At a time when the US is pushing for wind and solar power, a surprising move took place in Germany, one of the forerunners in the solar market.
Reuters announced that ” Germany on Wednesday slashed subsidies for solar power in a move to ease the world’s largest solar market towards free competition, drawing howls of protest from panel manufacturers.
“Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen set out a 15 percent cut in so-called feed-in tariffs for new roof-mounted solar power from April, confirming figures reported earlier by Reuters.

Pratt & Whitney’s new generation jet engine got a boost last week from the Obama Administration. In the Administration’s $2.3 billion tax credit package for clean tech is a $110 million tax credit for P&W to retool the factory that will produce the new engine.

We are all so caught up in major change to protect the environment that we may be overlooking some practical solutions. Green energy gadgets are playing a major role in the Consumer Electronics Show featuring some inexpensive items to help us all ‘grow greener.’

Codexis Inc., a Redwood City, CA biotech company, filed a registration statement on Monday for an initial public offering to raise up to $100 million.
Codexis develops “biocatalysts that make industrial processes faster, cleaner and more efficient than current processes.”  The company focuses on the conversion of renewable resources into biofuels and pharmaceuticals. It partners with Shell, Merck, Pfizer and Teva. Pfizer uses Codexis’s technology to produce Lipitor® (for which Codexis won the EPA Green Chemistry Award in 2006).
This is not the first time Codexis entered into the IPO world. …

Exxon Mobil announced today that is buying XTO in an all stock transaction valued at $41 billion. The agreement which requires shareholder approval represents a 25 percent premium for XTO shareholders and includes $10 billion of existing XTO debt.
Rex Tillerson, Exxon Mobil’s CEO, quoted in the press release, describes XTO as “a leading U.S. unconventional natural gas producer, with an outstanding resource base, strong technical expertise and highly skilled employees.”  Tillerson further states that ” XTO’s strengths, together with Exxon Mobil’s advanced R&D and operational capabilities, global scale and financial …

It’s funny how things work sometimes.
A-Power, the Chinese wind-turbine maker and its American partner, U.S.Renewable Energy Group announced yesterday that they will build a wind-turbine plant in the U.S. capable of producing 1,100 megawatts of wind turbines a year and employing more than 1,000 U.S. workers, according to the WSJ .
This announcement comes on the heels of Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) asking the Obama administration to block any stimulus money for a Chinese wind farm planned for Texas because it would provide plenty of Chinese jobs and few jobs for Americans.
The new turbine plant …

Jay Leno takes the Tango out for a test drive.  It’s fast and looks fun.  And, you can lane-split.  Imagine this passing you by.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reduced its long-term forecast for global oil demand as the financial crisis continues to squeeze markets and countries increase their pursuit of alternative energy sources.
The news comes as global energy consumption is set to fall in 2009 for the first time since 1981 and CO2 emissions could shrink by as much as 3 percent - the steepest decline in the last 40 years.
According to the revised forecast contained in the IEA’s recently released annual World Energy Outlook, global oil consumption is now expected to expand 1 percent …

Overflowing landfills and a growing apprehension about their effect on climate change has many communities considering a “zero waste” strategy, according to the New York Times.

One of the most notable examples of a “no waste” society can be found in Nantucket, an island off the coast of Massachusetts whose want for landfill space and uneasiness about the cost of shipping local trash over 30 miles to the mainland encouraged its leadership to implement significant changes to it’s trash policy.  Like many communities, this no trash initiative was born not from …

The Department of Energy awarded  $338 million to geothermal energy projects Thursday.
In making the awards, Secretary Chu stated “The United States is blessed with vast geothermal energy resources, which hold enormous potential to heat our homes and power our economy.”
Russell Gold of the WSJ noted that the “usual geothermal suspects” fared well under the new DOE awards.  Ormat Technologies and AltaRock Energy (which we wrote about here ) are two high profile geothermal beneficiaries.
Other big names companies sharing in the DOE grant money include: GE, Honeywell, Johnson Controls, Baker …