Cleantech

Are Electric Vehicles Really Back? - the Story Continues

The electric vehicle (and challenging Detroit by building a specialty vehicle company) has always been an alluring idea - and despite Detroit spending massive amounts of money on unsuccessful or marginal launches a decade ago (including GM's EV1, Toyota's RAV4 EV and Ford's Think), the dream does not die easily.

A whole new crop of startups are busy living that dream, especially in Silicon Valley - and tons of money is flowing in to fund them.

EVs, Plug-in hybrids and next generation batteries and electric drive systems are exciting Silicon Valley to invest - and 2007 and more

Green plastics coming from Brazil

Braskem, a large chemical company in Brazil, has begun to produce a version of polyethylene from sugar cane in sample quantities and plans to start exporting it in industrial quantities in late 2009.

Independent firm Beta Analytic certified that the polyethylene produced by Braskem's pilot production line, which is used to make flexible packaging, does come from 100 percent renewable raw materials.

Ultimately, could produce 200,000 tons of the stuff a year.

Green plastic is becoming big business. A few U.S. start-ups such as Cereplast have produced resins for biodegradable forks and drinking cups. More recently, chemical more

The hot fuel scam costs motorists big bucks

Check out the In California, 71.5 million gallons of phantom hot fuel will get sold in California during the summer and 21.9 million gallons will get delivered by Arizona pumps. Alaska gains some gallons.

A has been digging into the issue.

Who was the chair of the committee? Sometimes presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. I wish this were in the hands of someone with a bigger and more respected microphone. This is important stuff.

Forecast for fuel rises, and OPEC contemplates price hikes

The International Energy Agency raised its forecast for fuel demand this year. The IEA said global demand is expected to rise 2% to 86.1 million barrels a day in 2007 from a revised 84.5 million barrels a day in 2006. That's 420,000 barrels more than the IEA projected in May and comes after higher-than-expected demand from nations including Indonesia and Singapore. The agency said in its monthly report that it's difficult to escape the conclusion that the oil market will be tight in the second half of the year.

(Editor's note: the IEA comes more

Rudolf Guiliani: open to nuclear, diet soda

Friday I had a Diet Coke with presidential hopeful Rudolf Guiliani. I like him. We yacked for about an hour.

His answer to my question on what he will do different about our oil dependency was a bit weak. He said we should encourage all alternatives including Nuclear and showed that he hasn't parsed the "energy" word into "electricity" and "oil". But he now has that down correct (you are welcome). He has all the right things to say. I am just worried about what we will learn about him under the constant national spotlight which will melt the more

Trivia question: How many plug-in hybrids have been made?

You've probably read quite a bit about plug-in hybrids. Plug-ins contain more battery cells than regular hybrids and thus can get between 70 to 100 miles to the gallon.

Converting your Prius to a . They can even be used to send electricity to the grid and prevent a brown-out.

So how many are there on the road? 50, according to Felix Kramer, president of Calcars, which promotes the concept and is trying to persuade lawmakers to pass tax breaks for plug-ins. Last month, there were only about 36 plug-ins but Google employees have converted a bunch since then.

The

A day in the life of a factory worker in China

Factory workers put in long shifts at Suntech Power Holdings, but they do get time off.

The solar cell manufacturer, which has emerged as , has its plant employees put in two twelve hour shifts on consecutive days and then get two days off.

The 2,500 factory workers make around $200 a month each on average. That's $2,400 a year. 70 percent of the factory employees are young women.

"Robots will double your production costs," said Steve Chan, vice president of business development.

While such wages would be atrocious in the U.S., you've got to look more

Where in the world is the global warming solution?

Where in the world is the global warming solution? Well, as usual, it still rests with us, the consumer.

When we care enough to vote with our ballot AND our wallet, industry and government follow.

Food for thought:

On us -

Cars - I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and we have oodles of pretty hybrids on the road. But the payback on a hybrid is about 9 to 11 years for the average diver (longer than the automakers say the "rated life" of the car is). Not a pretty picture. But if we all simply bought our more