A new survey shows that 92% of Americans think developing and using solar power is important. The results cross political boundaries and favor solar over all other energy sources.

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Last week, France unveiled plans to go electric, making it both possible and convenient for commuters in the nation to purchase and engage in the regular use of hybrid vehicles. To date, the lack of charging stations in France has made it difficult for drivers to adopt the more eco-friendly method of transportation, and France is ready to change that, in turn reducing their carbon footprint.

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The process of turning California’s Highway 101 into an electric roadway is beginning, and for a short period of time the charging stations that will be installed can be used for free. Beginning in October, Solarcity will be installing vehicle charging stations alogn Highway 101 between San Francisco and Los Angeles in order to reward those who have already made a move to adopt a cleaner lifestyle with clean technology in their vehicles.

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A team of researchers at MIT are engineering a strain of bacteria, which is similar to the type that causes tuberculosis, to produce biofuel.

The researchers say that the bacteria are useful because they are hungry for a number of sugars and toxic compounds and produce lipids that can be converted to biodiesel.

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Not all clean tech companies need to produce more environmentally friendly products in order to make a difference; some are leaders in the industry because quite simply, they change their procedures in order to ensure that their practices reduce their carbon footprint. In this week’s Newsweek “Green Rankings” were released, and many of those higher up on the list include leaders in technology that are trying to make sure that their environmental impact is just that much cleaner.

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On Tuesday, the announcement that U.S.-based First Solar and the Chinese government will partner to build a 2GW photovoltaic (PV) power plant Ordos New Energy Demonstration Zone in China, sent shockwaves of excitement through the solar and clean energy communities.

The memorandum of understanding, which both companies signed on Tuesday, sets the stage for the construction of the world’s largest PV power plant to be completed by 2019.

According to the New York Times the plant is part of a planned 11,950-megawatt renewable-energy park slated for this region of Mongolia, that “would generate enough electricity to power about three million Chinese homes.”

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The world’s very first floating fullscale offshore wind turbine has officially been inaugurated in the North Sea off the coast of Norway.

The turbine even has a name: Hywind. It measures 213 feet tall and weighs 5,300 tonnes, and it rests on a floating stand which is filled with water and rocks to provide balast. Three powerful cables anchor the stand to the seafloor.

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Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is proposing a bill that would lend $30 billion dollars to American small and medium sized manufacturing companies who specialize in clean technology.  The bill would make American manufacturers a player in the clean technology market which faces stiff overseas competition.  It is estimated that 70% of the components for clean technology (much of which was invented in America) are made abroad.  So far, 150 businesses have come out and endorsed the Senator’s legislation.

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There is a new force on the wave-energy front. It’s called the Oyster. If it is successful in its debut this autumn, it could change the face of wave energy forever. You see, this giant electricity producing machine is different from conventional wave-energy machines. And those differences could make it extremely marketable.

The Oyster is unlike other wave power devices in that it uses hydraulic technology to transfer wave power to the shore to be converted into electricity. The machine has an 18m wide oscillator, which Dr. Ronan Doherty, Chief Technical Officer of Aquamarine Power the Edinburgh based company which has developed the first ‘Oyster’, says is a key to the machine’s design. The oscillator is fitted with pistons, which work according to wave action. The pistons pump high-pressure water through sub-sea pipelines to shore, where traditional hydro-electric generators use the high-pressure water to create electricity.

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The House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming recently heard from a panel of leading edge scientists and industry executives on the state of existing U.S. clean technology and the lack of funding for developing and scaling the technology into commercially viable products and services.

The primary technologies discussed were solar and carbon capture technologies. Dr. Brent Constantz, CEO of Calera Corporation, which focuses on a transformational technology that converts CO2 into green building materials such as cement and aggregate, argues that this process is better than traditional CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage or Sequestration), as it represents a permanent CO2 conversion from gas to solid material.

