The Department of Energy said Friday it would give $564 million in stimulus funding to 19 projects aimed at turning biomass into fuels, chemicals and power.

The grants are hoped to help the federal government meet its aggressive deadline to get 36 billion gallons of biofuel production up and running by 2022 – a goal government and industry analysts have said will be hard to reach (see Feds Propose Controversial Biofuel Mandate, Offer $800M to Boost Production and U.S. Won't Meet Its Own Biofuel Mandate).

The 19 winning projects span 15 states, and include both giants like Archer Daniels Midland and Honeywell's UOP and startups such as ZeaChem, Amyris, Solazyme and Algenol.

The projects are aimed at using non-food feedstocks such as wood chips, grasses, algae and municipal waste to make biofuel. A federal mandate calls for 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol to be made by next year, but it appears increasingly likely that this target will not be met (see Consumers to Pick Up Tab for Off-Target Cellulosic Ethanol Industry).

The grants aren't all for biofuel production – some are aimed at the production of biochemicals or generating power from biomass, though most of those are linked to biofuel production.

While most of the projects haven't received DOE funds yet, one has – BlueFire Ethanol, which will get an additional $81.1 million to help along its plans to build a 19 million gallon-per-year plant making ethanol from biomass and waste in Fulton, Miss. BlueFire had received $40 million to build a plant in California, but moved the project to Mississippi in October (see BlueFire Ethanol to Build $130M Plant in Mecca).

Also on Friday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would give San Diego, Calif.-based algae biofuel startup Sapphire Energy a $54.5 million loan guarantee from the 2008 Farm Bill's Biorefinery Assistance Program to build a demonstration plant in New Mexico. Sapphire also received $50 million in DOE grants (see Green Light post).

Some selected DOE grant winners include:

• Algenol Biofuels will get $25 million to make ethanol from algae at a 100,000 gallon-per-year demonstration plant in Freeport, Texas (see Green Light post).
• American Process Inc., of Alpena, Mich., will get $17.9 million to build a plant to make 890,000 gallons of ethanol and 690,000 gallons of potassium acetate from processed wood.
• Amyris Biotechnologies, of Emeryville, Calif. will get $25 million to help build a pilot plant to use its genetically altered yeast to turn sugar from fermented sweet sorghum into hydrocarbons closely resembling diesel fuel, as well as lubricants, polymers and other petrochemicals (see Amyris Pledges $82M to Go Commercial in Brazil).
• Archer Daniels Midland, of Decatur, Ill. will get $24.8 million for a facility to use acid to break down biomass to convert to ethanol or ethyl acrylate.
• Clearfuels Technology, of Commerce City, Colo. will get $23 million for a plant to make woody biomass into diesel and jet fuel using processes from the company and partner Rentech (see Rentech Plans Wood Waste-to-Biofuel, Electricity Plant).
• Enerkem will get $50 million to build a plant in Pontotoc, Miss. to convert municipal wastes into syngas for conversion to biofuels (see Green Light post).
• Logos Technologies will get $20.4 million for a Visalia, Calif. plant to convert switchgrass and woody biomass into ethanol (see DARPA Gives Logos $19.6M for Bio Jet Fuel).
• Solazyme will get $21.8 million for a Riverside, Penn. plant to produce algae oil to convert to oil-based fuel (see Green Light post).
• UOP, a Honeywell company, will get $25 million to develop a Kapolei, Hawaii plant in partnership with Ensyn to turn a variety of crops and feedstocks into fuels (see Biofuel Roundup: Fuel From Algae, Biomass, Waste).
• Zeachem will get $25 million to build a wood-to-ethanol plant in Boardman, Ore. (see Zeachem Moves Into Plastics, Breaks Ground on Prototype Plant).

Pacific Gas and Electric has signed a deal with Iberdrola Renewables to buy a 246-megawatt wind farm once it's built in Southern California.

