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."

PG&E last week announced the winners of its 7th annual Richard A. Clarke environmental leadership award. The award recognizes employees for extraordinary commitment to the company's various environmental initiatives.

Perhaps the only thing more inspiring than the work of the Clarke Award winners is the breadth and depth of the finalist pool. Just to name a few:

Karalee Browne, Program Officer, was recognized for her leadership in advancing PG&E's Solar Schools Program. Karalee's leadership efforts demonstrate PG&E's continued support of renewable energy and environmental education.

Karen Guedmin, Building Superintendent, was recognized for her leadership in making the San Ramon Valley Conference Center one of PG&E's greenest facilities and a certified "green business" in Contra Costa County. The facility's advancements in waste reduction and water and energy conservation have demonstrated significant cost savings, while shrinking the center's carbon footprint.

The PG&E and Audubon Habitat Restoration Partnership Team was recognized for its leadership in the development of an innovative "restoration license agreement" to allow Audubon California to restore 30 acres of native habitat at PG&E's Pleasant Creek Underground Gas Storage Facility in Yolo County. The agreement is replicable and can serve as a model for future restoration projects on PG&E lands.

The Safe Harbor Tulare Team was recognized for creating PG&E's first Safe Harbor Agreement (SHA) with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The PG&E Tulare Safe Harbor Agreement is one of only five SHAs in California and thirty in the United States.

And, finally...(drum roll) ... this year's individual and team Clarke Awards go to:

Kadi Whiteside, Water Quality Supervisor, was recognized for her leadership in spearheading the development of new practices and techniques to protect water quality, plants and animals at construction sites. Her innovative designs and management practices have benefited both PG&E and the environment -- saving the company time and money on construction projects and reducing potential environrmental impacts.

The Change a Light Campaign Core Team was recognized for its leadership in implementing a campaign during October and November 2007 to encourage PG&E customers to buy and use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). The campaign helped save more than 400,000 megawatt-hours of electricity -- enough energy to power almost 60,000 homes for a year -- and avoid 200,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of taking 31,000 cars off the road for a year.

Full disclosure: I had the esteemed honor of being a member of the Change a Light team.

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.

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.

The long struggle to extend federal tax credits for the renewable energy industry resembled a season of The Perils of Pauline: By one count it took nine votes in Congress before the long-awaited investment and production credits finally passed last week as part of the $700 billion financial rescue package.

The solar industry won an eight-year extension of a 30 percent credit for residential and commercial solar power installations. One industry-sponsored study predicts that this credit will create more than 400,000 new jobs in the solar power industry.

The bill also extends production tax credits to the biomass, geothermal and marine (wave and tidal) energy industries for two years, and to the wind power industry for one year.

By spurring the development of renewable energy, the credits promise a win for the environment, a win for the increasingly depressed U. S. economy, a win for emerging industries, and a win for PG&E and other utilities that have contracted with renewable power companies to provide cleaner energy for their customers.

Since the start of 2007, PG&E has contracted for more than 2,600 megawatts of new renewable power. Many of those projects are still under development and count on tax credits as a condition of financing and development. Failure to renew the credits could have put them, and hundreds like them around the country, in jeopardy.

PG&E worked hard to help Congress understand the need to act, in partnership with organizations such as Alliance to Save Energy, Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Clean Energy Now, Edison Electric Institute, and Solar Energy Industry Association. PG&E chief executive Peter Darbee stressed the critical need for tax incentives in an address to the 2008 United Nations Investor Summit on Climate Risk and in a lead opinion column in the San Francisco Chronicle, among other places.

Extension of the tax credits removes the single biggest hurdle to the development of renewable power, but not the only one. As the California Public Utilities Commission (and many other parties) have noted, continuing challenges include the cost and delay in building transmission to serve new renewable power plants, developer inexperience, financing uncertainty, and site control and permitting.

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.

Tomorrow, San Francisco's new Academy of Sciences, one of the greenest museums in the world, will open its doors for the first time. After more than a decade of planning, the new building stands as an embodiment of the Academy's mission to explore, explain and protect the natural world. Expected to earn a LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the new Academy is topped with a 2.5-acre living roof and employs a wide range of energy-saving materials and technologies, as NEXT100 has reported.

In addition to the environmentally-responsible building, the Academy will unveil its climate change and sustainability exhibits, which take California as a case study to demonstrate the effects of global warming.

As part of PG&E's sponsorship with the Academy, all are welcome to visit tomorrow on us. They expect folks to begin lining up very early in the morning, so take public transportation and bring blankets and something to keep you entertained until the opening ceremony begins at 8:30 a.m.

Here's a sneak peak of the building and exhibits to hold you over until then:

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.).