5:00 pm: John Doerr commented on opportunities in renewable energy. "Everywhere you turn you are confronted by insurmountable opportunity."  One example he gave was in advanced third-generation solar cells. He also mentioned that he had read a survey that claimed there were more than 200 solar startups and that Silicon Valley could soon be Solar Valley. (He's right about that number -- I wrote that survey, btw.)

4:55 pm: John Doerr spoke to the U.S. Congress last week, at least those Democrats who showed up. These were his points:

• Use the economic recovery act to stimulate the smart grid.
• Put a price and cap on carbon.
• Impose a national renewable portfolio standard.
• Set utility regulations to make them partners to foster energy efficiency.
• Get serious about funding research.
• Do not overlook the investments we have to make in education.

4:50 pm: "Batteries are the holy grail of renewable energy and the U.S. isn't even in the battery race," said John Doerr of KPCB.

4:35 pm: John Doerr, occasional lachrymose partner at Kleiner Perkins spoke last. "We are not doing enough research," he said, adding,  "The Internet is a trillion dollar economy and energy is a six trillion dollar economy -- it could be the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century."  He quoted Al Gore: "We borrow a billion dollars a day from China to give to the Mideast to burn it in the U.S. to harm our planet."

4:30 pm: There are 137 faculty members involved with energy at Stanford.  Most of them are here at a packed house at Stanford's Memorial Auditorium.

4:25 pm: Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO claimed that the green building initiatives undertaken at Google's campus had an 18 month payback.

4:15 pm: Lynn Orr, the director of the new institute states: "The first essential step is putting a price on carbon." This spring, the center will kickoff their program with a $2 million innovation competition.

4:00 pm: Just spoke to James Woolsey, former Director of the CIA, and now a Venture Partner at VantagePont Venture Partners.  He's busy looking for deals and technologies in distributed energy -- biofuels, solar roofs  and energy storage.  His recent book imagines a conversation between environmentalist John Muir and General George Patton -- with the finding that defense hawks and tree huggers want similar things with regards to energy.

3:00 pm: Amid the death march of layoffs found elsewhere on this site brought to you by Michael "The Undertaker" Kanellos, I am placed in the unaccustomed role of bringing happy, optimistic news.

Stanford University just announced a massive $100 million initiative to tackle energy issues: The Precourt Institute for Energy with donations from Stanford graduates, Jay Precourt and the husband and wife team of Thomas Steyer and Kat Taylor, hence the name -- TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy.  Nothing to do with Tom Cruise and his wife.

The $100 million gift was raised quickly and is dedicated to programs, not buildings.  The money is to be used to hire new staff, establish post doc fellowships, and fund an energy research and innovation fund.

According to the founders: "Greentech needs a lot more discoveries and new inventions" and "we are looking for new technology that meets the China price."

Interestingly, Jay Precourt, the major funder made some of his fortune in the oil industry.

I'm live blogging from the event at the moment and if the panelists say anything interesting or if John Doerr cries, I'll let you know.

GreenFuel Technologies Corp., one of the oldest algae-to-biofuel startups that seemed to be on the upswing recently after some high-profile setbacks, reportedly laid off 19 people, nearly half its staff, on Monday. News of the layoffs came from Greenfuel CEO Simon Upfill-Brown on Monday and were confirmed by a public relations representative for the company. While it was unclear how the layoffs would affect the company's future, they could spell trouble for the Cambridge, Mass.-based company's plans to build a test project in Spain into a full-scale algae-to-fuel production facility (see GreenFuel Farms 100 Square Meters of Algae). GreenFuel said in October that the project with Aurantia SA in Spain was expected to grow into a $92 million greenhouse able to produce 25,000 tons of algae per year — enough to make about 1.3 million gallons of algal oil per year — by 2011. But the history of the startup, founded in 2001 with the promise of growing algae in closed bioreactors using carbon dioxide from power plants and other sources, has been murky. In 2007, a project to grow algae in an Arizona greenhouse went awry when the algae grew faster than they could be harvested and died off. The company also found its system would cost more than twice its target. That led to the company laying off about half its staff of 50 at the time and hiring Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe as interim CEO. Metcalfe led the restarting and decommissioning of the Arizona project after what he said was a successful trial, and helped the company raise $13.9 million in funding from VCs including Access Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Polaris Venture Partners. In July — shortly after Metcalfe said GreenFuel was seeking a series C round of funding and was looking into two projects in the United States (see GreenFuel Closes In on Series C), GreenFuel named former Dow Chemical executive Upfill-Brown as its new CEO. Since then, GreenFuel hasn't announced any more funding or any U.S. projects. Upfill-Brown did cite several aspects of the Spanish project that were meant to be improvements on its first trials in Arizona, when he talked to Greentech Media in October. The Arizona project, for example, used carbon dioxide from peaker natural gas-fired plants, meaning it had only an intermittent supply, while the Spanish project is fed by emissions from a Holcim cement plant near Jerez, Spain, which has a more constant operation schedule, he said. GreenFuel also had developed an automatic harvester for the Spanish project, an improvement over harvesting by hand in Arizona, he said. Still, while about 50 companies are seeking different ways to grow algae and use it to make biofuel, none have so far produced commercial quantities at prices that could compete with petroleum-based fuels (see Solix: Another Me-Too Algae Company Raises $10.5M). That's not for lack of trying, though. Algae-to-biofuel startups pulled in $179.5 million in investment through the first three quarters of 2008, according to the Cleantech Group. That's out of a total VC investment of $358.55 million in biofuels for 2008, according to Greentech Media's Venture Power Report.