If the deal goes through as planned, PG&E will own its first-ever wind farm, the San Francisco-based utility said.

The passage of an energy bill that allows utilities to get a 30 percent investment tax credit starting this year has made owning renewable power plants attractive to utilities across the country.

Earlier this year, PG&E announced it would develop and own 250 megawatts of solar power projects. Southern California Edison and Duke Energy in North Carolina all have similar plans under development.

The wind farm, called the Manzana project, would rise from eastern Kern County. It's scheduled to start delivering electricity by December 2011, PG&E said. The wind farm could produce up to 670 gigawatt hours per year. The delivery date would allow PG&E to count the project toward meeting the state mandate of having 20 percent of the electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The state gives utilities essentially a three-year grace period beyond 2010 to procure enough power to meet the requirement.  

The project would cost an estimated $900 million, which would include not only fees to Iberdrola but also other costs, the utility said.

PG&E customers would see their rates increase by 1.1 percent in 2012, compared with this year's rates.

A Russian company is hiring several German firms to build a 1.2-gigawatt solar factory complex in southwestern Siberia.

Silarus, a subsidiary of the chemical company Titan, has hired the Schmid Group, Schmid Silicon Technology and EPC Engineering Consulting to build the factory, reported Photovoltaics World. Silarus signed the agreements with the German companies at a raw materials conference in Moscow last month.

The complex reportedly would have a plant capable of producing 10,000 metric tons of polysilicon per year. It would also have production lines for wafer, cells and panels. The overall project would cost about €1.6 billion ($2.4 billion).

The project is likely to be built in phases. Few companies in the world have the gigawatt capacity. First Solar in the United States and Suntech Power in China are among them.

Russia hasn't been a hot bed for solar manufacturing, but it seems to have that ambition. It's home to Nitol Solar, a polysilicon producer.

Earlier this year, a Russian investment firm, Renova Group, said it was teaming up with the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies to build a 120-megawatt factory to make solar panels in central Russia (Chuvashia).

The joint venture, called Nano Solar Technology (NST), has ordered equipment from Oerlikon Solar in Switzerland, and plans to start installing it in 2010. The equipment would enable NST to produce solar panels that rely on amorphous silicon and microcrystalline silicon to convert sunlight into electricity.

Energy Recovery, which makes energy efficient desalination equipment, bought Pump Engineering for $20 million and one million shares of Energy Recovery stock. Pump specializes in energy-efficient seawater pumps. (Energy Recovery held one of the few greentech IPOs last year).

With Pump, Energy Recovery says it can offer a more complete suite of tools to municipalities and others building desalination plants. It also gets the company into a new market, namely pumps. Reverse osmosis desalination is generally energy intensive: water gets highly pressurized before the salt can be removed. Energy Recovery's machines harness the pressure in the wastewater streams that flow from reverse osmosis systems and then feed it to the pressurizing machines at the front of the process, thereby lowering the total energy required.

Exploiting this pressure from about 5 kilowatts to 6 kilowatts per cubic meter to 2 kilowatts per cubic meter. The system is also 97 percent efficient on average, which in turn makes the reverse osmosis process 60 percent efficient.

The company also provides Norway's Statkraft for equipment for osmotic power stations, one of the more novel forms of alternative energy.

Fumio Ohtsubo, who runs the Panasonic conglomerate, told Bloomberg that the company will invest $1 billion in green technologies, particularly solar panels, energy storage systems and green technologies for the home.

It's good to be proven right. For the past few years, we've been writing that Japanese conglomerates – and in particular Panasonic – will make a concerted push into green. These companies have the technology and have honed them in their domestic market. Plus, they have the manufacturing footprint.

Panasonic already provides batteries to Toyota for the Prius and will sell lithium-ion batteries to Tesla Motors for the Model S. In Japan, and maybe Europe, the company hopes to get its construction division to produce green homes in a few years. The homes will come complete with energy-efficient appliances and TVs (see a video of its water-saving washing machine here). One idea it is working on is DC-to-AC hybrid wiring for solar homes.

