Nine members of the Midwestern Governors Association (MGA) have signed the Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, an agreement that calls for greenhouse gas reduction targets and the development of a market-based carbon cap-and-trade system. Wisconsin Governor — and MGA Chairman — Jim Doyle said that with this accord, the Midwest is set to “become [...]
Solar technology developer SolFocus keeps adding investors. This morning the startup, which makes arrays with lenses and curved mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto solar cells, said it has added $11.6 million to its latest funding round, bringing the total to $63.6 million. This is the close of Mountain View, Calif.-based SolFocus’ Series B round and [...]
San Francisco’s city ordinance banning traditional plastic bags goes into effect Tuesday. The ordinance, passed in March, starts with large grocery stores and also will include chain pharmacies in six months. Other stores are not under the same mandate.Although San Francisco is the first city in the U.S. to ban plastic shopping bags (officials estimate [...]
Thou Shall Not Greenwash: Green consulting firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing released a study that says most eco-labels are down right lame — Joel Makower.New Deets on Aptera’s Eco 3-Wheeler: The Aptera Typ-1 will be ready early next year for less than $30,000 with both an all-electric and plugin hybrid version — CNET.Ethanol Stocks Down on [...]
Pleading everything from insurmountable expense, to a lack of filtering technology, to space limitations, oil giant BP looks desperate to dodge its August promise to not increase the pollutants it’s dumping into Lake Michigan. The Chicago Tribune reported today that engineers at the Whiting oil refinery, which BP plans to expand with $3.8 billion to [...]
Throughout 2007, PG&E has touted its renewable energy road map, pledging to add clean power generation from sources like solar and wind as it works to reach the California state mandate of 20 percent of utility power from renewables by 2010. While the utility is close to its goal, when it comes to “delivered power,” [...]
At a summit meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, this weekend, one of the main themes was “protecting our planet.” In his opening remarks, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz said his country would put $300 million into a program that “will finance research related to the future of energy, [...]
Chip manufacturing company Applied Materials is continuing to buy its way into the solar markets. This morning, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company said it plans to acquire Italy’s Baccini, a maker of metallization and testing equipment for photovoltaic solar cell production, for about $330 million.Baccini isn’t exactly a startup; the firm has been developing its [...]
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists that mainstreamed the idea that carbon emissions were the main cause of climate change, on Saturday released a summary of their findings aimed at policymakers (pdf). It’s being called a “grim report,” with “more explicit” information — and an increased sense of alarm. [...]
The wheels of a $500 million academic and industry collaboration to fight carbon emissions with bio-energy, are starting to turn. On the 1st of December Christopher Somerville will officially start his work as the Director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, (EBI), a first of its kind, half a billion dollar partnership between energy giant BP, [...]