HelioVolt, the maker of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) solar cells, has joined the layoff club too. The company, which has raised over $100 million in VC funds, cut about 15 employees earlier this month, according to the Austin American Statesman. It's not a huge number, but HelioVolt is not a massive operation either. It is just moving into production. The layoff list is growing by the day. Last week, OptiSolar said it was cutting about 300 employees, or half of the staff. After we ran that story, a person who got laid off by SunEdison said that the solar power provider cut about 50 to 65 employees. GT Solar cut 25 jobs in December. Meanwhile, Suntech Power Holdings, the Chinese giant that now has 1GW of capacity, cut about 10 percent of its staff of 8,000 last quarter. (More on this coming up from Ucilia Wang). CEO Zhegrong Shi has said that the company may have to cut panel prices by 25 to 30 percent to counteract an industry wide oversupply. And we're chasing rumors of a few more layoffs. And the layoffs seem to be spread among both panel makers and installers. Ugh.

The incoming president appears close to finalizing his economic stimulus plan, which for the greentech industry means more tax credits and possibly cash for renewable energy developers and producers.

Obama’s advisors are looking at including as much as $25 billion in tax credits to boost renewable energy production, plug-in hybrid cars and biofuels, reported the Washington Post. That’s more than what Obama had in his plan when he ran it by Congressional leaders last week.

The incoming president initially called for a two-year, $775 billion plan to energize the economy. But his fellow party members in Congress aid the plan wouldn’t go far enough to do the job.

In a speech to tout his economic stimulus plan, Obama said he wanted measures in place to double the country’s renewable energy generation in three years.

For solar and wind industries, the latest proposal would mean more tax credits for developing power plants and producing electricity. Congress passed $18 billion worth of energy tax credits last October that included incentives for solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower companies (see Lawmakers Approves Energy Tax Credits, Bailout).

What solar, wind and other renewable electricity companies want, however, is money directly from the federal government for developing power projects. A big part of the tax credit package passed last October would provide incentives for companies investing in solar power projects. But many of these companies, such as banks and other types of investors -- have little money to invest in renewable energy projects right now as a result of credit crunch and bad economy.

Obama’s advisors are reportedly considering converting those tax credits into direct payments or count them toward past taxes. Some senators also are toying with the idea of making those tax credits tradable, Bloomberg reported.

Congressional leaders are looking at putting together the economic stimulus legislation by mid-February. That would give various greentech lobbying groups just a month to get their requests included. Many of them already have submitted their wish lists to Obama’s advisors and federal lawmakers (see What the Green Industry Wants from Obama). 

Car companies crack me up. They are very reluctant to divulge details early. However, they drop hints for about a year in advance of a release so by the time the release comes, it's hard to say what constitutes new news, what constitutes the clarification of a rumor (versus an actual reversal of policy) and what's been said before. Toyota at the North American International Auto Show both cleared up an errant rumor and confirmed something of a reversal of earlier policies. First, the clarification. The Associated Press and a few other outlets wrote that Toyota was working on cars that would be completely powered by integrated solar panels. It didn't make a lot of sense to us: The solar panels needed to adequately charge a car's battery would be about the size of two tennis courts. Imagine driving with that on the hood. Instead, we thought Toyota might be doing solar panels as an accessory. Instead, Toyota unfurled a new version of the Prius that comes with solar panels as an option to charge incidentals in the car. Now, the reversal. Toyota said it would make an all-electric commuter car, based around its gas-powered iQ, as well as a plug-in hybrid and both would have lithium-ion batteries. Historically, Toyota has disdained lithium ion. The batteries are expensive and, on occasion, they blow up. Still, the energy density is quite good on these batteries so the company has been gradually warming up to them. Last September in Denmark, Toyota's Masatami Takimoto said that the company reluctantly would likely adopt lithium ion. “Lithium-ion batteries will probably be used in vehicles, but we still have problems,� Takimoto said. “We do think it’s appropriate to use lithium-ion batteries in commuter cars.� The cars unveiled in Detroit thus confirm the earlier statements. Even with the all-electric iQ, don't expect Toyota to become Tesla overnight. The company remains a strong believer in liquid fuels and fuel cells. It has also been a more staunch defender of plug-ins over full electric cars. “We at Toyota believe that plug-in hybrids are the most practical way for an ordinary vehicle to take advantage of electricity,� Takimoto said then.