This is the end of an era. General Motors will close four major S.U.V. and truck plants in North America as the auto giant bends to declining consumer demand driven by surging gas prices. At the market's height in 2002 GM was selling more than 600,000 S.U.V.'s and trucks a year. This year the company will likely sell less than 250,000. The plant closures are part of a larger strategic shift for GM. CEO Rick Wagoner announced at the company's annual meeting yesterday the company will start putting more emphasis on building smaller, more efficient cars and engines while building out its capacity in developing countries. At the meeting GM's board also approved the production of the Chevy Volt, the company's long-awaited electric vehicle. The board also made it known it would likely put the Hummer brand up for sale. Whether spinning out Hummer and adding the Volt to the company's product line will do much, if anything, to stem the tide of defections remains to be seen. By way of comparison, Honda's Civic and Toyota's Camry and Corolla were the top three cars in the U.S. market. E.ON UK's CEO Paul Golby has issued a warning to the British government that adding renewables capacity sufficient to meet Britain's EU targets will require building additional fossil fuel based power supplies as backup. E.ON has calculated that the UK will need roughly 50 GW of renewables capacity to meet its goal of 15 percent by 2020. However, Golby argues that the UK will need to build close to 90 percent of that amount as fossil fuel based power to make up for intermittent or non-dispatchable renewables capacity. As a result, Britain's installed capacity base would rise from 76 GW to 120 GW within the next 12 years, costing the country roughly £50 billions. Golby, expressing frustration with individuals against fossil fuel based power said, "it is easy to say 'no' to coal, easy to say 'no' to nuclear. I'm quite interested in what they are going to say 'yes' to." San Francisco's solar subsidy is inching forward once again. The program was tabled in March in a surprise move by city supervisor Jake McGoldrick, who argued the solar subsidy program would constitute a tax benefit to high-income city residents who could afford to install solar panels on their homes. On Tuesday San Francisco's board of supervisors approved a preliminary measure yesterday by a 7-4 margin. Under the program, homeowners would receive a subsidy of between $3,000 and $6,000 per kW - the higher subsidy level is for systems installed by locally-trained integrators. Businesses would be eligible for a subsidy of $1,500 per kW. The bill still faces a final vote at the board's next meeting, where it will face continued opposition from city supervisors McGoldrick, Chris Daly, Aaron Peskin, and Ross Mirkarimi.

Germany's Bosch, the world's largest automotive components supplier, has acquired 50.45 percent of ersol solar for $1.67 billion. The acquisition comes at a 63 percent premium on ersol's Friday closing share price at an increase of 21.4 percent of ersol's projected 2009 EPS. This is the largest pure play solar acquisition in the industry's history, trumping previous deals like First Solar's $34 million acquisition of Turner Renewables or SunPower's $332 million acquisition of PowerLight. The ersol acquisition is the first of what many have hoped is the beginning of convergence and consolidation in the solar industry. With over 150 solar startups funded within the last four years - 75 percent of which have the words "sun" or "sol" in their name - more than a few VC's have started to get a little nervous about potential exit strategies. The exits that do occur are more likely to come from acquisitions than from IPOs - it may never be possible to raise the capital necessary to overcome scale and commercialization costs. Of those, the trend of companies getting bought out by non-greentech industrials should continue. This may also be buoyed by vertical integration moves undertaken by large firms - Applied Materials is a good example of this. Q-Cells is as well, but to a lesser extent. Regardless of the trends, the ersol acquisition is big news. Over the last five years slightly more than 20 specifically venture-backed companies have been acquired, with average deal size of close to $31 million. This is less than stellar. As big industrials move into this space and begin buying up solar companies - specifically components manufactuers - like so many modem and switch makers during the late 1990s - we may begin to see a shift in the kinds of companies coming into the market. Remember, VCs are malleable when they're not stubborn or quiet. However, the opening ersol has created in the M&A market for pure-play solar companies may provide some light at the end of the tunnel. Hartmut Moers, an analyst at Oppenheim said, "there is speculation that we might see similar bids." To hear more about this, come check out my talk tomorrow at the Boston Cleantech 2008 Summit.