Earlier this year, it started selling home fuel cells that turn methane into hydrogen (for electricity) and heat in conjunction with utility Osaka Gas. And, like a lot of TV manufacturers, it has begun to tout energy efficiency as a selling point in TVs. Some of its plasma TVs consume only 142 watts, explained Pete Fannon, vice president of technology, policy and government regulation at Panasonic.

The company also recently announced plans to release a LED light bulb that costs $40, consumes about 7 watts, and emits as much light as a 60-watt incandescent.

Need more? Panasonic also participates in electronics recycling facilities and is a member of a number of smart grid panels in the U.S. And it's buying Sanyo, which will make it a big player in solar.

Panasonic, though, will also have to battle with the sluggishness that comes with conglomerate-itis. The acquisition, after all, comes as a result of financial losses at Sanyo. A year ago, and the year before that, I interviewed Ohtsubo and other Panasonic executives about plans to bring their green homes to the U.S. There was a definite reticence. Japan, yes, he said, and likely also Europe. 

Other Asian conglomerates also seem intent on capitalizing on the movement toward green. Toshiba, a major manufacturer of LEDs and batteries, said it may begin to make acquisitions in LEDs. TSMC, the Taiwanese chipmaker, has been scouting for acquisition targets in solar and LEDs in Silicon Valley. Samsung has also begun to ramp up green activities and says it will be the largest solar manufacturer in the world by 2015, a path paved in party by its expertise in TV manufacturing. Some large Asian conglomerates are creating building management systems.

Innotech Solar in Norway has raised 51.7 million kroners ($9.2 million) from Investinor.

Founded in 2008, the company says it buys poor performing cells discarded by other manufacturers and fixes them before assembling into panels for sale. Innotech also works on solar power plant development.

The company says it gets technology R&D help from Innovation Norway and Forskningsradet, or the Research Council of Norway.

The company plans to expand its annual production capacity to reach 27 megawatts next year.

Back in July, the company said it had raised €11 million ($16.5 million) in equity, grants and loans since its inception, including €6 million from Sustainable Technologies Funds and Northzone Ventures.

First, I will start with the disclosure:

Better Place, the electric car charging company founded by SAP alum Shai Agassi, has always seemed impractical to me for a number of reasons. Automakers don't like it, consumers would find it more expensive, and battery swapping is just too wacky for daily use. But there are other reasons. The company's best asset seems to be an ability to charm elected public officials and glossy magazine editors. A lot of people have disagreed and, believe me, I've been wrong before. But I thrive on hatred so keep those emails coming.

With that in mind, it's interesting to look at what the company said a year ago and what is occuring now. Last December, after the world had settled into its economic turmoil, Better Place Israel CEO Moshe Kaplinsky told Reuters it would have 10,000 charging stations in that country this year.

"About 10,000 charge spots will be installed in 2009 across Israel, and that will increase to 100,000 by 2010. Electric cars will not be sold en masse in Israel until 2011, Kaplinsky said."

I don't know how many are in Israel at the moment, but this article, from October, says 20 have been erected in Jerusalem.

Then, today's The New York Times points out that the charging stations for Denmark don't seem to be all there yet:

"In January 2009, Mr. Agassi promised that Denmark would have 100,000 charging spots in place and several thousand cars on the road by 2010. But with that deadline approaching, no Better Place cars are on the road and only 55 charging spots are ready.

"According to Better Place, 2011 has always been the target for its mass debut, and that has not slipped. The company plans a road test of electric cars during the climate conference."

Mass rollout of the cars in these two initial markets isn't due for more than a year, but the construction of the stations may have fallen behind a bit. Some stores have also begun to offer free charging for electric cars, which potentially dents the attractiveness of trying to sell power to consumers. I have calls into Better Place to find out more on that.