The 53rd annual San Francisco auto show rolled into the city by the bay this week featuring a spectacular array of vehicles designed to thrill the imagination of young and old. A special feature of this year’s show is the debut of several all-electric, hybrid and alternative fuel autos that have already begun to roll off the assembly line. As a green journalist, I had looked forward
Will the political change in Washington spell doom for meaningful progress in clean tech? That’s the question being asked by many since the mid-term election swept a Republican majority into power in the House of Representatives. With deficit reduction as the rallying cry of the legions that have taken half of Capitol Hill, the survival prospects for clean energy legislation
Google has announced that it has signed an agreement to invest in the development of a backbone wind energy transmission project off the Mid-Atlantic coast.
Dubbed the Atlantic Wind Connection (AWC), the project will utilize a 350-mile span of the U.S. Atlantic coastline to install wind turbines 10 to 15 miles offshore. With a
In the wake of the dissolution of the Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) from the energy bill currently wheezing through the Congress, came a report that wind power installations in the U.S to date this year have dropped by 71% from last year’s level.
According to the latest quarterly report
Shai Agassi is not merely a prophet for the electric car industry. When the CEO and founder of Better Place describes the development of an ecosystem for the EV, he turns skeptics into believers.
Listening to Mr. Agassi speak in Santa Clara at an event sponsored by The Churchill Club, I was struck by his passion – his belief
Sustainable fuel manufacturer Zea Chem has announced that it has succeeded in producing biomass-derived ethanol at a capacity that can be scaled to commercial production.
In a statement from the company’s headquarters, Zea Chem described the completion of a suite of products including biorefined cellulosic ethanol. “The next step is to integrate these known processes to achieve the ultimate target of commercial production of economical and sustainable biofuels and bio-based chemicals,” said CEO Jim Imbler.
President Obama took the occasion of Independence Day to announce that the federal government will authorize $2 billion of Recovery Act funding to support the solar industry. Administered by the Department of Energy, the funds will target two companies: Abengoa Solar and Abound Solar Manufacturing.
Abengoa – an international solar firm with its roots in Spain—plans to build the world’s largest concentrating solar power plant in Arizona. The company says the facility, dubbed the Solana Project, will produce enough energy to power 70,000 households. The plant will use thermal storage equipment to parabolically recover energy for a 280 MW output capacity. The administration says the project will create 1,600 construction jobs.
On a day when the rest of the stock market was tanking, Tesla Motors cruised to an IPO win worth $226.1million.
Concerns over consumer confidence, the European economy and growth in China brought the market to its lowest level of the year finishing down 268 points. Don’t tell Tesla. In a clear testament to the position the automaker has already achieved as a brand, investors lined up for a ride as the company became the first American car manufacturer to go public since Ford in 1956.
Want to devise an incentive to get a new industry really humming? Try creating a $100 million dollar fund to finance its projects. That’s what PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) and solar financing specialist SunRun Inc. have decided to do.
Working through its non-utility subsidiary, Pacific Energy Capital II, LLC, PG&E announced a $100 million tax equity agreement that will offer financing for more than 3,500 solar roof installations planned by SunRun nationally. The fund represents the largest residential
Those who are passionate about electric cars know that, after many fits and starts, 2010 will likely be the year the world finally gives birth to an EV for the mass market. GM has its Volt, Nissan its Leaf, Tesla its Model S and Coda… its Coda. Now Daimler AG appears poised to get a jump-start on the competition by rolling out its electric Smart Fortwo. In a cool display of marketing savvy, Daimler will be cruising to more than a dozen US cities this fall where it will be inviting the public to come and take its Smart-ist car out for a spin.
Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) and his colleagues, got an earful of excuses and an eyeful of blank stares from the heads of Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, BP, and Shell Oil as the bosses appeared before the Congressional Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce.
Appearing later on CNN, Waxman reported that the executives “all said they thought they could handle a disaster
With the clock ticking down on the legislative calendar, lawmakers on Capitol Hill are jockeying to get an energy bill onto the stage that will find the required votes for passage. The goals couldn’t be more clear: enact policy that will save energy, curb greenhouse gas emissions and encourage the production of green alternatives that will reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. In the wake of the national catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, one might think that characteristic partisan interests and knee-jerk procedural bickering might be put aside in favor of compelling national unity. Yet the legislative waters on the issue remain, for now, murky as usual.
The horror emerging from the depths of the Gulf of Mexico continues to lay its nightmare before a nation – and a world – of stunned witnesses. With the tragedy of native waterfowl now being found smothered in petroleum along the marshes of Louisiana comes continued reports that the American people have been prevented by BP officials from seeing images of the slaughter. According to reports by photojournalists, television producers and others
Elite electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors has revealed in a revised S1 filing with the SEC that it will cooperate with Toyota on the development of Tesla’s Model S sedan. To grease the deal, Tesla will pay Toyota $42 million for the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc.( NUMMI) auto plant in Fremont, California where the vehicles will likely be produced.
The NUMMI facility, which had been the site of a joint venture between Toyota and General Motors, had closed its doors earlier this year as part of GM’s financial liquidation. Indications are that several thousand laid-off auto workers from the area could be rehired as a result of the agreement.
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