Stion, the stealthy startup that bills itself as developing 4th generation PV, will announce tomorrow two new hires focused on scaling up its production capacity. The company has picked up Dr. Steven Aragon as its new VP for Engineering. Aragon comes to Stion from Daystar Technologies and Advanced Energy Industries, where he lead both companies' work in developing their proprietary thin film production equipment and manufacturing lines. Stion's second pick is Dr. Robert Wieting, who will join the company as its new VP for Research and Development. At Shell Solar Wieting developed the world's first commercial manufacturing process for copper indium diselenide thin-film module. Wieting has also worked with a-Si and germanium while at Shell. Chet Farris, Stion's President and CEO was previously at Shell Solar as well. While its unclear entirely what kind of materials Stion is using in its cells, its likely the company is developing a multi-junction, multi-substrate thin film combined with an integrated concentrating layer based on quantum dot technology. Stion has claimed its cells can achieve theoretical conversion efficiencies of between 33 percent and 50 percent, far higher than even the most efficient c-Si production modules. What's interesting about these acquisitions is Stion's insistence that it will not focus on developing proprietary production equipment, instead relying on existing deposition production technologies. However, both Wieting and Aragon have developed proprietary lines in the past, and Stion's continued development may end up requiring some interesting fixes or additions to any turnkey lines it purchases. Stion's VP for Biz Dev, Frank Yang, recently told GTM's Jenn Kho the company is looking to raise a C round to continue product development as it moves into building a 5 MW production facility in 2009 and a 25 MW pilot plant in 2010.

Over the weekend, 191 signatory countries to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity voted to institute a moratorium on ocean fertilization. The vote impacts the ongoing work of companies like Climos and the Ocean Nourishment Corporation, both of which were attempting to spur ocean-based algae growth in a bid to sequester CO2 and sell offset credits. I fail to see why anyone is really surprised by this. In 2007, an international group of scientists published research in the Journal of Geophysical Research questioning the validity and viability of ocean fertilization. The research was approved by both the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the International Maritime Organization. International law expert Prof. Rosemary Rayfuse of the University of New South Wales said that selling offsets from ocean seeding operations would be fraudulent and that "there is no point in trying to ameliorate the effects of climate change by destroying the oceans." Planktos, an early Climos rival, claims this research was what caused the company to fold back in February. While Climos is waiting for a final decision by the UNCBD, it is likely the ongoing scientific opposition will damage the company's ability to raise further venture rounds. Another Elon Musk failure? Debate begins today in the U.S. Senate on the Warner-Lieberman Climate Security Act. The bill calls for emissions reductions of 66 percent by 2050, backed by a mixed cap-and-trade system. Congress would give away credits initially, about 50 percent to the power and transportation sectors, though with some allowances for state governments and agriculture. However, over time Congress would raise the price on emissions credits in a move similar to what the EU did in 2005. When that happened, the bottom fell out of the emissions credit market, damaging its viability and functionality until EU regulators stepped in to reallocate credits under an auction. Armed with the threats of rising fuel and electricity prices, oil companies and coal-heavy utilities like Duke Energy have come out against the bill, claiming it will negatively impact consumers. For all its failings, the Warner-Lieberman bill has been successful in making energy companies care about their consumers. For the first time. Ever. Oh, and also protecting the climate from terrorists. EDP Renovaveis will price its IPO at €8 a share when its begins its listing on the Lisbon Euronext on Wednesday. The renewables arm of Energies de Portugal hopes to follow in the footsteps of EDF Energies Nouvelles and Iberdrola Renovables, both successful spin outs from European energy giants, in topping more than €1 billion from its IPO. EDP Renovaveis will offer 225.43 million shares, or about 25 percent of the company's overall value. Strong demand for the company's offering has lifted up the number of shares EDP was set to offer. Investing in industrial greentech represents a less-risky play than moving money into some of the startups moving into the exit market. Well, in theory anyway. One First Solar does not an industry make.