Putting together conferences is never easy. Speakers come up with unusual, exacting requests at the last minute. And the bigger the conference the more fluid the schedule becomes.

Cop15, the United Nations Climate Change Conference taking place next week, however, takes fluidity to a new level. Here is what is currently listed on the overview schedule:

Monday, December 7: Opening of the Session. Organizational Matters. Lunch Break.

Tuesday, December 8: Opening. Lunch Break.

Wednesday, December 9: Plenary, Informal Groups, Lunch Break. Plenary.

Thursday and Friday: Informal Groups, Lunch Break.

The link for the meetings schedule currently comes up blank.

Nonetheless, the conference is...

You know green has gone mainstream when military contractors talk about it.

Wednesday, Lockheed-Martin executives will outline the company's strategy with regard to alternative energy, energy storage, and efficiency. (More at this link here. We initially said tomorrow. We regret the error.)

Lockheed, Bechtel and other mainline contractors have long been on our list of alternative energy companies to watch. Although startups often come up with innovative, clever ideas, it will be up to these large outfits to transform the concepts into reality. They are the only ones with the technology, talent, time and money. Lockheed has employees who've spent more time in land use hearings than...

Tesla Motors gave us the Sport edition of the 2010 Roadster for an afternoon, now here's the video.

Like most people that get behind the wheel and don't have to plunk down the $128,000 plus on the purchase price, we loved it. It handles well, accelerates rapidly and nearly everyone stares when you come to a stop at the intersection. We also had a few people try to race us. In terms of acceleration, nothing came close. We let a guy in a Mustang pass us, but that's only because I am a terrible driver and didn't want to go past 85 miles an hour. It took him a long time to overtake us too.

One of the more interesting aspects of the car is how the company is trying to blend sedan comfort...

In our never-ending quest to popularize waste heat as a new energy source comes this bit of news:

Finland's Helsingen Energia plans to build a data center underneath a cathedral and capture and channel the waste heat into the municipal heating system. Although the data center will be relatively efficient, it will still generate about the same about of energy in the form of waste heat as a wind turbine. The heat effectively gets sucked into water pipes, which snake through homes around Helsinki. Waste heat isn't free – you have to install equipment to capture it – but it's relatively constant. The sun goes down, but computers never stop (except, of course, in an Omega Man-like future)....

California regulators have released a draft plan for a program to steadily reduce greenhouse gas emissions and force businesses to limit their emissions and pay for permits if they emit above limits.

The draft plan, issued by the California Air Resources Board, aims to help the state to achieve its legislative mandate to cut emissions to the 1990 levels by 2020. The state has taken other steps to achieve this goal, such as by requiring utilities to provide more renewable electricity and nudging carmakers to make more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The proposal to cap emissions and allow trading of permits to pollute is arguably more controversial than some other measures, largely because...

Make no mistake, climate policy is good business.

The ongoing buffeting that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has received from a slew of leading corporate giants is a clear signal that opposing climate legislation, as the Chamber has repeatedly done, is now perceived as bad business.

The reasons are clear. Put simply, the country that sets the most aggressive and enlightened policy goals for clean energy will have a distinct business advantage over others. Why? Because those policies will allow the countries (and businesses) that adopt them to drive down costs, and thus scale the clean technologies that will power our future, i.e., make a lot of money while doing good. Those countries...

When it comes to high tech, Israel can be thought of as a branch office of Silicon Valley.

Nearly every major tech company – Intel, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. – has built facilities in the country and actively recruits engineers at universities like the Technion. Several Israeli startups have also been swept up by multinationals. The country even has its own venture capital community with strong links back to the 650 area code.

Naturally, the same sort of relationships have already started to migrate to green tech. Better Place is a U.S.-Israeli venture, for example, and VCs looking for water deals often start there.

To further foster the process, the Department of Energy and the Israeli...