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The San Diego Union Tribune blogs about the new plan for Fuel Cell Cars & hydrogen fueling stations in California. The plan, which was released last month by the California Fuel Cell Partnership, anticipates by 2017 almost 50,000 fuel cell vehicles in California, supported by 36 fueling stations which are slated to cost $180 million. Check out the UT's blog post here, and follow it to the summary and the full report on the California Fuel Cell Partnership Web site.

Expatriate Australian solar power company Ausra was one of the companies that featured heavily in my post on concentrating solar thermal power earlier in the year. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened Ausra's first plant, a 5 MW plant at Kimberlina in central California (the first to open in 20 years) which will generate enough electricity during peak hours to power 3,500 homes. Ausra's next plant will be a 177 MW plant nearby in San Luis Obispo County. The SMH quoted Schwarzenegger as saying "This next generation solar power plant is further evidence that reliable, renewable and pollution-free technology is here to stay, and it will lead to more California homes and businesses powered by sunshine. Not only will this large-scale solar facility generate power to help us meet our renewable energy goals, it will also generate new jobs as California continues to pioneer clean-tech industry".

The University of California today issued a report concluding that if California improves energy efficiency by just 1 percent per year, proposed state climate policies will increase the Gross State Product (GSP) by approximately $76 billion, increase real household incomes by up to $48 billion and create as many as 403,000 new jobs.

A detailed new economic analysis "Energy Efficiency, Innovation, and Job Creation in California" finds: Over the past thirty-five years, innovative energy efficiency policies created 1.5 million additional fulltime jobs with a total payroll of over $45 billion. Looking forward, the report finds that if California improves energy efficiency by just 1 percent per year, proposed state climate policies will increase the Gross State Product (GSP) by approximately $76 billion, increase real household incomes by up to $48 billion and create as many as 403,000 new

AP reports that Californian voters passed a measure to build a high speed rail network in the state - Calif. voters approve $10B bond for bullet trains. Hopefully they can find the money for it California voters are green-lighting the nation's most ambitious high-speed rail system, approving a nearly $10 billion bond to put speeding bullet trains capable of topping 200 mph between the state's major metropolitan areas. The measure, which passed with 52 percent support Tuesday, will fund the first phase of what is projected to be a $45 billion, 800-mile project built with state, federal, local and private money. Backers sold the proposal as an innovative alternative to soaring airfares and gas prices. In the closing weeks of the campaign, they touted estimates that it would create nearly 160,000 construction-related jobs and 450,000 permanent jobs.

It was a day when the shift from the past to the future was almost palpable. It started Thursday morning in Berkeley where Green Wombat was moderating a panel of tech luminaries gathered at the University of California's Global Technology Leaders Conference. As Shai Agassi, founder of electric car infrastructure company Better Place, makes the case for harnessing Silicon Valley's technological innovation to Detroit's manufacturing might to create a sustainable car industry, dispatches from the automotive apocalypse roll down my BlackBerry: Ford (F) shares sink to $1.01…GM's (GM) stock falls to its lowest level since World War II…U.S. automakers beg for a bailout…California Congressman Henry Waxman ousts Michigan's John Dingell - the Duke of Detroit - from his 28-year chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee. Agassi slips out of the conference and an hour later I catch up with him across the Bay at San Francisco City Hall where he and representatives of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland announce a $1 billion project to build a regional network of electric car charging stations. Better Place has signed similar deals with governments in Israel, Denmark and Australia, but California is the company's first foray into the U.S. market. Planning for the Bay Area network begins in 2009 with construction scheduled to start in 2010 and commercial rollout set for 2012.

What if it were possible to bury carbon dioxide over a mile below a power plant in the second worst air basin in the United States? In 2011 the greenhouse gas will be pumped below a power plant in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California. Located in Kern County near Bakersfield, the Clean Energy Systems power plant is powered by different kinds of natural gas and oxygen. It produces five megawatts of energy, enough for 5,000 homes, but the carbon sequestration experiment will increase that to 50 megawatts.

