1. Home
  2. Articles posted by: Rona Fried (Page 1653)

Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:June 21, 2006

News & EventsBP Commits $500 Million Over 10 Years to Support Biofuels Louisiana Passes a Renewable Fuel Requirement California Lays Down the Welcome Mat for Renewable Energy Projects Idaho Power Seeks 100 Megawatts of Geothermal Power Researcher Wins Major Technical Prize for His Work on LEDs Canadian Team Achieves 3,415 mpg in Supermileage Competition Energy ConnectionsEIA Forecasts Large Growth in World Energy Demand through 2030 News and EventsBP Commits $500 Million Over 10 Years to Support BiofuelsBP announced last week that it plans to spend $500 million over the next ten years to establish a biosciences research laboratory dedicated to energy technologies. According to BP, the new BP Energy Biosciences Institute will initially focus on developing new biofuels, improving the efficiency and flexibility of ethanol and biodiesel, devising new technologies to convert a greater proportion of crops into biofuels, and developing plants that produce more energy molecules (such as oils, starches, and sugars) and can be grown on land not suitable for food production. BP is currently in discussions with several leading universities to identify which could host the new research laboratory and plans to launch its research programs by the end of next year. BP chief executive Lord Browne […]

Read More

Nanosolar Secures $100M in Funding

Nanosolar Inc., has secured $100 million in funding to take its photovoltaic (PV) solar electricity technology into volume production. The company announced it has completed a Series C Preferred Stock financing in the amount of more than $75 million, which, in conjunction with government factory subsidies recently secured, brings its total cash position (including non-debt cash equivalents) to just above $100 million. “This will allow us to further expand our leadership position in solar power innovation,” said Martin Roscheisen, CEO of Nanosolar Inc. “We are looking forward to working with our new investors and partners, who have very successful track records in clean energy, to lead the industry on a path of rapidly more cost-efficient solar electricity.” In addition to strong participation by the company’s existing investors including venture firms MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, Benchmark Capital, and Onpoint as well as Japanese trading leader Mitsui, new investors include SAC Capital and GLG Partners, Swiss Re, Christian Reitberger, Capricorn Management, the investment arms of SAP founders Klaus Tschira and Dietmar Hopp, and Beck. “Nanosolar is the one company we believe has really put together all the pieces necessary to produce a distinct leap forward in the cost efficiency and production scalability of […]

Read More

World's Largest Solar Plant Planned in California

A Palo Alto company, Nanosolar Inc., has decided to build the world’s largest factory for making solar power cells. The estimated total annual cell output, once fully built, will be 430MW, or approximately 200 million cells per year, and an advanced panel assembly factory will be designed to produce more than one million solar panels per year. Nanosolar has already started ordering volume production equipment. The first cell fab will be located in the San Francisco Bay area and its first panel fab is expected to be located in Berlin, Germany. Seed-financed by the founders of Google, the company’s team started pursuing its mission of making solar electricity vastly more affordable in 2002. After four years of intense commercial research and development, including two years of manufacturing process development and engineering, the company has now delivered on its ambition to produce a fundamentally less expensive, mass-manufacturable solar cell. “Thin-film printing overcomes the complexity, high cost, and yield and scalability limitations associated with vacuum-based processes. Nanosolar’s technology enables low-cost, high-yield production previously unattainable,” said Chris Eberspacher, Nanosolar’s head of technology, noting further: “This allows us to produce cells very inexpensively and assemble them into panels that are comparable in efficiency to […]

Read More

Vermont Wind Energy Project Ended

Catamount Energy Corporation and Marubeni Power International, Inc. are ending development of the Glebe Mountain Wind Energy Project in Vermont. Catamount and Marubeni issued the statement, “We believe that wind energy is important for the environment and is a necessary piece of the energy supply puzzle. Even though we think that the Glebe project would be good for the state, a majority of the local community was opposed to the project and Vermont’s governor has stated that he opposes utility-scale wind projects.” Catamount CEO James Moore said, “We thank the supporters of our project, and they should be encouraged by the near doubling of wind energy capacity in the United States since 2002 and the growing support for new wind projects in dozens of states across the country. As Vermonters, we respect the wishes of the local population and the state’s position on wind energy so we thought it was time to end our development efforts in the state.”

Read More

Japan to Turn to Biofuels

URL: http://www.terradaily.com/2006/060620040108.id0gwry9.html Website: http://www.terradaily.com/2006/060620040108.id0gwry9.html     

Read More