renewable energy

Global clean-tech venture investments rose 43% to $2 billion in the second quarter. Solar and biofuel startups garnered the biggest funding, while the IPO market for clean-tech was much hotter in China than the U.S.

New York lawmakers are considering legislation to boost the state's solar power generation to 2.5% of overall electricity sales by 2025. This is part of a nationwide renewable energy trend driven by the new jobs and other economic benefits the switch will likely bring.

While the BP oil spill is an ecological disaster, this big slick has a silver lining. Alternative-energy technologies may benefit from the public backlash against fossil fuels. But the spill could also help kill the energy bill and its support for renewables.

When announcing his $3.8 trillion budget, Obama didn't mention the "smart grid," long key to his infrastructure spending plans. That's a shame, as improving our utility grid could create jobs as well as make us greener, more efficient and more competitive.

Nancy Floyd was early to the greentech investing game. A prominent venture capitalist, she founded and remains the managing director of Nth Power, an early-stage venture capital fund based in San Francisco. Nth Power, a $180 million fund, has seen a number of successful exits, including companies...

Energy production and use in America could be adding as much as $120 billion in hidden costs to the nation, according to a report released Monday by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the National Academy of Sciences. The report, "Hidden costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy...

As a senior analyst in the Division of Strategic Planning at the California Public Utilities Commission, Dan Adler designed California's ambitious clean energy policy, which put a 20 percent target on renewable energy use by the Golden State's utilities by the year 2010. Four years ago, Adler moved...

The secret hero of Ronald Brownstein's article "The California Experiment" in the October Atlantic Monthly is Arthur H. Rosenfeld. A California Energy Commissioner, Rosenfeld is a winner of the Enrico Fermi Award -- the top scientific honor in the United States -- and a man widely recognized as an...

A California technology startup is rapidly pushing forward with plans to build the first space-based solar power station to beam 200 megawatts of electricity back to Earth via microwaves to a receiving station near Fresno. The firm, Solaren Space, has been pushing for space-based power since 2001...

The Golden State has, of late, lost considerable luster, what with prison riots, budget problems, and massive wildfires started by Mexican drug cartels. Add to these woes a whopping price tag for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's ambitious renewable energy program. The Guvernator's plan has...