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Plans were announced today that will bring the United States and China together in order to fight the issue of global climate change. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, Chinese Minister of Science Wan Gang, and Administrator of National Energy Administration Zhang Guo Bao announced plans to develop a U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, which will facilitate cooperative research and development of clean energy systems.

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Tickets are $55 in advance and $95 on-site, but OPEN was kind enough to offer Green Options readers a bargain discounted price of $40. The discounted tickets can only be purchased through this link: http://tinyurl.com/OPENforum-DISCOUNT.

Here is a brief overview of the Cleantech panel sessions:
Session I: Where’s the Green in Clean? Investment Opportunities, Valuations and the Funding Gap in Cleantech.
Session II: Innovations in Energy: Viable business propositions after Market Corrections.
Session III: The Stimulus Act: The Impact of Government Policy on Cleantech Start-ups and Investors.
Session IV: Workshop: Crafting your personal brand to transition into the Cleantech sector.

For more information on OPEN Silicon Valley Forum ‘09 Cleantech sessions, click here.
For a full schedule of events click here.

A new study from the journal Nature Geoscience has found that 50% of the total temperature increases in the Arctic over the last century have been due to black carbon, a substance that only stays in the atmosphere for several days to weeks.

This means that if black carbon emissions were immediately halted, it may only take a few weeks for warming trends to reverse by half.

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I was struck by the trash talk spotlight on Green is Sexy this month with Verus Energy Ltd. Co-Founders Tim Jervis and David Diracles because they truly understand that the global energy generation infrastructure is requiring colossal changes to sustain the planet.

Verus Energy is a new form of development company that focuses on building renewable power plants that use waste as the feedstock: “In the same way that a property developer might develop a new residential or commercial property, Verus develops a power plant. Between the core team at Verus and our strategic partners, we can design, build, construct, and operate power plants that use waste rather than fossil fuels as the source of energy.” Jervis and Diracles explain.

Verus states on their website that they are out to change the way power plants work. Their mission is to help the UK (and soon the US) address waste and energy challenges by developing clean and efficient energy from waste plants.  Energy from waste encompasses many processes where trash is converted into electricity, heat, or transport fuel.  On top of providing a clean and secure source of energy, the process provides an environmentally friendly alternative to dumping waste in landfill.

Instead of polluting the air with the (traditional power generating) burning of waste for fuel, they are creating much cleaner trash power with anaerobic digestion and pyrolysis…

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Hydrogen (H) fuel cell technology could perhaps become the cleanest form of energy, both in terms of generating the gas and in terms of combustion products (which are just heat and water). The biggest problem has been making the process of H generation clean, efficient, and cheap, as the current, main source of H gas is coal.

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One of 30 wind turbines in the Kentish Flats wind farm, which produces up to 90 MW of renewable energy for the UK.

Another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could generate enough electricity by next decade, concludes a British government energy department study.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change study concluded that another 5,000-7,000 wind turbines could be built off the coast by 2020, generating 25 GW of energy, equivalent to 25 large coal-fired power stations. The new capacity would be on top of 8GW already being built or in planning, making a total of 33GW.

The results of the year-long research into the geology, birds and marine life goes even further than the Carbon Trust, a company set up by government to help businesses reduce carbon emissions, which last year said the UK could build a total 29GW of off-shore wind.

However, the announcement was clouded by claims from the energy company E.ON that the economics of what is the UK’s biggest current off-shore wind project, the London Array off the coast of Kent and Essex, were “on a knife edge”.

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Mohr Davidow Ventures partner Will Coleman, who moderated a cleantech-financing panel at the event, asked panelists to guess when the IPOs would come back. “The second quarter, which doesn’t mean the markets [will have] reopened,” said Gary Vollen, managing director of the Stanford Group Co. “I think the third quarter, probably,” guessed Jeff Lipton, managing director of Jeffries & Co. Inc.

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It’s a reflection of the economic environment, said Ron Pernick, a principal at research firm Clean Edge and a co-producer of the conference. “There haven’t been any exits to speak of, which tells you something,” he said.

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