Greentech Media

Among the first big promises made this week came from Bali. Last Saturday, representatives from more than 180 countries hammered out an agenda and a timetable for two years worth of negotiations to adopt a treaty that will succeed Kyoto.

The two-week-long United Nations climate-change conference almost imploded as the U.S. government kept a firm stance, refusing to sign a nonbinding goal for developed countries to lower their emissions 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

But in the 11th hour, common ground was found and the convention's president announced to the world that it had a plan to negotiate a Kyoto heir (see Bali Summit Yields Plans to Plan and Cutting Emissions Country by Country).

In the United States, President Bush signed an energy bill borne out of much congressional haggling Wednesday (see President Signs Energy Bill).

Highlights included a new national fuel-economy standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020 -- a 40-percent increase, according to the White House -- and a requirement that fuel producers use at least 36 billion gallons of biofuel in 2022.

But to get the bill out of Congress and onto the president's desk, $21.5 billion in renewable incentives and a national renewable-energy standard was cut out, disappointing renewable-energy entrepreneurs and advocates (see Senate Rejects Green Incentives to Pass Energy Bill).

Perhaps the most rowdy political event came Wednesday, when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency denied California's request to regulate tailpipe emissions.

Within a day's time, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would challenge the decision by filing a lawsuit in the next three weeks, if all goes as planned in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (see EPA Rejects California Vehicle-Emission Standards).

The same week, across the pond, the European Commission proposed a law requiring the auto industry to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from new cars by 19 percent (see Forcing Down Car Emissions in the EU).

Considering the U.S. energy bill, the negotiations in Bali and the European Commission proposal, Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com, said the new legislation this week is "a sign of what's to come" and said politicians can no longer hide from the climate-change issue.

He added that the EU proposal on carbon-dioxide emissions underlines the lack of action in the U.S. government.

"It couldn't be more distinct, between the European car-emissions initiative and the EPA decision, which seems far more politically based than scientifically or technologically based," he said. "For those of us in America, it just emphasizes that we need good leaders. We need not only cleantech, but we need a clean slate. And I think it speaks to how far behind the U.S. continues to fall competitively."

New policy shenanigans weren't the only things happening in greentech this week. Here's a roundup of the big news:

Good and Bad News for Thin Films

Nanosolar on Tuesday announced it began production of its thin-film solar panels, marking the completion of the first commercial factory for copper-indium-gallium-sellenide films (see Nanosolar Begins Production and Nanosolar Chooses German Town for Solar Plant).

The plant in San Jose, Calif., is expected to have a capacity of 430 megawatts when it's fully ramped up. One of Nanosolar's first panels is on sale on eBay and had reached a price of $13,100 by Friday (see auction page).

Companies have been working on so-called CIGS technology, which advocates claim is the most efficient of the thin films, for years. But while production of other technologies, such as cadmium-telluride and amorphous-silicon, has grown, mass production of CIGS has remained tantalizingly out of reach before now.

Plenty of others are working on different ways to produce the films, however.

HelioVolt this week announced it has selected a location in Texas for its first factory, a 20-megawatt plant (see HelioVolt on Nanosolar's Heels). Oerlikson Solar on Friday announced it had received contracts for more than 600 million Swiss francs (about $863 million) of new thin-film solar-panel production lines this year.

And Solar Integrated Technologies (LON: SIT), which makes amorphous-silicon cells laminated onto roofing fabrics, on Thursday raised £14 million by offering 16.5 million new shares.

But in news likely to concern thin-film investors, former Miasolé employees said that the company had laid off about 40 employees and that former CEO David Pearce had stepped down from his roles as chief strategy officer and board chairman before Thanksgiving (see Former Miasolé Employees Confirm Cuts and Miasolé Layoffs Raise Questions About Technology).

CA Utilities Sign Wave, Geothermal, Wind Contracts

California utilities have signed a series of renewable-energy contracts in recent months as they scramble to meet the Golden State goal of getting 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010.

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Tuesday announced it signed a contract to buy wave power from Finavera (see Wave Energy Finds a Buyer). The news of the first commercial wave-energy contract in the United States came in spite of a Finavera buoy that sank during a test in October (see Pulling Energy From the Sea).

On Friday, Finavera said the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission also granted it the first offshore-wave license in the United States for a project in Washington (see press release).

PG&E previously announced contracts with solar-thermal companies Solel and Ausra (see Ausra to Build World's Largest Solar-Thermal Factory). The California Energy Commission on Wednesday approved an application for the 177-megawatt plant Ausra is building as part of the agreement (see Green Wombat post).

And last week, Southern California Edison announced it had signed its eighth contract with Ormat Technologies for geothermal power, as well as a contract for wind power.

LDK Exonerated

LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK) said Monday that an independent audit found "no material errors" in its inventory accounting, which had been called into question by a former financial controller (see Independent LDK Audit Finds 'No Material Errors').

Then, on Wednesday, the company posted third-quarter earnings that jumped 40 percent from the second quarter and eightfold from the year-ago quarter and raised its guidance for the fourth quarter (see LDK Profits Jump 40%).

But its gross margin shrank to 30.8 percent, down from 35.2 percent in the second quarter and 39.4 percent in the year-ago quarter, and analysts were unimpressed.

Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel downgraded the stock to "sell," calling the company's polysilicon-manufacturing targets "overly aggressive." In a research note, Pichel wrote that "uncertainties still exist" with respect to the company's low silicon costs and shareholder lawsuits.

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Sanjay Shrestha also maintained a "Sell" rating, and CIBC World Markets analyst Adam Hinckley maintained a "Sector Underperformer" rating for the stock, noting that "we continue to question [silicon] cost assumptions."

LDK shares fell 34.2 percent from an opening price of $68.48 per share Wednesday to close at $45.04 per share Friday.

Coal Gets Gift, Gas Gets Lump

The U.S. Department of Energy said Wednesday it was giving $67 million to the Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium for a project testing the ability to safely and economically store carbon dioxide in the Illinois Basin, a geologic depression that spans most of Illinois and extends into Indiana and Kentucky. The project is expected to cost $84.3 million.

Meantime, Shell and StatoilHydro said Thursday they would scrap plans to build a gas-fired plant with technology to capture and store greenhouse gases in Norway (see stories from Reuters and The Times). The companies said the project was too costly to be economical. The news came after BP cancelled plans to build a carbon-capture center in Scotland in May, after a government decision on subsidies was delayed.