The entire suite of NBC Universal’s (GE) media properties is going on a green offensive this week with the tagline “Green is Universal.” The campaign is designed to raise environmental awareness and will highlight things viewers can do to live greener.Green will be seen all across NBCU’s media outlets, from its main network to its [...]
When Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates had solar panels installed on his home three years ago, he was fortunate enough to be able to pay for them, up front, in cash. Most aren’t so well-off. The up-front capital costs of residential solar — around $15,000 to $20,000 — is one of the major barriers to its [...]
Companies working on cellulosic ethanol — biofuel made from non-food crops and plant waste — have been racing to be the first to build a commercial plant in the U.S. This morning Khosla-backed startup Range Fuels said it has officially “broken ground” on its plant in Soperton, Ga., which it claimed will be the nation’s [...]
As if we needed any more proof that this is the year the candidates get serious about being green, Sen. Hillary Clinton proclaimed in a speech unveiling her energy policy yesterday that the climate crisis is “one of the greatest economic opportunities in the history of our country.”Like her fellow Democratic hopeful Barack Obama, Hillary [...]
LED Startup Lights Up Financing: LED Lighting Fixtures, (LLF) which unsurprisingly makes light fixtures for LED light sources, says it has raised $16.5 million in equity financing led by Digital Power Capital — release.As Oil Price Rises, Clean Energy Costs Creeping Up Too?: That’s not good news. The WSJ says energy demand is high enough [...]
Ballard Power Systems (BLDP), a nearly three-decades-old forefather of the fuel cell industry, said today it’s “reviewing strategic alternatives” for its automotive fuel cell assets — corporate speak for a possible sale. In explaining the move, the Vancouver, B.C.-based hydrogen fuel cell developer cited “the lengthy projected timeline to commercialization and high cost of [...]
This week, the 2007 Farm Bill, having passed in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry with an overwhelming majority, is expected to move to the Senate floor. Besides the old subsidies for high-fructose corn syrup and new programs for farmers markets, the farm bill brings new funding for the biofuel industry. The estimated [...]
The solar thermal startup Ausra only started talking publicly in September, but already the Khosla and Kleiner Perkins-backed Silicon Valley company is one of the more high-profile cleantech startups around. This morning, Ausra provided additional details about a planned solar thermal power plant in California and an agreement to sell solar power to California utility [...]
A new Ivy League spin-out startup is targeting the off-the-grid power market with a fuel cell and a little dirt. Living Power Systems, formerly known as Fiat Lux (”Let There Be Light”), is the brainchild of Peter Girgius, a professor of microbiology at Harvard. The company’s product is a microbial fuel cell (MFC) — which [...]
It might elicit protests from the college crowd, but university and corporate research partnerships are a lifeline for emerging innovation in the cleantech industry. There was two more of these big academia/big industry cleantech unions this week.This morning BP and Arizona State University, as well the Science Foundation Arizona, announced a research partnership to work [...]