Getting a solar system installed on your house is decidedly complicated. There is no centralized system, only contractors who you may or may not be able to trust. Prices for installation vary wildly, as do prices for the modules themselves. But in California, where things are getting a bit more consolidated and simplified, one retailer is trying to make solar easy. And it's Wal-Mart. Or, Sam's Club in nine California stores: Corona, Murrieta, Glendora, Ontario, La Habra, Chino, Long Beach, Fountain Valley, and Torrance.

The head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency lied to Congress about his rejection of a request from California meant to curb global warming emissions, Sen. Barbara Boxer said on Tuesday. Boxer, a California Democrat who has called for EPA chief Stephen Johnson to resign, made the statement at a hearing on regulation of greenhouse gases under the U.S. Clean Air Act.

The Next100 blog has a post on expanding wind power in California and how advances in mapping wind resources are helping the industry grow - Let It Blow. Solar power is, if you'll pardon the pun, easily the hottest sector of the electric generation market today in terms of public interest. But if California is going to achieve the widely proposed goal of acquring a third of its electrical energy from renewable sources by 2020, wind energy will almost certainly be the flagship carrier of the renewable power industry. Forecasts indicate that achieving the 33% renewable goal would require ramping up wind energy from 2,100 megawatts in 2006 to at least 12,500 MW by 2020. Solar, by contrast, would likely grow from 330 MW in 2006 to 6,000 MW in 2020.

Solar Power Authority has a post on the solar powered Google headquarters - Googleplex Solar. The Googleplex headquarters located in Mountain View California has installed one of the largest corporate solar power structures of any other company to date. The array consists of 9,212 solar panels produced by Sharp Electronics and has a capacity of 1.6 Megawatts (MW) which cover's ~30% of the Google campus electricity needs, the equivalent of roughly 1,000 California homes. This installation is said to save Google $393,000 in electricity per year and can be monitored real time at this interactive page that contains data on the electricity being produced. One of the most unique features of the Googleplex array of solar panels is that it contains several clusters of solar trees. These parking lot covers are designed to keep cars cool while also producing electricity and serving it to both the Googleplex or plugin hybrid electric cars (PHEV's).

Researchers developing alternatives to fossil fuels are working with everything from algae to babassu oil to corn, but a California company says it can recycle carbon dioxide into fuel. Carbon Sciences claims it has developed a way of using the CO2 emitted during the combustion of coal, oil and other hydrocarbons to create transportation fuels like gasoline and jet fuel. Should Carbon Sciences - or any of the other firms working on similar projects - accomplish this on a large scale, it could bring a reduction in CO2 emissions as well as an abundant supply of renewable fuel.

The California city of Berkeley has approved a new financing scheme for loans to homeowners who install rooftop solar panels, a landmark programme that could inspire other US cities to follow suit. The Berkeley scheme would finance city-backed solar loans through a small addition to the property taxes of each participating home, eliminating the need to find up-front cash to install panels that can cost the average American upwards of $30,000.

California issues plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions Over the next 12 years, new regulations would seek to turn the climate change clock back to 1990 levels. More efficient electricity use, less traffic and cleaner cars are goals.

The City of Los Angeles has more Energy Star buildings than any other U.S. metropolis with 262 buildings, according to a new ranking issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Los Angeles and 24 other cities were recognized Tuesday by the EPA for using engineering and construction techniques that reduce energy consumption. Four California cities made the Top 25 Energy Star Buildings List. San Francisco ranked second with 194 buildings, while Sacramento and Riverside also made the list.

When California launched the nation's biggest solar incentive program at the beginning of 2007, the idea was to transform the landscape by installing a million solar rooftops throughout the Golden State.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Thursday that pressure from the auto industry will not deter California from attempting to impose strict emission rules for vehicles sold in the state.

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ntel on Thursday showed off a wireless electric power system that analysts say could revolutionize modern life by freeing devices from transformers and wall outlets. Intel chief technology officer Justin Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Energy Resonant Link as he spoke at the California firm's annual developers forum in San Francisco.