup of baseball parks adding solar systems to light up scoreboards and even heat up water at Boston's ancient Fenway Park. San Francisco's cozy AT&T Park on the waterfront gets a mention for its organic hot dogs and solar panels, the latter installed by PG&E.

We can expect more clubs to embrace solar and other environmentally friendly features as new baseball parks are built. We profiled the Washington Nationals' new green stadium at the opening of this season, and next season we'll see two new yards in New York -- a new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and a new park for the Mets in Queens. We can also look for more developments like the Philadelphia Phillies' investment in renewable energy certificates reported in April by my colleague Keely Wachs.

NPR caught my ear this morning with an interview with reporter Kate Golden at The Juneau Empire in Alaska's capital. Juneau residents and the city have launched an aggressive effort to save energy in the wake of an avalanche in April that toppled the transmission grid linking the city to a hydroelectric dam 40 miles away.

 | Listen Now | 4min 30sec | NPR, Morning Edition |

Diesel generators are running to keep the lights on but energy bills will soar on higher fuel costs while repairs are made over an expected three months. So the people of Juneau responded quickly to an urgent financial signal and discovered conservation in a big way:  there was a run on clothespins to hang out the wash to dry, energy-efficient light bulbs sold out, stores and offices dimmed the lights, TVs went dark, and families dined by candlelight. The result: electrical usage plummeted as much as 30 percent within a week of the avalanche.

"Turn off, turn down, unplug," said Sarah Lewis, chairwoman of the Juneau Commission on Sustainability. "That's what everyone is doing and being vigilant about and commenting when others are not."

The city of Juneau is helping low-income residents with energy costs and the governor has declared an "economic injury" which could bring in funds from the federal Small Business Administration. And the repairs may go faster than expected: reporter Golden told NPR the first transmission tower was likely to go up this afternoon.

Restaurants are going green. The National Restaurant Association's annual convention  gets underway Saturday in Chicago and the agenda is big on green, with "education" sessions like "Food with Integrity: Creating a Sustainable Food Supply," "5 Things Operators Must Know About Energy Efficiency," and "Marketing to Conserving Customers: A Guide to Operating Green with a Triple Bottom Line."

The NRA aims to encourage owners of the nation's 945,000 restaurants to adopt environmentally friendly business-wise practices to save energy and water and reduce utility costs, satisfy consumer demand, and reduce waste.

A USA Today story on Friday reports that former media tycoon Ted Turner is taking his Ted's Montana Grills casual dining restaurants down the green road, adding things like straws made from biodegradable paper, menus printed on 100 percent recycled paper, and cups made from cornstarch.

"Imagine the implications for global warming if we get the whole restaurant industry to go green," Turner said.

Here's some useful industry information from PG&E's Food Service Technology Center, cited in the USA Today story: Restaurants are the retail world's largest energy user. They use almost five times more energy per square foot than any other type of commercial building. Nearly 80 percent of the $10 billion that the commercial food service spends annually for its energy use is lost in inefficient food cooking, holding and storage. The average restaurant annually consumes roughly 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity, 20,000 therms of natural gas and 800,000 gallons of water. Using EPA carbon equivalents, that amounts to 490 tons of carbon dioxide produced per year per restaurant.

Here in the Bay Area, you can find "green" restaurants and cafés certified in nine counties by the Bay Area Green Business Program. There's even a green-certified saloon in San Francisco - the Elixir - which specializes in organic cocktails.